Both sides earn a misconduct
Should who's "right" and who's "wrong" have mattered when the very survival of the league was at stake?
The National Hockey League is far beyond that petty concern. We are in new territory here. The National Hockey League, in business since 1924, is about to self-destruct. Gee, since they really are all in this together you'd think some common sense would have crept in before this, wouldn't you?
So here's some free advice: MAKE A DEAL!
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman should certainly understand what I'm talking about. After all, his professional mentor, if you will, is NBA commissioner David Stern, a man who has always proven to be extremely pragmatic. Back when Bettman was Stern's senior vice president and general counsel, he was involved in labor negotiations with the late Larry Fleisher, who was executive director of the NBA Players Association. No matter what was said publicly by either Stern or Fleisher, what really mattered was what was being said and done privately, and the truth was that both Stern and Fleisher knew that the only thing that mattered was getting a deal done.
Repeat: getting a deal D-O-N-E. David Stern and Larry Fleisher were deal-makers, not deal-sabotagers.
Just what do these people think the NHL is, anyway? Do they think it is a part of the vital fabric of the American experience? Do they somehow think they can tap into a reservoir of historical and social resonance the way baseball can? Do they think it is a certified Way of Life, as the National Football League is every Sunday from the beginning of September through the Pro Bowl five months later? Do they even think it is a universally played and understood sport in all 50 states, as basketball is?
No, it is hockey, and while it has shown impressive growth in recent years -- youth leagues in Los Angeles? wow! -- it is still, well, hockey, and it should not be taken as an insult when people refer to it as a "niche sport." Around here, of course, that is not the case. With all due respect to Minnesota, we are America's ground zero in terms of having a legitimate hockey culture. Around here, if it's winter, it means hockey.
But we don't count. No place in which someone's grandpa or Uncle Sid actually went to see Eddie Shore make one of those celebrated end-to-end rushes is going to turn its back on hockey. But how'd you like to have money invested in the Columbus Blue Flames, or Jet Blues, or whatever they're called? The game doesn't exactly have what you call "roots" there, does it?
Yet even in Boston some serious damage has been done. The one thing no sports enterprise should ever do is allow the public to realize it can get along without you, and there has been a remarkable lack of outrage in these here parts. I'd wager that for every old-style fanatic with a Joe Thornton shrine in his or her bedroom, there are five or 10 people who would have classified themselves as hockey fans who have found life surprisingly full without the NHL these past six-plus months. Perhaps they've replaced the Bruins with good college hockey, of which we have plenty. Perhaps they've developed an affinity for the local high school team. And, of course, from Labor Day on, there have always been the Red Sox and Patriots. Now pitchers and catchers have reported and before too long they'll actually be playing games, so who needs hockey now? It's too late.
So who is right?
The consensus says the owners were making more sense, that a league with limited TV revenue cannot afford to be paying players an average salary of $1.8 million. They were asking to institute a salary cap that is pegged to actual revenue generated, which sounds logical to you and me, but not to a Mr. Bob Goodenow, who is the head of the NHL Players Association.
The public, which in this case includes me, looks at the NBA and NFL, which both have salary caps, and says, "So what's the big deal?" The NBA's cap is a so-called "soft" cap, which means you can go over it by re-signing players you already have (forcing you to figure out a way to get under it when contemplating future transactions), while the NFL has a so-called "hard" cap, which is circumvented only by signing bonuses (and then only in the short run). In both cases, players are paid handsomely. And so we ask the hockey players, "What's the big deal?"
I suppose I should mention that the owners wouldn't be in the financial mess they're in now if they had simply spent according to their means. Even the owners admit that what they're now doing is asking the players to correct their own foolish spending habits. Not for the first time, we are left wondering how any of these people ever got rich in the first place, given the astonishingly inept way they run their sports franchises.
Do I oversimplify here? Of course. I don't really care about the details. I see a special-interest league that has allowed its players to become rich while thinking they are something they're not, which is national celebrities. How many Lightning players are headed for Letterman or Leno's couch? I see a league that has foolishly expanded into America at the expense of more deserving Canadian locales. I see the hockey players mistakenly thinking they have the clout and leverage of baseball, football, and basketball players.
I also hear that Messrs. Bettman and Goodenow genuinely loathe each other, which, if true, is unforgivable. Each man has an allegiance to something bigger than himself. Wherever hockey ranks in relation to baseball, football, and basketball, it is a noble and viable product that has thrilled people for more than a century in this hemisphere. Their obligation is to preserve the game for those who love it, not to detonate it.
Bettman and Goodenow's shameless failure to act before this is a disgrace. They should make a deal and then they should both have an "ex" put in front of their titles.
Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is ryan@globe.com. 