Kings fans had waited 45 years for their beloved team to win the Stanley Cup last June, so it seemed cruel that a labor dispute between the National Hockey League and the NHL Players' Assn. delayed their chance to see the Kings raise their championship banner at Staples Center.
Their wait is now near an end.
The league and players' union
early Sunday announced a tentative accord on a new collective bargaining
agreement that will bring up to 10 years' labor peace to a league that
has shut its doors three times because of conflicts. The agreement,
reached with the help of a federal mediator after a tricky 16-hour day
of negotiations, has some loose ends that must be wrapped up before it's
put on paper and voted upon by both sides this week.
"The framework of a deal has been agreed upon," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters at a news conference held in New York shortly before 6 a.m. Eastern.
Timing for the ratification process hasn't been determined. After both
sides give their expected approval, the NHL will announce a revamped
schedule in which teams will play 48 or 50 games, instead of 82, within
their respective conferences. The Kings' crowning moment — raising their
banner to the Staples Center rafters — is likely to occur Jan. 19.
"We're going to be hanging our banner and giving some championship rings
out and we're going to try to do it again," said a jubilant Tim
Leiweke, the Kings' governor and the president and chief executive of
their parent company, AEG.
"That's more important than having any anger over what just happened. That was not in our control. Now, our journey continues."
The NHL locked players out on Sept. 15 after claiming teams could not
operate profitably while paying players 57% of hockey-related revenue
they received in the final year of the previous labor deal. With the aim
of ending long-term, front-loaded contracts that circumvented the
spirit of the salary cap, the NHL proposed severely limiting the length
of players' contracts and toughening terms of free agency. Its initial
offer stipulated that players would get 43% of hockey-related revenue.
In trying to reduce players' share of revenue, the NHL followed the path
of the National Football League and National Basketball Assn., which
endured labor problems in 2011. The NFL didn't miss any regular-season
games, but the NBA dispute lingered until Christmas 2011 and led to a schedule of 66 games instead of the usual 82.
This was the NHL's third lockout
during Bettman's nearly 20-year tenure. The league previously cut the
1994-95 season to 48 games and canceled the entire 2004-05 season.
This disagreement pitted Bettman against NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr,
the former leader of the Major League Baseball Players' Assn. They
butted heads often and each side accused the other several times of
being unwilling to negotiate in earnest. The league believed Fehr was
slowing the process in an attempt to wear owners down; the union
believed Bettman wanted to take back many contractual rights players
earned during previous disputes.
The disagreement was resolved only after several influential club executives — including Leiweke, Pittsburgh Penguins owner Ron Burkle and representatives of the Montreal Canadiens and Tampa Bay Lightning
— began pressuring Bettman two weeks ago to kick-start the stagnant
negotiations. Bettman presented a proposal Dec. 27 that launched
intense bargaining sessions. The work of federal mediator Scot L.
Beckenbaugh, who acted as a go-between when the two sides couldn't face
each other, also was crucial to the resolution.
The deal's 10-year term (with a mutual opt-out clause after eight years)
is longer than the NHLPA had wanted. The maximum length of player
contracts will be seven years, with an exception permitting teams to
re-sign their own free agents for eight years, and is longer than the
NHL's previously proposed five-year limit.
The salary cap for the 2013-14 season was set at $64.3 million, well
above the NHL's proposed $60 million but short of the union's target of
$65 million. The floor — minimum each team must spend on payroll — will
be $44 million. The salary cap for the upcoming season will be a
prorated portion of the previously agreed-upon $70.2-million limit.
Teams will be permitted to buy out two players' contracts before the
2013-14 season without that money being counted against their salary
cap.
Other pivotal elements, such as a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue
and keeping the same terms for entry-level contracts and free agency,
were previously negotiated. Some issues, including players'
participation in the 2014 Winter Olympics, in Sochi, Russia, have not been settled.
"Hopefully, in a few days people can start watching people who are skating and not us," Fehr told reporters in New York.
Said Bettman: "Absolutely."
Many players who had signed with European teams to stay in shape during
the lockout began scrambling to arrange transportation back to North
America after the tentative agreement was announced. Kings captain Dustin Brown said he planned to fly home from Switzerland on Monday, and center Anze Kopitar
— who sprained his right knee in a game for the Swedish team Mora IK on
Saturday — was expected back in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
A resolution was never certain, even during the final days of talks.
Tempers flared on Thursday, when the league introduced language that
would have reduced penalties against teams that under-reported their
hockey-related revenue, and players remained angry after the NHL
withdrew that provision.
"It felt like driving your car on the edge of a cliff. We could still
get to where we had to go, but at any moment we could fall off the
edge," said Kings forward Kevin Westgarth, a member of the players' negotiating committee and participant in those final sessions.
"We are all extremely happy to have made it over the hill. It's going to
be a quick change out of our suits and into our skates, as well."
source: latimes.com
