THE FLIM-FLAM men who sit on the NHL Board of Governors can dance their little jig all right, now that they’ve won their precious percentage-of-the-gross hard salary cap. But as they’re doing their polka, they should understand they are dancing on the grave of hockey’s long-standing culture.
The players weren’t the only losers in this fight. The game lost, too. Some owners may have won – ironically, the big-market owners who never on their own would have instigated a lockout or endorsed a cancelled 2004-05 by far won the biggest – but the league as a whole has lost.
It’s lost some relevance, it’s lost some fair share of the marketplace, and, yes, those observations were made over and over again throughout the course of the lockout. Most of all, though, the league lost its uniqueness. From the beginning of time, successful hockey teams always were built on continuity, camaraderie, chemistry and character of a core unit. That time is over and done.
It’s more than the imposition of a cap that will end the era, more than the percent limitation that will make it impossible for teams like the old Red Wings, Canadiens, Islanders and Oilers to exist, or even the latter-day Devils, Red Wings and Avalanche to retain their nuclei the way they have over the past decade.
It’s the granting of unrestricted free agency either by the age of 27 or after seven years of NHL service (whichever comes first, beginning in 2008) that will change the faces of teams and the face of the sport forever.
The turnstiles at arenas may not turn so rapidly after last year’s nullification, but the turnstiles to locker rooms – and, not incidentally, out of undesirable small-market locales – will never stop spinning. The small markets complained they couldn’t keep their players after 29 or 30? Good luck keeping them after 26 or 27.
Two months ago, when it became clear to the players they could not get back on the ice this year without accepting a percentage-of-the-gross cap, they demanded mobility in return, demanded free agency at peak hours. The league never blinked.
The league never has cared about the game itself, but what it takes to win. The league never has appreciated excellence. This is a league long dedicated to the lowest common denominator.
It traded free agency for a hard cap like it was the Rangers trading Rick Middleton for Ken Hodge and, hoo boy, were they ever smart.
It has been universally reported that the cap is set at 54 percent of the gross, but The Post has learned the percentage will rise as revenues increase to designated thresholds. The players will receive 55 percent when revenues hit $2.2B; 56 percent at $2.4B; and 57 percent at $2.7B.
Therefore, once revenues hit $2.2B – and, with the inclusion of significantly more revenue streams into the gross than were previously accounted for in the old URO reporting method, that’s a target reasonably reachable within a couple of years – the team payroll cap will increase to $41.1M per ($44.8M at $2.4B), meaning big-market clubs inclined to spend to the upper limit will have more space with which to attract prime time free agents wishing to escape small-market purgatory.
This system will yield less parity, not more. Bank on it. It will yield a tiered league in which the most attractive 12-14 teams will attract free agents willing to take somewhat less money to fit under a cap in order to play in desired locations and for desired managements.
Can’t you just imagine the Oilers’ recruitment campaign?
Edmonton: When There’s No Cap Space Anywhere Else.