Refs will keep close tabs on players like Sidney Crosby, who have a reputation for diving in order to get penalty calls. (Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

How effective will the NHL’s proposed crackdown on diving be when (and if) the season starts? The last time it tried, opposition from some of the same general managers who called for a tougher standard stymied the effort. Now, perhaps, some changes in the potential punishment will lead to more acceptance.

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With CBA talks dragging, Commissioner Gary Bettman is under fire from angry fans who see a lockout coming. (Jeanine Leech/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

The Thursday meeting between NHL owners and players was a short one, only 90 minutes, but it seems that’s all that was needed. An impending stalemate in CBA negotiations (discussed here in Wednesday’s post) looms with each side’s position in danger of ossifying. It’s hardly unanticipated; you had to know that amidst all the talk about being focused on reaching an agreement, there’s long been a sense that each side would dig in its heels over some fundamental issue and those heels now seem to be sinking into the earth.

This isn’t to say that the sides aren’t trying to negotiate a deal at the moment. They’re still talking and plan to resume on Tuesday. According to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in his remarks after the most recent discussion, the league had tried to craft a revised position of its own — incorporating elements of the NHLPA’s “alternate proposal” that offers the owners’ some concessions on player salaries — that would be the basis for whittling down the difference between the sides. But Bettman said the NHLPA didn’t have much “receptivity” to what the league devised, despite a couple of attempts to engage the union on it. Then the players presented the owners with the remaining parts of their proposal, those dealing with the NHLPA’s views on contract issues: free agency, salary arbitration, contract length and the like, things the NHL wants to restrict. The owners didn’t much like what they heard. “The union,” Bettman said (video), “is looking for a system that has more flexibility and we’re looking for a system that has less flexibility.

“The bigger point, I think, we made today goes to the fact that whether or not we are talking about the contract or system issues or we’re talking about revenue sharing, it’s clear that we’re at a point where it’s going to be very difficult to move this process along until we deal with the fundamental economic issues. And certainly as it relates to the fundamental economic issue, we are far apart, both in terms of magnitude and structure. And that’s something we’re trying to get a handle on.”

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If you were the owner of the wealthy, successful New York Rangers, how eager would you be to give more of your money to a fund that could help struggling teams like your local rival Islanders? (Mike Stobe/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

The players and owners were supposed to meet on Wednesday afternoon in Toronto to discuss the CBA’s core economic issues now that contrasting offers have been proposed by each side. After Commissioner Gary Bettman and his deputy, Bill Daly, met with NHLPA Executive Director Don Fehr and his brother Steven, a PA legal advisor, in a scheduled morning session to talk procedure and a few key points, they decided to postpone the larger afternoon talks and reconvene on Thursday.

“I think more than anything else it was to review where we are in the process, where we’ve come from, where we are with the various proposals and to determine how to move the process forward in the best way possible — hoping and understanding that both sides are committed to using the time left to making a deal as quickly as possible,” Daly told reporters afterward.

Fehr also met the media (video) and made little of the postponement, characterizing it as a normal part of what goes on in bargaining. Perhaps that’s so. Fehr said the postponement was not a bad sign — and it seems that since they will go at it again Thursday, this is not cause for concern. Had talks broken off, then we’d worry.

That doesn’t mean all is well, as you know. Fehr admitted there was some frustration on both sides, in part, I’m sure, due to growing concern that the owners’ threatened lockout on Sept. 15 could become reality. The two proposals on the table make finding agreement on things difficult, especially because, as Kevin Allen writes in USA Today, “Neither side seems willing to negotiate off the other side’s offer.”

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NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr is against a very complex 50-50 revenue split between players and owners. (Dave Reginek/NHLI/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

As the two sides in the NHL’s talks warily circle each other, dukes up, in the early rounds of this collective bargaining rematch, one proposed solution to a major economic stumbling block is the subject of a good deal of debate: that of the 50-50 revenue split between the owners and players.

Here’s the thought behind this purported answer: The players currently get 57 percent of the NHL’s revenue, and the owners have proposed they receive far less (anywhere from 43-46 percent depending on how things get calculated, but let’s overlook that for a moment — the idea is that the owners want to reduce the players’ share substantially). So, the reasonable mind may conclude, why don’t they just split the difference? Divide it 50-50, which is much like what the  players and owners in both the NFL and NBA settled on following the lockouts in those respective sports.

In fact, some believe that a 50-50 split is the reason the owners’ proposal for the players’ share came in as low as it did. This is a negotiation, after all. Your first offer isn’t necessarily your final one. You want to leave room to negotiate.

Michael Grange of Sportsnet.ca articulated this — and a good number of fans who want the season to proceed are likely to agree — in his piece last week, which suggested “five easy steps” that would “end CBA negotiations forever.” It was his first point during which he wrote, “While I’m no fan of the owners’ bully tactics (“We’ll shut down the league, squeeze a few paydays out of you, and when you get desperate maybe you’ll listen to reason”), I find it hard to get too bent out of shape when the owners are forking over more than half of their revenues to the players. Good on the players for scrapping for every last dime, but an even split of revenues from now until the end of time seems like common sense to me. Just do it — and shut up about it.”

