The Kovy Contract: An Apparent Tale of Corrupt Politics
by devilssan2 on Sep 2, 2010 2:49 AM EDT
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PrintA couple of hours ago (10:08 pm on 9/1/10) Larry Brooks of the New York Post broke news of a new chapter in the Ilya Kovalchuk contract saga. The NHL has essentially taken the new Ilya Kovalchuk 15-year/$100 million contract, as well as Roberto Luongo's tentative 12-year extension, under hostage and has given the NHLPA an ultimatum: place a limit on future SPCs that prevents multi-year deals to extend players beyond the age of 40, or we'll kill both contracts! (and do something bad to Marian Hossa's contract as well) [Insert sinister Bettman laugh]
The question I've been asking myself since the NHL first started going after these contracts is: what does the NHL stand to gain by putting a lid on SPC length? The new CBA negotiations are coming up just around the corner (2012) and by placing this limit on contract lengths now they're creating an even larger competitive imbalance based on the fact that they haven't allowed every team the opportunity to take advantage of this loophole that many teams have already used to circumvent the cap.
My mentality has remained the same throughout this whole ordeal... enough with the politics, Kovalchuk's star power is worth more to the league than any CBA-related issues. If they let this guy go to Russia then Bettman and Daly are simply not doing their jobs, and might be the cause of a new era, one where Russian youth envision themselves as the next KHL stars and not the next generation of NHL stars, and we may lose out on some top-shelf talent, while the league itself would backslide.
The league is making itself look extremely amateurish with the circus it's causing. If they want to amend the CBA, they should conduct themselves like professionals and wait for the correct forum to do so. A professional league should not be making ultimatums. Gary Bettman is causing the NHL to look foolish, and he should be ashamed every time he makes a move like this. Earth to Bettman: this is why you get booed!
Next time Gary steps in front of the mirror he should ask himself this question: Am I getting payed $7.2 million/year to act for my own egocentric purposes, or to better the sport of hockey?
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Here is the Larry Brooks article. It once again shows that the NHL is run by corrupt, power hungry idiots that are trying to punish teams for Bettman’s mistakes. They never should have allowed this loophole in the first place, but now anyone exploiting it, including NJ, will be fined harshly if they don’t succumb to this threat.
I’m not saying I don’t agree that there should be limits on contract length, or that cap hit should be determined differently, but this is not how you get these changes made. Threatening people because you were too stupid to think ahead shows your incompetency, Bettman.
Unfortunately, the only way this turns out well for NJ is if the NHLPA folds and gives in to the NHL’s demands. Then both sides will be fuming at each other and hockey will be locked out for a very long time.
"Everything is status quo." - Lou Lamoriello
"*Heavy groan*" - The Entirety of Devils Nation
First off…it’s the Post. *salt
Doesn’t seem like an unreasonable request to me, honestly. Accepting the current and pending contracts, applying reasonable, actually defined limits on contracts to be negotiated between now and the next CBA.
It’s obvious that contracts with this type of structure are intended to soften cap hits. But that is what should happen. If you are willing to commit to a player during their prime and during their declination years, the team deserves some sort of relief for taking that risk. There aren’t many players that play over 40, and 20-somethings that want the job security can still get tails to help up till they are 40, and all the High Salary calculation does is force the contract to be a bit more level in terms of compensation. It’s not that big of a deal.
For the good of the league, all this looking at it like “US vs THEM” has got to stop. Loopholes happen all the time, as does the exploitation thereof. There is language in the CBA to deal with them, and it’s complete ambiguity. That’s where the problem is. The League wants this to stop now, and it’s in everyone’s best interest for it to stop now. We’re lucky that this summer had one high profile FA with the potential for this type of contract. Take a minute to go see how many there would be next summer…6, conservatively, as many as 10 or 12 if teams want to push the issue before the CBA is renogtiated?
Does the NHLPA or the League want to go through this for a dozen players next summer? Of course not. Get it out of the way now. The Kovalchuk contract has already become a laughing stock, stumbling block and catalyst for change. Just finish the damn arguement now so it doesn’t carry over for another season.
