Roenick No Fan of New Deal

The Kings’ Jeremy Roenick on Monday ripped the new collective bargaining agreement reached in July, saying it allows NHL owners to use the players’ salary concessions to subsidize the intense efforts to try to win back fans.

“The owners can sit there and do giveaways and lower ticket prices to get the fans back to the game knowing that what they are really doing is taking it out of our pockets,” Roenick said. “It’s important to get people back into the arenas to watch hockey, but it is a lot easier to do when [the owners] know they still get money back because they are taking it out of our paycheck. In essence, the players are paying for all the giveaways and free stuff that the owners are doing. Which is all well and good, but you don’t hear about it.”

The NHL Players’ Assn. agreed to a 24% across-the-board rollback in player salaries -- a painful part of the labor agreement after the 2004-05 season was canceled after a lockout. Within that deal was an escrow provision, also agreed to, whereby players could lose more of their salaries should league-wide revenues not reach projected estimates. Player salaries cannot exceed 54% of league revenues.

Revenues have not reached estimates so far. Players’ salaries have been reduced by another 12% as a result, a figure based on projected revenues for the season of $1.8 billion. That money has been put into an escrow account.

If revenues eventually hit $1.9 billion this season, the escrow payment drops to 6.9%. If revenues reach $2 billion, the escrow payment would only be 1.7%. If the total goes up to $2.05 billion, then players would receive back more money at the end of the season than they put into escrow.

Revenues were $2.1 billion during the 2003-04 season.

The NHL and players’ association agreed to recalculate the escrow percentage four times during the season, with the next one coming in late November. That has players seeing a bigger picture, beyond the uniform they wear.

“When we watch hockey games and see 8,000 fans in [Washington] D.C., you cringe as a player,” Roenick said. “Those cities that aren’t pulling their weight in terms of drawing fans and revenue are hurting everybody as a whole, not just that city.”

Attendance appears to be less than hoped for in a number of arenas this season. The Washington Capitals, who averaged 14,720 during the 2003-04 season, had an announced attendance of 10,968 on Oct. 12 at the 18,277-seat MCI Arena but with several thousand empty seats according to published reports. Attendance for the home opener was 3,304 under capacity.

Moreover, Nielsen ratings for NHL telecasts on OLN have been negligible, worsening the long-term revenue outlook. The first three games averaged fewer than 200,000 viewers.

Roenick has repeatedly used a mocking tone and his fingers to punch the air to signify quotation marks when talking about the “partnership” between the owners and players. NHL leaders -- from Commissioner Gary Bettman on down -- have touted that partnership as a key element in helping the league to move forward.

But, Roenick said, it leaves the players merely junior partners.

“I think the owners got a deal very favorable to them,” Roenick said. “It gives them leeway to do more than they should be able to do with our salaries.”

An example: For Sunday’s game, the Kings gave away a free ticket good for ages 14 and under with every ticket purchased.

“We made the mistake of not signing the deal in February and now we’re paying for it in more ways than one,” Roenick said, referring to the last-minute negotiations before the season was canceled. “Yeah, we’re still making money, but we gave back 24%, then the salary cap and now we give back a percentage of each check because the ‘revenue’ streams going around the league.

“A partnership is supposed to be us working together to bring fans back,” he added. “We have to live with it, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it.”

The players have not been happy about the escrow account tied to the revenues. But the union leadership has said it was left with little choice but to make a deal, fearing the loss of another season.

“When they saw that 12% out of the paycheck, the guys on our team were [griping] and moaning and complaining about it,” Roenick said. “This is after we already had given back 24% and taken a [$39-million] salary cap.”

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Forward Valeri Bure, out the last three weeks because of a back injury, saw a specialist Monday and will undergo epidural injections to reduce the inflammation, Coach Andy Murray said.... Luc Robitaille, who sat out Sunday’s game against Columbus because of a strained groin, underwent treatment Monday and may skate today before the Kings leave for Denver, where they will play the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday.... Jeff Cowan (strained groin) will not be available before the weekend. “That would be the optimistic outlook,” Murray said.