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Bring on the Replacement Players!
Bring on replacement players
By LARRY FELSER
3/13/2005
So the hockey talks are on again. So what?
Wayne Gretzky, who's close to what's happening, says the owners and players are starting over from Square One. Whoop-de-do! The closest they got to some sort of settlement in the past was the owners' insistence that $42.5 million for a salary cap was their top offer and the insistence of Players' Association boss Bob Goodenow that $49 million was the players' rock-bottom concession.
Of course, that last-ditch number from Goodenow, offered just before the season evaporated, was the first time he accepted the inevitability of any salary cap. The owners had insisted on a salary cap in order to operate with cost certainty. If it's accurate that these renewed talks do begin at "Square One," then the players' concession about the cap has evaporated also.
What the owners are talking about now are replacement players.
Jerry Jacobs, the Buffalo resident who owns the Boston Bruins, alluded to the possibility without mentioning the word "replacements" in an interview with Bucky Gleason of The Buffalo News last month. Gretzky brought up the probability of replacement players by that name Thursday.
"Replacement players" is a dirty phrase in sports because of the 1987 NFL players' strike. Replacement quarterback Willie Totten is still in the Bills' record book for the most fumbles in a game, five. He's also tied for second-most fumbles, four, in his next game. That was replacement football.
However, putting a hockey team together is a lot different than putting one together for football, which has terminology that differs from team to team, precise pass routes, precise steps by the offensive linemen, and the emphasis on timing.
Hockey, like baseball or basketball, takes less time to put together a respectable team, especially if all your opponents are in the same situation. Besides, considering the brand of hockey that has cursed the NHL for the last decade, who would notice the difference in replacements from the real thing?
In the Bills' last replacement game of the '87 strike, against the Giants, coach Marv Levy chided his center, Will Grant, at halftime for being penalized three times in two quarters. Grant, who had come out of retirement to become a replacement player, protested. "Considering that I've been holding on every play, Marv," argued Grant, "three penalties isn't bad."
In today's NHL, the game is soiled by the equivalent of holding on every play with its neutral-zone trap, interference and mugging of the best players. That all started when the league expanded willy-nilly, and bad teams found that slowing down or nullifying talented teams was the only way to keep them competitive.
Bring on the replacements. At least it would be a break from all that '60s rhetoric we've been hearing from the players and their allies. Gary Bettman may not be any bargain as a commissioner, but we've heard enough from the jocks deriding the "suits." Tom Golisano is a "suit," and there wouldn't be any Buffalo Sabres without him. Arthur Levitt, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, used to have a sterling reputation before he was brought in as an impartial auditor of the hockey books. By the time the players got through trashing him you would have thought Levitt should be doing the perp walk.
Maybe the NHL players who have found jobs in Europe and Asia will learn to love it there, stay to work and make North America their summer retreat. AK Bars Kazan is the team for which Buffalo defenseman Alexei Zhitnik plays in the Republic of Tatarstan. The team paid about $15 million to sign at-large NHL players. You can buy a ticket to see them play for $5. The concession stands sell a cup of tea for 20 cents. If things go well, the AK Bars Kazan revenue may reach $1 million, $14 million less than its payroll.
I wonder if they do background checks on the owners in Russia.
Larry Felser, former News columnist, appears in Sunday's editions.
By LARRY FELSER
3/13/2005
So the hockey talks are on again. So what?
Wayne Gretzky, who's close to what's happening, says the owners and players are starting over from Square One. Whoop-de-do! The closest they got to some sort of settlement in the past was the owners' insistence that $42.5 million for a salary cap was their top offer and the insistence of Players' Association boss Bob Goodenow that $49 million was the players' rock-bottom concession.
Of course, that last-ditch number from Goodenow, offered just before the season evaporated, was the first time he accepted the inevitability of any salary cap. The owners had insisted on a salary cap in order to operate with cost certainty. If it's accurate that these renewed talks do begin at "Square One," then the players' concession about the cap has evaporated also.
What the owners are talking about now are replacement players.
Jerry Jacobs, the Buffalo resident who owns the Boston Bruins, alluded to the possibility without mentioning the word "replacements" in an interview with Bucky Gleason of The Buffalo News last month. Gretzky brought up the probability of replacement players by that name Thursday.
"Replacement players" is a dirty phrase in sports because of the 1987 NFL players' strike. Replacement quarterback Willie Totten is still in the Bills' record book for the most fumbles in a game, five. He's also tied for second-most fumbles, four, in his next game. That was replacement football.
However, putting a hockey team together is a lot different than putting one together for football, which has terminology that differs from team to team, precise pass routes, precise steps by the offensive linemen, and the emphasis on timing.
Hockey, like baseball or basketball, takes less time to put together a respectable team, especially if all your opponents are in the same situation. Besides, considering the brand of hockey that has cursed the NHL for the last decade, who would notice the difference in replacements from the real thing?
In the Bills' last replacement game of the '87 strike, against the Giants, coach Marv Levy chided his center, Will Grant, at halftime for being penalized three times in two quarters. Grant, who had come out of retirement to become a replacement player, protested. "Considering that I've been holding on every play, Marv," argued Grant, "three penalties isn't bad."
In today's NHL, the game is soiled by the equivalent of holding on every play with its neutral-zone trap, interference and mugging of the best players. That all started when the league expanded willy-nilly, and bad teams found that slowing down or nullifying talented teams was the only way to keep them competitive.
Bring on the replacements. At least it would be a break from all that '60s rhetoric we've been hearing from the players and their allies. Gary Bettman may not be any bargain as a commissioner, but we've heard enough from the jocks deriding the "suits." Tom Golisano is a "suit," and there wouldn't be any Buffalo Sabres without him. Arthur Levitt, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, used to have a sterling reputation before he was brought in as an impartial auditor of the hockey books. By the time the players got through trashing him you would have thought Levitt should be doing the perp walk.
Maybe the NHL players who have found jobs in Europe and Asia will learn to love it there, stay to work and make North America their summer retreat. AK Bars Kazan is the team for which Buffalo defenseman Alexei Zhitnik plays in the Republic of Tatarstan. The team paid about $15 million to sign at-large NHL players. You can buy a ticket to see them play for $5. The concession stands sell a cup of tea for 20 cents. If things go well, the AK Bars Kazan revenue may reach $1 million, $14 million less than its payroll.
I wonder if they do background checks on the owners in Russia.
Larry Felser, former News columnist, appears in Sunday's editions.
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