NHL Dispute Disrupts Plans

If the NHL’s lockout remains in effect a year from now -- or if peace reigns but owners won’t allow a break to permit players to compete in the Turin Olympics -- Jim Johannson has a plan.

“I’m getting my skates ready,” said the two-time Olympian, who spent nine seasons in the International Hockey League and is now director of hockey operations for USA Hockey.

It probably won’t come to that, but the lack of a collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the NHL Players’ Assn. has complicated Olympic preparations for the world’s hockey powers.

Players’ participation at Nagano in 1998 and Salt Lake City in 2002 was negotiated as part of a labor agreement that expired Sept. 15. With economic issues monopolizing current negotiations, the Turin Games have been ignored.

The players’ union favors sending NHL players to Turin, but the issue hasn’t been explored in six months, said Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer and lead labor negotiator.

And minutes after Commissioner Gary Bettman imposed the lockout, he said that if the NHL is on the ice next February, “I doubt we’d want to disrupt the season” for the Games.

Canada, Sweden, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Finland, the U.S., Russia and Germany won Olympic berths based on their finish at the 2004 world championships. Italy received an automatic spot as the host nation.

The last three teams will be determined in qualifying tournaments that start next week in Switzerland, Latvia and Austria.

Canada and the U.S. were the only teams at Salt Lake City made up exclusively of NHL players. Other teams supplemented NHL players with players from European leagues.

Rene Fasel, president of the International Ice Hockey Federation and a member of the Turin coordinating committee, said this week there was “no deadline.... I will do my best to get the best players to the Games.” Federation spokesman Szymon Szemberg added, “The IIHF does not invite leagues to the Olympics, only national associations. It’s up to USA Hockey and Hockey Canada [and other federations] to put whatever players they like into the jerseys.”

Ah, but there’s the rub.

If NHL players are locked out and want to play in Turin, they’d surely want to insure themselves against injury. But they might find insurmountable obstacles.

“Underwriters are increasingly reluctant to write these policies. We’ve run into the insurance issue the last five years,” Johannson said. “It stems from the length and value of the guaranteed contracts these players have. That’s not a knock, just a fact.

“If you want the best players, it becomes a question of what lengths you go to to get the best players. We’re going to work the best we can with players, but we have parameters.”

Without players, it’s tough for USA Hockey to attract sponsors. And it probably won’t get a “name” coach to promote. Johannson said coaches under contract to NHL teams are out of the running “because they can’t commit” in case the NHL is playing.

USA Hockey tentatively plans to hold an orientation camp in late summer and might use the Deutschland Cup in Hanover, Germany, in November as an Olympic tryout. Ideally, federations are supposed to submit a pool of Olympic candidates in October; the U.S. list goes to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency for drug tests. There is some wiggle room, as evidenced by the changes made by the U.S. men’s basketball team at Athens after many initial candidates withdrew, but not a lot.

“We plan to take the best available team, whether that is to be determined on a case-by-case basis,” Johannson said. “There are a lot of very talented players in the American Hockey League, and combined with non-contracted players, we have depth in our player pool.

“We do feel confident in our pool of players. Who those are today, I can’t tell you.”

Hockey Canada, which oversees the defending champion, chose Marc Habscheid to coach the national team and said he would have a “key role” in Turin, subject to the involvement of NHL personnel. For other international tournaments this season it has called upon Canadians who play in Europe.

A Hockey Canada spokesperson said its Olympic preparations include “about 2,000 different backup plans.”

Watch Those Runners

Todd Hays, driver on the silver medal-winning U.S. four-man bobsled team at Salt Lake City, will sit out several weeks of competition after sustaining a cut on his right foot and developing an infection that required surgery Thursday.

Hays, of Del Rio, Texas, was injured when the back left runner of his sled ran over his foot at the start of a race over the Olympic course in Turin. He took the first run but then withdrew.

The infection set in after he returned to the team’s training base in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Eugene Byrne, chief physician for the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation, said no tendons or bones were damaged. “He’s on the road to recovery,” Byrne said.

Hays will sit out the two-man world championships on Feb. 18-19 at Calgary, Canada, but might return for the four-man event at Calgary a week later.

Here and There

Allyson Felix of Los Angeles, silver medalist in the women’s 200 at Athens, is scheduled to compete in the 60-meter dash at the Millrose Games on Friday at Madison Square Garden.

Alan Webb, who won the 1,500 at the U.S. Olympic trials but was eliminated in the first round at Athens, entered the Millrose Games’ famed Wanamaker Mile for the first time. Webb took the fall season off to recover after the Olympics. “I just sort of wanted some time to get away and get refocused,” said Webb, who set the high-school mile record of 3:53.43 in 2001.

USA Gymnastics chose Athens Olympian Mohini Bhardwaj, Olympic alternate Chellsie Memmel, and up-and-comers Alicia Sacramone and Nastia Liukin to compete in the prestigious American Cup, Feb. 26 at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. The men’s team will be determined based on the Winter Cup competition, Friday and Saturday at Las Vegas.

Nine-time U.S. champion Michelle Kwan and 2002 Olympic bronze medalist Timothy Goebel lead the field for the U.S. Figure Skating Challenge on March 29 at Tampa, Fla. Also entered are Beatrisa Liang of Granada Hills and 15-year-old triple axel virtuoso Kimmie Meissner of Bel Air, Md. Top prize for men and women is $50,000.