Post by swervinmervin on Jan 2, 2013 3:22:28 GMT -5
CBA Lessons Learned - The River Hockey Rapids
This digression is based on the widely attested rumour last week that the NHL owners informed Gary Bettman and Bill Daly that it was categorically not acceptable to fail in their attempts to reach a CBA deal with the NHLPA. Let's call this the River Hockey Rapids (instead of the "fiscal cliff"). Obviously, the rapids are frozen in this -30 degree weather, but they won't be fun to skate through, so the metaphor works - sort of. And by the way, if you believe the official denial of this rumour, I have a wonderful hockey team in the desert to sell you.
So now the NHL is trying to put their best face on this last minute scramble to get the PA to agree to a deal to avert the thermal underwear nuclear winter. These nukes would be associated with U.S. anti-trust laws being used to consign Bettman and company to being roadies on the Eagles' 39th Hell Freezes Over tour.
Fehr - (as he says, "fear") - senses their desperation (notice how I avoided the lame pun of 2013), and is using it to extract a few concessions. At the same time, "the Donald" is avoiding the full body slam that Bettman and Daly had always hoped to administer, with brother Steve safely out of tag range. Indeed, if Bettman and Daly were to repeat their WWA-styled interview from early December, they would be hard pressed to make it through 5 minutes before they begin staring at their feet, and mumble about "not being focused" on some January 2 deadline for the union to pull a new year's magic trick. In the trick, the band of merry hockey players disappears, and then returns in the form of some kind of travelling salesman association, fully armed with anti-trust lawyers. (Is that anything like anti-matter?) As Theoden says in the Lord of the Rings (the Two Towers), "How did it come to this?"
For all of their lawyerly bluster and blather, how did Bettman, Daly and the NHL (hereinafter referred to as "BeDaNaHL") let Fehr take 2 years to learn his new job (after his former position with baseball, in which he skewered the world series for a summer barbecue)? How did they let him wait until July to ask for financial information? Why did the NHL design the timing of this CBA process to prevent themselves from locking out the players until their season was about to begin?
And most of all, why did BeDaNaHL alternate between good-guy philanthropists, rational business men, emotionally fragile drama queens, scorched-earth generals, and then back to good-guy philanthropists? Is it any wonder that they are complaining that they are "negotiating against themselves"? All Donald Fehr has to do is pat his tummy, put on that cheshire cat smile, and say "thanks again for dinner, boys!" How many times can you serve him dinner before you either go broke, or insane?
And that's been "the Donald's" modus operandi from the beginning of these negotiations - if you can call it that. He (and everyone else) knew that the players were going to lose something in this CBA. The question was just how much they would lose, and how much they could hold onto. Call it "protecting the crease" (and no, it's NOT the "blue paint"). How best to do this? Well, seeing as how the NHL was trying to write some kind of Stephen King novel for their part of the nego's, Fehr basically could play online chess in between bursts of semi-responses - sort of like hitting lobs back against weak spikes in a tennis match.
But now the dinner bell is about to ring, and Fehr wants to put the best possible face on his role in saving some bacon for the players. So he has a few last minute spikes in the tennis match, to avoid any more concessions, and possibly even take back a few. Mostly it is about looking good, and the best time to look good is at the end of the match.
BeDaNahl and Fehr think they are saving face. In a sense they are. But this passive aggressive negotiating style cost the fans and the sponsors half a hockey season. The players and the owners have both suffered from this avoidable interruption in hockey. The fans and sponsors are used to seeing aggressive hockey, played with intensity and skill. This lacklustre CBA tennis match has left them cold and disinterested.
We shall see what this means for the future of the NHL over the course of this lamely won CBA.
***
After my morning cup of coffee, I sometimes go by my nickname, Geoff Brookes.
Swervinmervin, @justgotupndjava
This digression is based on the widely attested rumour last week that the NHL owners informed Gary Bettman and Bill Daly that it was categorically not acceptable to fail in their attempts to reach a CBA deal with the NHLPA. Let's call this the River Hockey Rapids (instead of the "fiscal cliff"). Obviously, the rapids are frozen in this -30 degree weather, but they won't be fun to skate through, so the metaphor works - sort of. And by the way, if you believe the official denial of this rumour, I have a wonderful hockey team in the desert to sell you.
So now the NHL is trying to put their best face on this last minute scramble to get the PA to agree to a deal to avert the thermal underwear nuclear winter. These nukes would be associated with U.S. anti-trust laws being used to consign Bettman and company to being roadies on the Eagles' 39th Hell Freezes Over tour.
Fehr - (as he says, "fear") - senses their desperation (notice how I avoided the lame pun of 2013), and is using it to extract a few concessions. At the same time, "the Donald" is avoiding the full body slam that Bettman and Daly had always hoped to administer, with brother Steve safely out of tag range. Indeed, if Bettman and Daly were to repeat their WWA-styled interview from early December, they would be hard pressed to make it through 5 minutes before they begin staring at their feet, and mumble about "not being focused" on some January 2 deadline for the union to pull a new year's magic trick. In the trick, the band of merry hockey players disappears, and then returns in the form of some kind of travelling salesman association, fully armed with anti-trust lawyers. (Is that anything like anti-matter?) As Theoden says in the Lord of the Rings (the Two Towers), "How did it come to this?"
For all of their lawyerly bluster and blather, how did Bettman, Daly and the NHL (hereinafter referred to as "BeDaNaHL") let Fehr take 2 years to learn his new job (after his former position with baseball, in which he skewered the world series for a summer barbecue)? How did they let him wait until July to ask for financial information? Why did the NHL design the timing of this CBA process to prevent themselves from locking out the players until their season was about to begin?
And most of all, why did BeDaNaHL alternate between good-guy philanthropists, rational business men, emotionally fragile drama queens, scorched-earth generals, and then back to good-guy philanthropists? Is it any wonder that they are complaining that they are "negotiating against themselves"? All Donald Fehr has to do is pat his tummy, put on that cheshire cat smile, and say "thanks again for dinner, boys!" How many times can you serve him dinner before you either go broke, or insane?
And that's been "the Donald's" modus operandi from the beginning of these negotiations - if you can call it that. He (and everyone else) knew that the players were going to lose something in this CBA. The question was just how much they would lose, and how much they could hold onto. Call it "protecting the crease" (and no, it's NOT the "blue paint"). How best to do this? Well, seeing as how the NHL was trying to write some kind of Stephen King novel for their part of the nego's, Fehr basically could play online chess in between bursts of semi-responses - sort of like hitting lobs back against weak spikes in a tennis match.
But now the dinner bell is about to ring, and Fehr wants to put the best possible face on his role in saving some bacon for the players. So he has a few last minute spikes in the tennis match, to avoid any more concessions, and possibly even take back a few. Mostly it is about looking good, and the best time to look good is at the end of the match.
BeDaNahl and Fehr think they are saving face. In a sense they are. But this passive aggressive negotiating style cost the fans and the sponsors half a hockey season. The players and the owners have both suffered from this avoidable interruption in hockey. The fans and sponsors are used to seeing aggressive hockey, played with intensity and skill. This lacklustre CBA tennis match has left them cold and disinterested.
We shall see what this means for the future of the NHL over the course of this lamely won CBA.
***
After my morning cup of coffee, I sometimes go by my nickname, Geoff Brookes.
Swervinmervin, @justgotupndjava