Next Move Brings Worry

Minutes after Commissioner Gary Bettman canceled the NHL season, he said the league would soon begin planning for 2005-06.

“The manner in which it will be conducted will have to be determined,” he said.

One option is to declare an impasse, which would allow the league to implement labor conditions and use replacement players. It’s an option many agents and players believe Bettman has had in mind all along.

“It was telegraphed very subtly today that the commissioner intends to open training camp in September and bring in replacement players,” said Allan Walsh, an agent with Octagon Hockey. “If they try that, they’re going to have more of a catastrophe on their hands than they have now.

“For their side to succeed, [signing] 30 to 50 players is not enough. A lot are going to have to cross, and I don’t believe that will ever happen. The level of anger among players is such that they’re prepared to go out for another season.”

Sean Avery of the Kings said he took the decision “personally” and hoped that an entirely new league might be organized.

“I think this is solely the agenda of Gary and the eight or nine owners he had onboard,” he said. “We gave them a deal. How did he turn that down?”

Steve Rucchin of the Mighty Ducks agreed. “It shows to me that they were willing totally to cancel the season” all along, he said.

Mark Conrad, an associate professor of legal and ethical studies at Fordham University and a specialist in sports law, said using replacement players “would be a very foolish thing” for the NHL because it would open the door for the union to claim unfair labor practices in Canadian courts -- where the league might lose.

He also said Bettman has “had it in his mind for a while this was going to happen,” and can be patient now and hope the NHL Players’ Assn. wilts.

“He doesn’t care if they get an agreement in two weeks or in July,” Conrad said. “The result is the same. Meanwhile, player dissension might grow. A lot of those players are not getting paid.”

William Gould, an emeritus law professor at Stanford who specializes in labor and sports law and was chairman of the National Labor Relations Board during baseball’s 1994 labor dispute, said owners may use replacement players at any time during a lockout. They can offer the players the previous collective bargaining agreement or the last offer put on the table before negotiations ended.

If the NLRB agrees that the parties have bargained to an impasse, he said, the NHL can unilaterally put into effect its last offer “or something closely analogous to their offer.” However, he added, “the process is fluid. I doubt that an impasse could be found now.”

The players’ union could sue the owners under anti-trust law “if the collective bargaining process is dead and the union and the process are unlikely to revive,” he said. “That’s what the football players did.”

The NFL Players’ Assn. decertified after it lost a strike in 1987 and converted to a professional association to pursue anti-trust litigation. After it succeeded, it re-formed as a union and renewed collective bargaining with the NFL.

“If we get down to a nuclear option scenario where people really start throwing bombs at each other,” Gould said, “that option cannot be dismissed.”

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Elliott reported from New York, Wharton reported from Los Angeles.