Meant to post on this over the weekend, but the NHLPA began a “shock and awe” campaign over the weekend to try to end the hockey lockout and save at least a part of the season. Frankly, this is about when the hockey season should be getting started anyway, so to me this is about right as far as timing. However, although I love the strategy, it will probably fail.
The strategy is simply this: offer huge wage concessions, but instead of a salary cap offer a “luxury tax” formula that will hopefully help owners control themselves (it won’t). This gets the media squarely on your side (we’re offering to cut our pay by a quarter, single-handedly saving the marginal teams and getting costs in line) without changing the fundamental economics of the game (a good chunk of the 24% pay cut would probably go away as salaries are bid up under the new agreement and there would remain no cap on spending).
The NHL saw the tactic for what it was – a public relations ploy. The proposal was a complete surprise to management and followed immediately by a press conference where details of the plan were intricately laid out to the media. One thing is certain, however. Negotiations are back on, and hockey is back into the American (it probably never left the Canadian) consciousness. It doesn’t look like management is going to take the bait, but we’ll see. Talking is definitely better than the alternative.