The League may be guilty of a lack of tact in their stance, but in the interest of getting something conclusive done in a reasonable amount of time, there’s no other option. If you have the big chip stack, push it around to get things moving. I’d certainly rather the threat of penalties and swift, violent action rather than a month of negotiations leading to a possible contract a day before the season opens. But maybe that’s my military background speaking.
the “US vs THEM” has definitely got to stop. It’s not a bad thing to use the “big chip stack to get things moving”, but this is more than just about making change. The national opinion of this league has a tremendous effect on how successful it is. This is a publicly analyzed, criticized, and fan-funded SPORTS league. If the NHL does things in this manner it just loses national credibility and respect because it shows that they are incapable of doing their jobs without having to constantly backpedal to fix their own obvious mistakes.
Contract length DOES need to be limited, everyone can agree on that. Cap hit DOES need to be determined differently. However, bullying people by saying “My way or the highway” only puts everyone on the defensive and doesn’t make anyone want to go out of their way to help solve the problem.
The NHL could have gone to the NHLPA and just said, “Hey, we both know this loophole is ridiculous. We need to stop them from happening anymore. So let’s just agree on a contract length limit of, say, X years until the next CBA. Then we can come up with something solid and move forward. We know we made a mistake of letting his loophole into the CBA, so we’ll promise not to go after these contracts, too.” Friendly, reasonable, and it would make you want to work together. Not the “Do what I say or I’ll get you and your little dog, too!”
"Everything is status quo." - Lou Lamoriello
"*Heavy groan*" - The Entirety of Devils Nation
Sure, the League and the PA could have come to an interim agreement on contract lengths to close this loophole. If I’m the PA, however, I’m asking for something in return for conceding on this point. What does the League have to offer at this point that the Players would accept…. save perhaps ending the ongoing investigations? Even that isn’t much of an offer, because it affects a small handful of players and their teams, and not the entire League or the entire PA and its membership…. meaning there’s no particular reason for the rank-and-file to be the least bit interested in that specific deal.
I can agree with that, but friendly is way too time consuming when dealing with CBAs and contracts. We’re out of time for that. The time for Friendly was a month ago, during the first itteration of the Kovaltract.
The fact that it seems a friendly, reasonable conclusion seemed to never even enter Bettman’s brain is another reason why he should be fired. There are times to be tough, but when a Commissioner is too dumb to do anything but use force because he’s run out of time, it’s time for change.
"Everything is status quo." - Lou Lamoriello
"*Heavy groan*" - The Entirety of Devils Nation
No arguement there man. This summe rhas taught me 2 things.
1. I’m glad managing a hockey team isn’t my job.
2. The NHL needs to replace it’s top leadership.
the NHL’s top leadership has the michael corleone mentality. the union has beaten itself ever since the lockout – it caved in on itself there, and since then, it’s continued. why shouldn’t the NHL take advantage of a rudderless organization that has gone a year without a leader?
the NHL should not care very much about losing kovalchuk. the KHL is a non-threat, and what’s more threatening is a future where every top team has 2 players on one of these contracts. furthermore, i have a feeling that you would not feel this way had kovalchuk gone through this ordeal with, say, the rangers. you’d probably say, ‘he can go to the KHL if he wants’.
acasser: the PA would be interested in not looking like even bigger fools when they lose all the arbitration cases and possibly ruining those players’ chances at playing for those teams. like you said, it doesn’t affect most players. i do agree that the PA should get something in return, but it’s hard to say what.
The KHL is not a non-threat if there’s a lockout. We all know the KHL would jump on signing NHL players during another lockout, and who knows how many of them would simply stay if the NHL ever ended the lockout? If there’s a lockout in 2012, which there probably will be, that would be 3 lockouts in 17 years. A lot of players may see that as a sign that the league is doomed to fail and will ditch it for a place where they’ll get paid more.
"Everything is status quo." - Lou Lamoriello
"*Heavy groan*" - The Entirety of Devils Nation
1: the KHL is in russia. russia is not noted as a great place to live. the winters last forever, and the country is generally poor. almost all the north american players who went over to the russian league in 2004-05 during the lockout were not happy with their experience.
2: the KHL does not, and will not ever, have the money to compete with the NHL for more than a few players. if you think the NHL is doomed to fail, how about a league where a team just folded in the off-season because it went broke? how about a league where someone died because the medical personnel in russia are not qualified?
I’d like to hope that the KHL won’t benefit from an NHL lockout, but if they have any good business sense they’ll snatch up every player they can convince to come. Each KHL team could get a few players and promote the heck out of it, saying “the NHL has failed, now the KHL is the big dog”.
