Fishing in New Revenue Streams

Showcasing its players in the Olympics was the obvious solution to two of the NHL’s biggest problems.

Performing on the global stage, NHL stars would be seen by vast audiences, boosting the league’s profile. The wider exposure, in turn, might generate revenue to help pay the ever-rising player salaries.

NHL executives wanted to do it. Needed to do it. The question, which they couldn’t answer in time for the 1994 Games at Lillehammer, was how to pull it off with minimal disruption of the season and without alienating its core fans.

And so it was, in November of 1993, that Commissioner Gary Bettman suggested during lunch with Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee, that the Olympic hockey tournament be moved from the Winter Games to the Summer Games.

“There was a very brief discussion,” said Steve Solomon, senior vice president and chief operating officer of the NHL. “Juan indicated that wasn’t going to happen on his watch. It would have been a major change in the Olympic charter.”

After much haggling among the NHL, its players’ union and the International Ice Hockey Federation, an agreement was reached on a unique but risky plan. The NHL will suspend operations from Feb. 8 through Feb. 24 while players represent their homelands at Nagano, Japan.

To keep the hiatus to a minimum, Canada, the U.S., Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and Russia--the top-seeded Olympic teams and top suppliers of NHL players--were given berths in the championship round. A preliminary round, which will start Feb. 7, will yield the last two qualifiers.

The NHL schedule also was reconfigured to accommodate breaks for Christmas, the All-Star game and the Olympics without shortening the season. Training camps were cut, the season opener was moved up a few days to Oct. 1 and the finale was delayed six days, until April 19.

The hiatus of 17 days--seven more than the NHL wanted and four fewer than the NHL Players Assn. proposed--leaves 1,066 games to be played over 178 days, eight fewer days than last season. Teams will play every 2.15 days, compared to every 2.36 days last season.

That works out to one extra game every seven weeks. Not a huge difference, but even that increase--combined with a quirky schedule spawned by the breaks--has created a perception among players and coaches that the season is too condensed. They fear fatigue, injuries and poor play will be unhappy results of this well-intentioned venture.

“When you’re really tired and playing a lot, maybe games are not so good as when you’re fresh,” said Mighty Duck right wing Teemu Selanne, who will play for Finland at Nagano. “That’s why I worked so hard this summer to be in good shape from the start.”

Detroit Red Wing center Steve Yzerman, a candidate for Team Canada, believes the travel to Japan, the intensity of the Olympics and the tight post-Olympic schedule will have cumulative adverse effects.

“I’d love to play, absolutely . . . but then I wouldn’t,” he told the Detroit News. “It’s going to make it difficult on the guys who go over there. What we know here is that the Olympics don’t carry the importance to this city that the Stanley Cup does. We need to make sure we’re ready for the playoffs.”

Solomon described the break’s effect as “modest compression” of the schedule that would create “a limited increase in wear and tear on the players.”

Try telling that to the Mighty Ducks, who open the season with games on consecutive nights in Japan next week and play back-to-back games 19 times, nine more than last season. Or the Philadelphia Flyers, who will play a club-record 17 games in March. Or the Edmonton Oilers, who return from the break to play 17 games in 34 days.

“It’s just awful, the travel we’ve got to do,” New Jersey Devil Coach Jacques Lemaire said. “In November, we have five days we can practice. Five days in the whole month. You get the main players tired, you won’t have the same production. It will be tough. There will be more injuries because of the traveling, and the schedule is so dense.”

Yet, most NHL personnel believe the benefits of Olympic participation will justify the inconveniences, whether real or merely perceived.

“I think the timing is right,” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “Hockey has to try to take a jump, as far as its notability all over the world [is concerned]. I think we’re still behind cart racing.”

Ken Holland, general manager of the Red Wings, said his fear of increased injuries was outweighed by a conviction that the NHL must tap international markets and generate more interest in North America.

“We need our game to get a national TV contract,” he said. “Certainly, everybody in the world watches the Olympics, and to have the best players in the world participating can only help us. It’s a big world out there and a big marketplace. With players’ salaries going as they have been--and where they appear to be headed--we’ve got to find more revenue streams.”

To Bettman, broadening the NHL’s exposure took priority over merchandising and marketing.

“We don’t see this as a risk,” he said. “We believe that by showing how hockey, on its highest level, can be played, and doing it at an event that gets more worldwide exposure than any other, we can only gain.

“This is a building block for us. Is this a watershed event? No. We view this as another step forward, like the World Cup was a step forward a year ago. What we’re really all about is our season, our playoffs and our finals. And this is happening halfway around the world on late-night TV and the traveling can’t be worse.

“Having said that, the two-week hiatus will give us plenty of attention. It will be a nice twist. Those [players] who don’t go will come back raring to go during the stretch drive, and those who did go will carry their feelings of pride with them.”

Just as last year’s World Cup tournament was a rehearsal for Nagano, Nagano will be a rehearsal for the next Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

This time around, the U.S. team’s games at Nagano will be shown in their entirety, live on late-night telecasts on the East Coast but on tape delay on the West Coast. In 2002, with the home-continent advantage, logistics will be more favorable for the NHL and North American TV audiences.

“Going to Nagano, we’re not going to make money in the short term, but we’re looking at the long term,” Bettman said. “The benchmark will be 2002, when it will be in a time zone familiar to us and hockey will be played in prime time.

“We knew the schedule [this season] might be criticized. We spent a lot of time on it with the players’ association. Building availabilities affect the schedule more than anything else does. And remember, about 600 of our players are going to get all that time off.”

Ted Saskin, senior director of business affairs and licensing for the NHLPA, said the union also sees the Olympic venture as an experiment.

“This is going to be a learning experience for all of us,” he said. “The whole notion of shutting down and participating will be analyzed to see that everyone gets out of it what they were hoping for.”

Since the only other significant pause in the NHL schedule was an eight-day break in 1978-79 for an exhibition series between NHL and Soviet all-stars, coaches aren’t sure how to prepare for this odd season.

The NHL’s deal with the NHLPA stipulates that players not going to Nagano must have eight days off, and Edmonton Oiler Coach Ron Low may extend that to 10.

“We’ve got a young team, one of the youngest in the NHL, so I think the schedule won’t hurt us,” he said. “And the [time] off in February will be a great revitalization period.”

Lemaire, whose team has half a dozen potential Olympians, may cut the ice time of veterans Scott Stevens and Doug Gilmour to keep them fresh down the stretch.

Flyer Coach Wayne Cashman, who has seven probable Olympians, will allow key players to skip some practices. So will Duck Coach Pierre Page, who intends to play backup goalie Mikhail Shtalenkov more often to keep Guy Hebert sharp.

Robinson had the King fitness consultant devise new programs with the schedule in mind.

“I don’t think there’s any question there’s some sacrifice,” Solomon said. “One extra game every seven weeks is not dramatic, but the trade-off was the broad, worldwide exposure we’re going to get. Hockey is going to be center stage and it’s going to get an enormous amount of attention.”

Said Vancouver Canuck Coach Tom Renney, who coached the Canadian Olympic team to a silver medal in 1994: “We’ll make it a good thing. The world is looking forward to seeing a tournament of best on best, and the whole world watches the Olympics. We’ll make it work.”

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* RANDY HARVEY: The Kings are looking for a full season from a sound Rob Blake. C2