Wild Thing
Child... please.
Is the NHLPA keeping the players fully and accurately informed of all the key details of the contract negotiations? Maybe not - the Minneapolis Startribune has found that some players have been given completely inaccurate information about the league's contract proposals.
They said what?!?
So, according to Walz, if the players had been given accurate information at the Toronto meeting, he thinks they'd be revisiting their position. The question then becomes - who's zoomin' who?
Info gap shows in NHL dispute
Chris Snow, Star Tribune
November 4, 2004
Conversations this week with two NHL players, Colorado's Antti Laaksonen and the Wild's Wes Walz, suggest that the NHL Players Association is giving its membership misleading information regarding the labor models proposed by the NHL.
Both Walz and Laaksonen said they have been told by the union that the league's goal of creating a relationship between revenue and salaries is inextricably linked to eliminating guaranteed contracts.
This issue came up Monday when Laaksonen was asked by phone why he stands behind the union's position.
"My reason, if there is a cap, there's no guaranteed contracts," he said. "... Players should know a cap system is not a guaranteed-contracts [system]."
NHL officials say this is completely inaccurate.
So either league negotiators never mentioned this no-guaranteed-contracts caveat to the media, or NHLPA Executive Director Bob Goodenow is not telling his guys the facts as they stand.
"Totally the latter," NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly said by e-mail Wednesday. "We have heard that the union has been telling its players that. We have never even discussed the issue of guaranteed contracts with the union.
"Nonguaranteed contracts are a product of history in the NFL and long predated the introduction of the [NFL] salary cap (1993). And the NBA's salary cap has had no impact on that league's ability to employ guaranteed contracts.
"It's all baloney."
==========
Walz, meanwhile, was one of about 75 NHL players in attendance at a union meeting Tuesday in Toronto.
Asked if his understanding was that league proposals have included only nonguaranteed contracts, Walz said, "Yes. ... We're being told, we know caps are linked to nonguaranteed contracts."
The NHL, in its proposals, has sought to pay players a percentage of leaguewide, hockey-related revenue. Based on 2002-03 financial data, the percentage the NHL has proposed computes to a $31 million payroll per team. This can be referred to as a cap. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has preferred to call this cost certainty.
The league has said the percentage of hockey-related revenue the players should receive is negotiable. Additionally, the size of the players' share could change as league revenue fluctuates year to year. In the NFL, for example, the cap was initially set at $34.6 million in 1994. Because of revenue growth, it is now $80.6 million.
Asked what he'd think of a system that provides players a percentage of revenue while still allowing for guaranteed contracts, Walz said: "If they threw something like that at us, we'd have to look at that."
They said what?!?
So, according to Walz, if the players had been given accurate information at the Toronto meeting, he thinks they'd be revisiting their position. The question then becomes - who's zoomin' who?
