THE NHL : Crux of Player-Management Squabble: Who Runs League?

The players say it’s about freedom. The owners say it’s about money.

They’re both wrong.

It’s about power.

That’s what the impasse between the NHL’s club owners and the NHL Players Assn. has come down to as talks aimed at averting a strike resume in Toronto.

The rest of it--compensation for free agents, arbitration, the pension plan, the draft and an increase in postseason pay--can and probably will be negotiated within the framework of a new collective bargaining agreement.

But first, a basic question has to be resolved: Who runs the NHL?

“They’ve had it their way for 25 years,” one player said of the owners. “In all the time we’ve had the union, we’ve never stood up to them before, and they’re not used to it.”

Countered one owner: “Something might have been worked out. But once (Bob Goodenow, the NHLPA executive director) set a strike deadline, he really angered a lot of other owners who are ready to let them go on strike.”

Many players say that with the playoffs scheduled to begin April 8, Goodenow’s decision to make the strike deadline next Monday was unavoidable.

“If we don’t strike now,” defenseman Larry Robinson of the Kings said, “then when?”

No argument there.

Once the playoffs begin and teams start being eliminated, a walkout would lose much of its sting.

A strike involving 22 teams would be a powerful statement. A strike involving eight or fewer teams would be a joke.

The numbers game: All of the issues on the negotiating table ultimately hinge on money.

So, before the two sides can agree on any of those issues, they have to agree on the money available to resolve them.

If, as the players maintain, the owners are making money, the hired hands want a bigger piece of the action.

If not, as the owners insist, the players might have to be satisfied with what they already have.

Several clubs have opened their books to Goodenow in an effort to reinforce the owners’ claim that by combining the profit-loss picture of the 22 clubs, the NHL will lose $14 million this season. The owners estimate at least 16 teams will lose money.

A year ago, before the current round of soaring salaries, the owners claim to have earned $46 million.

“We’re losing money as a league,” owner Bruce McNall of the Kings said. “Now where do (the players) want to go from here?”

It all depends on where they’re starting from. Goodenow maintains that the league will make from $24 million to $30 million this season.

The plan considered the model in professional sports is the one employed by the NBA. Basketball players receive 53% of that league’s revenues under a system using salary cap.

According to McNall, under the present setup, hockey players receive 63% of NHL revenues.

“We tell them we are losing money,” McNall said, “and they don’t believe it. They feel the money is coming in somewhere. They just don’t know where.”

So where is the discrepancy?

Some players say those owners receiving arena revenue, such as parking and concessions, are not including that in their figures.

The response of some owners is that such revenue has nothing to do with the hockey team.

The owners, on the other hand, say the players are not including team expenses for playoff money, contract buyouts and bonus payments in their calculations.

Losers to winners at the box office: According to McNall, the Kings were a losing proposition until the arrival of Wayne Gretzky four years ago.

In the McNall era, the Kings have gone from a club showing a loss of $5 million to one that figures to make a profit of $3 million this season, when they have sold every seat for every game.

Figure in the expense of the Kings’ private jet, however, and that profit drops to $1.5 million.

Strikebreakers: The owners have said they might use replacement players, drawn from the minor leagues, the collegiate ranks or even Europe, in the event of a walkout.

The Kings and the Winnipeg Jets are the two clubs known to have told their minor leaguers to weigh their feelings should they be asked to cross a picket line.

It’s a rough call, as even some established NHL players admit.

“They’ve got to earn a living, too,” King goalie Kelly Hrudey said of the Phoenix Roadrunners, the club’s minor league affiliate. “But when they finally make the team, they are going to have to answer for (crossing the picket line) for some time. Boy, that could be tough. But who’s to say who is right and who is wrong?”