Now an Owner, Lemieux Worried About Salaries

Mario Lemieux was one of the NHL’s highest-paid players. Now that he’s an owner, he’s all for players making big money--except if they play for his Pittsburgh Penguins.

The Penguins have the NHL’s highest-paid player in Jaromir Jagr, whose $10.4 salary was one-third of the team’s payroll. While Lemieux understands the importance of having stars--one named Lemieux essentially saved the Penguins’ franchise in the mid-1980s--he considers it more important to run a tight ship.

The Penguins were about $100 million in debt, or more than the franchise was worth, when Lemieux and his partners rescued them from bankruptcy. That’s why Lemieux is cautioning fans he won’t pursue high-salaried free agents who might plunge the Penguins deep into debt again.

Goaltender Ron Tugnutt, for example, was largely responsible for the Penguins advancing to the second round of the playoffs. He becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1 and with the Tampa Bay Lightning, among others, expected to court him, the Penguins probably won’t re-sign him.

“That’s why we went into bankruptcy. . . . Sooner or later, you have to pay them off,” Lemieux said, referring to big contracts. “We’re going to run this team like a business.”

Lemieux is as worried as anyone about the fragile, almost season-to-season existence of the Canadian NHL franchises and the overall state of a sport that relies more heavily on ticket sales for revenue than any other major pro sport.

The key, he said, is a new collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the NHL Players Association. The problem: the current agreement runs through 2003-04, and cash-strapped teams such as the Senators, Flames and Oilers need help now.

“You can’t have one side making all of the money,” Lemieux said. “You can’t have one side [the owners] losing $150 million to $200 million because, sooner or later, you’re going to run out of money--and people to buy franchises,” he said.

“The players have to realize that, if you look at the books, it’s not so rosy. Players have to be partners with the owners, and not fight each other.”

With Wayne Gretzky weighing whether to accept a high-profile role with the Phoenix Coyotes, it is possible the two greatest players of their time will soon be sitting across from the players during contract talks.

Lemieux got his money as a player. So why he is so concerned now about overpaying players?

“I didn’t get paid all I was owed,” Lemieux said. “I left $32 million on the table.”

Lemieux, the Penguins’ largest creditor when the team tumbled into bankruptcy, converted the money owed him into an estimated $25 million equity stake in the team.

Even if the next round of owner-player negotiations is years away, former NHL chief financial officer Ken Sawyer warns there can’t be a shutdown like the one that wiped out half the 1994-95 season.

If there was, he said, “The sport would survive. Individual teams would not.”

NO FLAME(S) OUT? Speaking of the Flames, co-owner Harley Hotchkiss is encouraged they have sold 10,100 of the 14,000 season tickets they must sell by their self-imposed deadline of June 30.

“My heart’s lighter, and I think we’re going to get there,” he said.

Still, the team suffered more setbacks when Canadian Airlines pulled out of a $500,000-a-year sponsorship of the Saddledome, and Chrysler Canada dropped its six-figure sponsorship of the arena’s club seats.

PAY (AND PAY AND PAY) TV: Pretty soon, it may be cheaper in Canada to buy tickets to an NHL game than it is to watch on TV.

The Vancouver Canucks, the Oilers and the Flames have applied to Canadian TV authorities for regional broadcasting licenses that would permit them to broadcast selected games on a pay-per-view basis.

The Canucks, who lost about $25 million this season, want to televise at least 15 home games next season that would cost $12 to $15 apiece.

The NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers are among the, ahem, trail blazers in pay-per-view, recently charging fans $24.95 for a second-round playoff game against Utah.

The Canucks sold a four-game pay-per-view package at $9.95 a game four years ago, but attracted only 4,050 subscribers.

NO SEEDS OF DOUBT: The trend recently has been for low-seeded teams, such as the seventh-seeded Sabres a year ago, to reach the Stanley Cup finals. Not this season.

The conference finals include three of the last four Cup champions (New Jersey, 1995; Colorado, 1996; and Dallas, 1999) and no team that was seeded lower than fourth. New Jersey, the Eastern Conference’s top team much of the season, was seeded fourth only because it was beaten out by Philadelphia for the Atlantic Division title. Division champions are assured of the top three seeds.

TOMMY BOYS: The Washington Capitals will soon unveil new uniforms designed by Tommy Hilfiger that feature black and white more than the current red, white and blue color scheme.

The current Capitals jersey is among the NHL’s worst sellers. The Hilfiger uniform is expected to resemble an old-style hockey sweater, and the Capitals apparently will test its acceptance before formally adopting it.

NEWS AND NOTES: The arbitration hearing that will determine if Alexei Yashin owes the Senators another year of service will be Wednesday and Thursday in New York. The hearing was to have been in Toronto, but the NHL said that would inconvenience some witnesses. ... Mike Eaves, who lost his job as a Penguins assistant coach when coach Kevin Constantine was fired in December, is the new director and coach of USA Hockey’s national developmental program. He succeeds Jeff Jackson, who wasn’t retained after the USA’s under-18 teams didn’t do will in international play.