Playing ‘what if?’ on the 25th anniversary of the 1994 lockout that changed the NHL

The hockey world has spent the last few weeks on a familiar topic for NHL fans: work stoppages. And for once, the news was mostly positive, as the NHL and NHLPA have decided not to end the current CBA early. That means we won’t have a lockout in 2020, although one could still happen two years later when the CBA expires as scheduled.

A 2022 work stoppage, if it came to that, would be the fourth of the Gary Bettman era. Just about all of us still have fresh memories of the 2012 lockout, which wiped out half a season. And we all know the story of the 2004 version, the most divisive and protracted in North American pro sports history. That lockout saw the owners win their ultimate goal of a hard salary cap while becoming the only league to cancel an entire season in the process.

But while the impact of those fights, both good and bad, are still being felt around the league to this day, the original NHL lockout seems to have largely been forgotten. That one came way back in 1994 when Bettman was in just the second year of his new job. It dragged into January 1995 and ultimately cost the league half a season. And in hindsight, it didn’t achieve all that much, with an eventual agreement that mostly retained the status quo. At the time, that deal was seen as a win for the owners, but it quickly became apparent that they hadn’t gained enough. As trilogies go, Part 1 of the NHL’s lockout series didn’t pack in much in the way of drama or major plot twists, but it did introduce the important themes and characters while setting the stage for the bigger productions come.

Next week will mark the 25^th anniversary of the official start of the NHL’s first lockout. To celebrate, let’s look back on what happened a quarter-century ago, and how the league might look if things had played out differently. Here are five “what if” scenarios to ponder.

What if: The owners had held firm for a salary cap?

Let’s start with the big one. The owners headed into the 1994 negotiations looking to remake the league’s economic system. Bettman was hesitant to use the words “salary cap,” but he’d been hired two years earlier at least in part due to his role in helping the NBA create a cap system. It wasn’t hard to read the writing on the wall.

But any talk of a hard cap seemed to fade early in the negotiations, with the two sides instead focusing on a payroll tax. The league’s reported proposal was punitive enough – more than a dollar taxed for every dollar spent over a set limit – that Bob Goodenow and the NHLPA viewed it as all but a de facto hard cap, a scenario they weren’t interested in accepting. So the players sat back and waited for the owners to fold. Eventually, they did.

That came as a surprise to Bettman, who’d gone into the battle with assurances from his owners that they had his back and were prepared to strap in for a long fight. He’d certainly acted like a guy who was willing to play the villain, firing the first shot in August by unilaterally withdrawing some player benefits. The animosity between the sides got so bad that at one point, Chris Chelios even appeared to threaten Bettman’s safety, a moment for which he later apologized.

As the lockout dragged on and games were canceled for the first time in league history, the owners continued to put on a united front, even authorizing Bettman to cancel the entire season. But behind the scenes, that solidarity was crumbling. (For a more in-depth look at the politics of the 1994 lockout, I highly recommend “The Instigator,” Jonathon Gatehouse’s must-read look at Bettman’s tenure.) It eventually became clear that Goodenow and the players weren’t going to cave, and the league’s richer teams began to wonder if losing an entire season was really worth it. The players had offered a handful of concessions, including a rookie salary cap. With the deadline to cancel the season looming, the owners decided that those small wins were enough.

What if they hadn’t? What if the owners had remained united behind Bettman? Or maybe more realistically, what if Bettman had done a better job of making sure that his owners had no choice? The commissioner learned a tough lesson from the 1994 lockout, and made sure that he went into the 2004 version with more power and less vulnerability to his owners getting cold feet. What would have happened if he’d been able to get his charges to hold the line in 1994 instead?

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Take the quiz: How well do you really know the CBA negotiations?

For the last time Brian, no, we can't
just lock out the players from Ontario.

The weekend's expiration of the NHL collective bargaining agreement made official what everyone already knew was inevitable. We have a lockout. Again.

If you're like most fans, you've probably already formed an opinion about who's right and wrong. You've probably also shared that opinion, loudly, to anyone who'll listen. But do you really understand the complex details behind these negotiations? Take this quiz and find out.

In late July, the NHL responded to the NHLPA's request for more financial information by turning over 76,000 pages. Why were the documents so long?
a.) For sake of completeness, the document listed everyone who's ever been rumored to be buying the Phoenix Coyotes.
b.) For reasons nobody's completely clear on, the package contains all of Mitt Romney's old tax returns.
c.) The owners wanted to make a note of how much they hated Bob Goodenow, so the middle 75,980 pages are just the repetition of the word "very".

The players submitted a counter-proposal in August, but the owners didn't immediately offer an official response. Why not?
a.) It was a contract offer, so out of force of habit the owners immediately tried to figure out how to front-load it.
b.) One of the rich owners asked if the proposal included a comprehensive revenue sharing to help the struggling smaller markets, and then they all just laughed and laughed until it was time to go home.
c.) They were advised to completely ignore it by that one really hardline guy in the group who nobody recognizes but who come to think of it looks kind of like David Stern wearing Groucho Marx glasses and giggling.

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NHL owners' other leaked CBA demands

During a break in negotiations, Bettman takes a
moment to consider plans for his sun-blocking device.

Any sense of optimism over the NHL's upcoming CBA negotiation disappeared last week when details of the owners' initial offer to the players leaked to the public. Despite some early hope that the two sides would learn from past mistakes and find common ground quickly, it looks like fans are in for another contentious battle.

The owners' initial offer - which includes slashing the player's share of league revenues, a five-year limit on contracts, the elimination of arbitration and significant changes to free agency - has no chance of being accepted. But while some have chalked the proposal up as just a basic negotiating tactic, others see it as a signal that the league is intent on undergoing yet another long work stoppage.

And that's just based on the high-level details that leaked out - it turns out that the actual proposal included plenty more for players to chew on. My spies were able to get their hands on a copy of the offer, which sheds light on some of the additional demands that NHL owners are insisting on seeing in the next CBA.

• The league and its players must work together to come up with new revenue streams that could add millions of dollars to the league's bottom line, such as having Cam Janssen bring a swear jar to all his radio interviews.
  
  
• Columbus would really like us to consider another round of expansion, since they're running out of teams to laugh hysterically into the phone when Scott Howson calls with his latest Rick Nash proposal.
  
  
• Any time the NHLPA starts talking about how the union will absolutely refuse to bend on certain key principles, the owners reserve the right to order in for pizza and then drum their fingers nonchalantly when Bob Goodenow shows up to deliver it.
  
  
• We're going to need to roll back the salary of every active NHL player, with the exception of Brad Richards, since according to this magazine we picked up the poor guy can't even afford to buy clothes these days.
  

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Hacked: Gary Bettman's Gmail account

Ever wondered what kind of e-mail shows up in the inbox of the commissioner of a big time sports league? You have? OK, well what about the commissioner of the NHL instead?

An inside source tipped me off that all of Gary Bettman's official league correspondence goes through his Gmail account. And let's just say Gary's every bit as good at picking secure passwords as he is choosing new markets for expansion.

Here's a screenshot I was able to grab before I was booted off their servers:

Can't see the image? Want to download it? Here's the small version, and here's a larger one that's easier to read.

If you liked this post, you might also like:

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