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Interference calls will be just one hot topic at the NHL rules confab ion Toronto. (Chris Williams/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

Amidst all the CBA talk, there are still real hockey issues to discuss and one largely forgotten event takes place on Tuesday August 21 and Wednesday Aug. 22 in Toronto. A planned mini-summit of general managers, coaches, players, on-ice officials and the NHL’s Hockey Operations Department will convene to discuss some significant rules, specifically whether the standards of obstruction — an essential part of the “new rules” introduced after the 2004-05 lockout to speed up the game — have slipped in recent years.

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New Jersey Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek (center) has found a way to buy himself more time to wriggle out of his financial mess and find a way to keep the team competitive and its fans happy. (Andy Marlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

You’ve got to hand it to Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek. The man has the escape ability of Houdini. Although Tuesday’s deadline for him to pay his creditors $77 million has come and gone and he does not have all the money that he had agreed to pay them, it appears he’ll keep control of his team, get more time to refinance his club and seek new partners.

Now, if you or I owe money to someone, chances are we don’t get to slide as easily. But you and I are not Jeff Vanderbeek and when you owe a massive amount of money, allowances are made. That’s one advantage of being wealthy, or at least understanding how to manage wealth, in our society. Those to whom Vanderbeek is indebted recognize that if they declared him in default and set the wheels in motion to force him into bankruptcy, they might end up with lots of pennies instead of lots of dollars. Giving him more time — as much as two more years according to reports — to either raise the needed funds or sell the team and pay off what he owes means that they stand a better chance of recovering their cash. We should all be so lucky.

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Donald Fehr’s reputation as a fierce, hardline negotiator has been softened by the NHLPA’s CBA counter-proposal. (Sitthixay Ditthavong/AP)

By Stu Hackel

Monday’s surprising proposal by the NHLPA –  which, among other things, agreed to temporary salary reductions and generally maintaining the hard salary cap — presents a formidable challenge to the owners, who have pledged to have at least some sort of preliminary response on Wednesday.

This “alternative view,” as Don Fehr called it, of how the players would solve the NHL’s revenue imbalance between the successful and struggling clubs also includes more comprehensive revenue sharing than the league currently employs, something the wealthiest NHL clubs have largely resisted. Ken Warren of The Ottawa Citizen framed ownership’s dilemma in these terms on Wednesday morning when he tweeted, “Do richest NHL teams care more about their own teams or the NHL as a whole? That’s the answer we’re all waiting for.”

The first hints of an answer came from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman after Wednesday’s bargaining session. ”There’s still a wide gap between us with not much time to go,” TSN quoted Bettman telling reporters. “This is a process that we’re going to continue to work hard on. I think there’s still a number of issues where we’re looking at the world differently.”

TSN added, ‘Bettman says he understands what the NHLPA has put forth, but adds that it isn’t a full proposal and he is ‘disappointed’ that he’s still waiting for one at this late stage.”

Those words may disappoint lots of fans and perhaps the players as well, although just what the NHL’s specific responses were to the details the players’ side presented Tuesday are not known.

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NHLPA Executive Director Don Fehr said that the proposal players introduce will include some notable differences from what the league has offered. (Sitthixay Ditthavong/AP)

By Stu Hackel

What will the NHLPA propose to the owners at Tuesday’s pivotal CBA negotiations? Whatever it presents — and you can expect revenue sharing to be a major component of it — it has some players optimistic their union has the solution to the NHL’s economic imbalance.

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Veteran Jets defenseman Ron Hainsey and others deserve credit for keeping their comments about the negotiations rather upbeat. (Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

The headline for the wire service story on Friday’s CBA talks read, “NHL, union reps express optimism after three-hour session.” It was quite a contrast from the prior day and Gary Bettman’s thinly veiled warning of a lockout. The mood Thursday was bleak, the mood emerging from Friday’s talks was less contentious and more hopeful of an agreement being reached.

Really, however, nothing changed from one day to the next. It was just that more progress is being made in the discussions on the non-economic issues than those focusing on the game’s business. The dollars and sense talk — which cause the most consternation — continues on Tuesday, when the NHLPA presents their counter-offer to the NHL’s views on a reduction in the salary cap and rollbacks on individual player contract matters. That’s when we’ll have our first concrete understanding of how far apart the sides are.

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The 2013 Winter Classic at Michigan Stadium will be the biggest edition of the popular event, but that may not be reason enough to force the owners and players to come to terms on a new CBA by January 1 if there is a lockout. (Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

The inevitable differences between the NHL owners and players on core economic issues finally got some articulation in the aftermath of Thursday’s collective bargaining negotiations. Commissioner Gary Bettman didn’t use the “L word,” but he came pretty damn close.

So while the two sides will continue working on the non-economic parts of the CBA, those matters will be the sideshow compared to the action in the center ring of this circus. That part of the discussions will resume on Tuesday in Toronto when the NHLPA offers its counter-proposal to the owners’ opening shot of salary rollbacks and contractual givebacks. The chasm between what each side wants from the agreement was given its voice on Thursday when the players presented their objections to the owners’ proposed system of revenue sharing.

Asked how far apart the sides are, NHLPA Executive Director Don Fehr responded, “There’s a meaningful gulf there.”

Bettman: “We obviously have a wide gap to bridge on a whole host of issues.”

No, this is not encouraging. And while many people think that a lockout-shortened season would likely begin with the Winter Classic on January 1, there are reasons to think again.

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