Damage assessment begins, especially in sagging markets

Someone said, well, you might as well put your tie on, Shane, so Shane Doan took the blue diamond-checked tie out of his pocket and affixed it around his neck. He did it because the National Hockey League lockout of 2012-13 was over at 3 a.m. Mountain time, after a vast 16-hour bargaining session, and the cameras were coming in. He was the only player in the ballroom wearing a suit. Might as well look his best.

That is what the NHL and its players will have to do now, after 113 days spent battling and bickering and burning games. They will have to put the best face on a sport that was marred by a lockout that didn’t need to go this long, and didn’t need to be this ugly. The NHL needs to make amends, because the damage could be deep.

The lockout ended in the early morning in the Grand Ballroom at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan when, after all this time, the major issues were agreed to in principle. There will be either a 50- or 48-game season that will begin as early as Jan. 15, and as late as the 19th. Training camps will open this week. The lockout is over.

“Don Fehr and I are here to tell you that we have agreed on the framework of a new collective bargaining agreement,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, standing side-by-side with the executive director of the NHLPA for the first time during the process in public. “We still have a lot of work to do, but it’s good to be at this point.”

“We’ll get back to what we used to call business as usual just as fast as we can,” said Fehr.

It is unlikely to be business as usual — not with a compressed season, with players whose internal clocks have been scrambled and perhaps in some cases left to rust, and not with whatever pain is left to come. Canadians will come swimming back like spawning salmon, and traditional American markets should hold up. But in places where hockey was gasping for air, or was an afterthought, that’s where danger lies. This was a humiliating, excessive, bloated, and wholly unnecessary lockout. This deal is hardly that different from the deal blown sky-high by Bettman on Dec. 6 in New York once Fehr returned to the talks, when Bettman responded by sending moderate owner Ron Burkle of the Penguins and others home and tried to make it a take-it-orleave-it deal.

This didn’t have to be this painful. It just was.

“No, five weeks ago (we were close) and that’s why a lot of people will say this was ridiculous,” said defenceman Chris Campoli, who is a free agent. When asked what made it come together today, a week before the NHL’s publicly stated deadline for a 48game season, he said, “I think there was a willingness to negotiate, probably a timeline, and not on our end.”

The particulars look like this: It’s a 10-year deal with an opt-out for either side after eight, so it guarantees labour peace until at least 2020. The two sides will split revenue 50-50, with $300-million (all figures US) in make-whole money to cover contracts already signed. The players have strengthened their pensions, which are defined benefit plans with the majority of responsibility placed on the NHL. Pensions became the signature issue of the talks, and were agreed to in the early hours of the morning. Players said the settlement issue truly gave the talks some momentum, and at that point they realized there might be a deal.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that the pension is the centrepiece of this deal,” said Ron Hainsey, a defenceman for the Winnipeg Jets, who was widely said to be a force for players in negotiations, and strong on every issue. “Gary said a month ago it was a tough negotiation. That’s what it was ... (at the end) there was more compromise, I guess.”

The NHL will see term limits on player contracts for the first time, with players limited to a seven-year deal if they sign with another team, and eight years with their own team. There will be two compliance buyouts per team, which will spur some serious player movement.

Teams can spend up to $70.2-million this year, and the cap in 2013-14 will be $64.3-million, which is closer to what the players wanted to begin the day than what the owners wanted. The floor, both years, will be $44-million. The cap is also guaranteed not to fall below $64.3-million in subsequent years. Contract variance from year-to-year will be limited to 35 per cent, and can never drop below 50 per cent of the highest year of any deal.

“Well, it was concessionary bargaining right from the beginning for the players, and you kind of understand that and you accept that, as much as you don’t want to,” said Doan, whose Phoenix Coyotes will now leap back near the top of the league’s long list of problems. “That’s the way it’s been going (in sports) for the last 10 years. I think as a union we got the best deal we could possibly get. It was the best deal for us that was available. You don’t want to go through this, but we did, and we’re on the other side now.”

There are a number of issues which still need to be agreed to, including the Olympics, though NHL participation seems likely. Realignment is also consigned to a future decision, and will not take effect this year. The deal will need to ratified by the owners and the players. It could take a few days to settle the non-dealbreaker clauses, and put the whole thing in writing. There is work to be done.

But it will be done, and there will be hockey again. Surely pressure from sponsors and some owners played a role, but federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh deserves an enormous amount of credit for facilitating the process, moving the two sides closer in separate sessions on Friday and getting them in the same room on Saturday, beginning at 1:15 p.m. at the players’ hotel, which was an important symbolic step. He was the Rosetta Stone who created common cause where Fehr and Bettman apparently could not, which is to their discredit. Because of Beckenbaugh there was a good feeling when the league walked the four blocks to meet the players, and it never quite broke apart through the session. This lockout has been characterized by enormous mistrust, occasional character assassination, and a growing toxicity. That vanished.

“He did a great job of keeping the sides going,” said Doan, “and that was probably the biggest part. I was told by family and friends to lock us in a room and don’t let us out, and the mediator kind of did that. That was huge. And at the same time, both sides got involved and got it done.”

“We accomplished more today than in six months,” said Boston defenceman Andrew Ference. “Really. That’s not an exaggeration.”

The fact that players had again given Fehr the right to dissolve the union and bring the courts into the process, with voting concluding at 6 p.m. Saturday night, probably helped. It helped earlier this week, too. Fehr never had to use the hammer, but he could wield it.

The end came when they agreed on a combination of issues that included the 2013-14 cap, variance, and salary arbitration, and there were whoops from the room on the second floor. A few minutes after 5 a.m. a voice rang out, saying, “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” Bettman and Fehr looked elated, and relieved. The media was let in, the room was cleared of empty glasses and trays, and even Bettman smiled with players. The players — Hainsey, George Parros, Mathieu Darche, Martin St. Louis, Campoli, Jamal Mayers, Doan, Ference, and Craig Adams — looked satisfied. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly smiled the smile of a man who got out from under a great weight. This was hard.

Now, reparations. The league miscalculated in trying to break the players the way it did, even though the players gave back on almost every front, winning small victories only at the end. And there should be hard feelings amid the elation of this sport rushing back, and exploding in a hundred different directions. There will be damage. It’s hard to know how much.

“As players we believe the season can be a memorable one, and a sprint, and an exciting time for everybody,” said Ference. “Hopefully we can put all the negativity behind us, and put the focus on this incredible condensed season.

“The image takes a hit. The sport doesn’t change. Guys are still playing the same way, they’re still the same athletes, the dreams about winning the Stanley Cup is the same, the commitment to their teammates are the same, and that’s what I love about hockey. And that’s where I hold hope that people who love hockey love hockey, and that’s why they hate this part so much.”

Well, this part is over, and it won’t be back for a long time. Those who marred this season, and the game, should be held responsible in their own ways — it is hard to imagine Bettman will be the commissioner for the duration of this CBA, and there is already speculation that he could be eased out sooner rather than later. And Fehr, 64, is almost surely a one-anddone labour boss here, though he surely hopes he has rebuilt the smoking ruins of the NHLPA.

But now it’s time to put in the ice, to sharpen the skates, to breathe in the cold air, and to try to make amends with the people whose faith was abused, again. Hockey is back. Fans will be thrilled. But the constituent parts of the NHL — the players and the owners, the stewards of the game — should be grateful as hell to anybody still loves them.

We accomplished more today than in six months ANDREW FERRENCE