NHLPA director Paul Kelly makes his position clear in this interview from the Hamilton Spectator, posted yesterday...
'Time to pull the plug': NHLPA
Steve Milton, The Hamilton Spectator, June 4, 2009
The leader of the NHL Players' Association may not overtly support a league franchise in Hamilton, but he's very blunt about what should happen to the one in Phoenix.
"From a players' perspective, it's time to pull the plug," NHLPA executive-director Paul Kelly told The Spectator last night.
Kelly says that NHL owners should not only be doubting that the Coyotes should remain in Phoenix, but that those doubts should have arisen long before now.
Earlier in the day, speaking on Toronto radio station The Fan, Kelly wondered: "How much money must (a franchise) lose before someone says "perhaps they ought not to be there?"
However, Kelly would not go so far as to back Jim Balsillie's bid to transfer the Coyotes to Hamilton: even though he's known to look favourably Balsillie's membership as an NHL owner.
"We don't formally endorse or support the current effort to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario," Kelly told The Fan. "That's not to say we're against it either, but we are neutral."
It is no secret that the NHLPA wants more input into where franchises are relocated, or where any future expansion teams will be placed.
Because the union became "an economic partner" with the NHL "in a joint venture" when it was forced after the bitter lockout of 2004-05 to accept a salary cap based on a percentage (54 to 57 per cent) of the NHL's overall hockey-related revenue, Kelly and the PA say it's important to the players that the teams are located in the most profitable areas.
That push actually pre-dates Kelly, who became executive- director in mid-October 2007. Two weeks earlier, NHLPA counsel Ian Penny became the first union executive to openly comment on the issue when he told The Spectator that the union would seek more input on franchise location.
The current collective bargaining agreement, which expires in September 2012, but could end a year earlier if the union triggers an exit clause, gives the players no input into franchise location, but Kelly told The Spec, "that's a topic for down the road when we have the next CBA discussions. We're not going to change that landscape right now."
Still, the players are deeply concerned about the financial bloodbath in Phoenix -- they weren't told of the league's season-long financial help to the team until three months ago -- and the NHL's steadfast, and increasingly mocked, determination to keep a team there.
"I understand the loyalty factor," said Kelly who intimated that the union has been privy to some even worse financial reports about Phoenix than those which have been made public. "But we don't have just a passing interest here. It's a franchise which keeps losing money. You can't keep saying 'we owe it to our fans.' In the examples we have been given (of teams making a financial turnaround) -- 'Look at the Chicago Blackhawks, Look at the Detroit Red Wings'-- you're comparing apples to oranges."
Earlier, he explained to radio host Bob McCown why the players want to have some influence in franchise relocation:
"Let's just talk in hypotheticals. If you've got a franchise which is making $25 million of their own revenue a year, before league-wide revenues, that impacts all players because we get a certain percentage of revenues for salary. If that team was pulled out and substituted by a team which makes $100 (million) to $125 million a year, salaries are going up."
Kelly says there is no doubt a second team in the GTA would be highly profitable and sustainable over a long period.
He hinted that Hamilton might be a problem because of its proximity to Buffalo.
"There is some concern," he conceded. "We want all our franchises to be healthy."
Kelly also said that he'd spoken with TV officials who felt that if broad geographical stretches of the United States, such as the southwest and southeast -- where most of the troubled franchises are located -- were abandoned by the NHL, the league would have trouble landing a lucrative national TV deal in the United States. That has been an implied factor in the NHL's continued push into the Sunbelt since the early 1990s.
Kelly said that it may be acceptable for an owner to absorb large losses, such as the Coyotes, for a year or two, but that when it's occurred over a number of years, and there's a buyer with Balsillie's desire and dollars in the wings, it's time to wave goodbye.
"Yet we continually hear we have to stick by the franchise," he said. "There is some sense of frustration on the part of the players as they read sworn court documents as to how far down it's gone in Phoenix."
smilton@thespec.com
'Time to pull the plug': NHLPA
Steve Milton, The Hamilton Spectator, June 4, 2009
The leader of the NHL Players' Association may not overtly support a league franchise in Hamilton, but he's very blunt about what should happen to the one in Phoenix.
"From a players' perspective, it's time to pull the plug," NHLPA executive-director Paul Kelly told The Spectator last night.
Kelly says that NHL owners should not only be doubting that the Coyotes should remain in Phoenix, but that those doubts should have arisen long before now.
Earlier in the day, speaking on Toronto radio station The Fan, Kelly wondered: "How much money must (a franchise) lose before someone says "perhaps they ought not to be there?"
However, Kelly would not go so far as to back Jim Balsillie's bid to transfer the Coyotes to Hamilton: even though he's known to look favourably Balsillie's membership as an NHL owner.
"We don't formally endorse or support the current effort to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario," Kelly told The Fan. "That's not to say we're against it either, but we are neutral."
It is no secret that the NHLPA wants more input into where franchises are relocated, or where any future expansion teams will be placed.
Because the union became "an economic partner" with the NHL "in a joint venture" when it was forced after the bitter lockout of 2004-05 to accept a salary cap based on a percentage (54 to 57 per cent) of the NHL's overall hockey-related revenue, Kelly and the PA say it's important to the players that the teams are located in the most profitable areas.
That push actually pre-dates Kelly, who became executive- director in mid-October 2007. Two weeks earlier, NHLPA counsel Ian Penny became the first union executive to openly comment on the issue when he told The Spectator that the union would seek more input on franchise location.
The current collective bargaining agreement, which expires in September 2012, but could end a year earlier if the union triggers an exit clause, gives the players no input into franchise location, but Kelly told The Spec, "that's a topic for down the road when we have the next CBA discussions. We're not going to change that landscape right now."
Still, the players are deeply concerned about the financial bloodbath in Phoenix -- they weren't told of the league's season-long financial help to the team until three months ago -- and the NHL's steadfast, and increasingly mocked, determination to keep a team there.
"I understand the loyalty factor," said Kelly who intimated that the union has been privy to some even worse financial reports about Phoenix than those which have been made public. "But we don't have just a passing interest here. It's a franchise which keeps losing money. You can't keep saying 'we owe it to our fans.' In the examples we have been given (of teams making a financial turnaround) -- 'Look at the Chicago Blackhawks, Look at the Detroit Red Wings'-- you're comparing apples to oranges."
Earlier, he explained to radio host Bob McCown why the players want to have some influence in franchise relocation:
"Let's just talk in hypotheticals. If you've got a franchise which is making $25 million of their own revenue a year, before league-wide revenues, that impacts all players because we get a certain percentage of revenues for salary. If that team was pulled out and substituted by a team which makes $100 (million) to $125 million a year, salaries are going up."
Kelly says there is no doubt a second team in the GTA would be highly profitable and sustainable over a long period.
He hinted that Hamilton might be a problem because of its proximity to Buffalo.
"There is some concern," he conceded. "We want all our franchises to be healthy."
Kelly also said that he'd spoken with TV officials who felt that if broad geographical stretches of the United States, such as the southwest and southeast -- where most of the troubled franchises are located -- were abandoned by the NHL, the league would have trouble landing a lucrative national TV deal in the United States. That has been an implied factor in the NHL's continued push into the Sunbelt since the early 1990s.
Kelly said that it may be acceptable for an owner to absorb large losses, such as the Coyotes, for a year or two, but that when it's occurred over a number of years, and there's a buyer with Balsillie's desire and dollars in the wings, it's time to wave goodbye.
"Yet we continually hear we have to stick by the franchise," he said. "There is some sense of frustration on the part of the players as they read sworn court documents as to how far down it's gone in Phoenix."
smilton@thespec.com