"Everything is status quo." - Lou Lamoriello
"*Heavy groan*" - The Entirety of Devils Nation
i don’t think you understand. russia is not a rich country. by GDP, the US was 9th, canada was 18th, and russia was 59th. there’s just no way that KHL fans can spend anywhere close to the thousands of US dollars a year that NHL fans spend on hockey.
if they had good business sense, they wouldn’t buy any high priced players at all, since there’s just no way they can sustain profits on teams that have those players. the KHL is a play toy for the super rich.
Maybe you’re talking GDP per capita. Overall GDP, which is more important to this particular case, the United States is #1 with $14.2 trillion, Canada is #10 with 1.3 trillion and Russia is #12 with $1.2 trillion. Still, Russia just doesn’t have a market valuable enough to support a league like the NHL. Triumph is right, they can’t support a league full of super stars, they just don’t have the money for it.
Marc R.
The KHL can expand into Europe and become a European super-league…. especially if they can raid the NHL for a lot of talent during a lockout. Perhaps a Russia-only KHL isn’t much of a threat, but a KHL with teams in the Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden, etc.? Not sure I’d want to compete with that, especially for the European players.
where are these teams going to get the money in those countries to lure top players? what does being a KHL franchise change? i’d be totally fine competing with that league. the NHL will lose some low-level players, but by and large it will still get the top talent. the czech republic doesn’t produce high end talent anymore anyway, so if players stop coming out of there to the NHL, no big deal, they’ve already stopped.
How about a new revenue stream? For example, I could see a confederation of European Leagues doing something similar to how UEFA has a Europa League and a Champions League. Sure, it is hard to get excited for your average ManU midweek tussle against one of England’s roadkill teams, but those fans get awfully chipper when it is one of Europe’s other traditional powers invading the pitch.
How about the possibility of a protracted recession in the U.S. gradually bringing down the cap and salaries as the economics here tighten?
How about the possibility of inflation eroding the value of the U.S. dollar vis-a-vis European currencies? In this case, the same number of Euros (or rubles, or Swiss francs, or your currency of choice) is worth an increasing number of dollars, providing a level of parity.
I’m not saying it is likely, but that the possibility is there, and it isn’t an excruciatingly small one. In addition, if the Russians, Swedes, et al, remain home, it will decrease the supply of top-shelf talent in the U.S., which on its own ought to bring down prices. Rather than supply-and-demand kicking in here (less supply means more demand and higher prices), it would be a case that most GMs would pocket the money instead of overpaying mediocre players.
The proposal itself seems reasonable, but....
The NHLPA should remind the league of the following:
1) The CBA was agreed upon in 2005. If the league wants these changes, fine, bring them up in 2012.
2) If they reject this contract (and others), the NHLPA will IMMEDIATELY appeal the rejections.
3) Richard Bloch will NEVER arbitrate another NHL dispute.
4) In arbitration, the NHLPA will ask why this (and other) contracts are OK if the NHL can gets its way, but if the NHLPA makes the NHL follow the rules, then they are not OK.
5) The NHLPA will ask the NHL to explain why the other contracts were perfectly fine at the time to register (and in Hossa’s case to play under), but now they are no longer OK.
6) The NHLPA will petition the arbitrator (or go to court if necessary) to grant the effected teams 30 days from the ruling to get under the cap. (Since 1. This can drag past the start of the regular season, 2. An approved Kovy contract would immediately put the Devils over the salary cap, and 3. It would be the NHL’s fault for it happening.)
I hope the NHLPA takes the deal. I don’t want another lockout and Kovy will be a devil.
The NHL should also agree to allow NHL to play in the 2014 Olympics though.
I also think to allow for a stable and growing cap; the teams struggling (NYI, Panthers, Phoenix) should be allowed to move to better markets(Seattle, Quebec City, Toronto, Winnipeg) without the NHL stopping a private sale of teams and forcing them to sell to the NHL and leave them in a bad market.
Sadly, I think the NHLPA will be forced to take the deal. Coming up with a strategy to combat the league in the little amount of time they’ve been given, along with the fact that they have no leader, means they’re at the mercy of the league.
You KNOW you’ve screwed up when Gary Bettman looks like a Master Tactician compared to your association.
"Everything is status quo." - Lou Lamoriello
"*Heavy groan*" - The Entirety of Devils Nation
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