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Wednesday, November 22, 2000
Union, management disagree on influence
By Rob Parent
Special to ESPN.com
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In 1995, Lewis Gross brokered a deal for a previously unheralded player who
had just experienced a sudden taste of stardom in Philadelphia. Five years at a total of $7.5 million.
To John LeClair, who had just scored 25 goals in 37 games with the Flyers after being traded from Montreal -- but had never scored more than 19 goals in a full season before that -- it
seemed a fair deal that would offer him a lifetime of security.
But when he scored 50 goals in each of the next three seasons, it looked
like LeClair's secure contract had left him badly shortchanged. And it's a deal people still talk about.
"That contract," one agent said, "was something they held up as an example of what not to do."
The "they" is the NHLPA and the debate today -- with players like LeClair, Joe Sakic and Rob Blake heading for unrestricted free agenncy -- is how much influence is the Players' Association having with negotiations.
But Gross said a perception -- perhaps created by NHL management and fortified by the media --
resulting from his LeClair deal, and others since, has been blown way out of
proportion, namely how involved other parties are in contemporary negotiations. To listen to the talk, Gross notes, you'd think that LeClair, Sakic and Blake can't sign another contract without the expressed, written consent of the NHLPA chief Bob Goodenow and his subsidiary overseers.
Makes for a good story, no?
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What's happening here is the PA is putting all this pressure on (the agents). They (the union) say that's not true, but we know it is. ” |
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— Anonymous NHL team executive on NHLPA involvement in contracts. |
"It's preposterous," Gross said. "It's always something that is said about
big-name players. It's usually older players who have been through a lot and
experienced a lot of success. So to think that we're dictating to these
individuals what they should decide about financial security for their
families is ridiculous. The PA can give them advice, but to think they're
telling them what to do? No.
"I have not spoken to (Sakic's agent) Don Baizley in well over a year. I
have not spoken to (Blake's agent) Ron Salcer in about a year. To think that
we have the same plan with the PA with those clients is totally ridiculous."
Of course, there is another perspective. One favored by management types
who don't mind promoting the opinion that their league is going to hell in a
handbasket due to skyrocketing salaries.
"What's happening here is the PA is putting all this pressure on (the
agents)," said a NHL management source who wished to be anonymous. "They (the
union) say that's not true, but we know it is."
Consider that none of the three aforementioned elite-level players (Sakic, Blake, LeClair) could reach
an agreement on a long-term deal in the past year. Consider all of them are
scheduled to be unrestricted free agents in July. And know that insiders say
renewed efforts this week by Flyers president Bob Clarke to meet with Gross
and try to tie LeClair down for another four years will prove fruitless.
Though he and his agent refuse to comment on his contract difficulties,
LeClair was said to be troubled by the very public and messy war last year
-- and again last week -- conducted between Clarke and his good buddy Lindros.
Then to top it off, LeClair went through an arbitration hearing in which he
had to listen to the contents of a brief prepared by his team which, in part,
described LeClair as a "one-faceted player" and "weak defensively."
"There's no hard feelings on my part, and I don't think on (management's)
part," said LeClair. "This is just part of the game. It's not part of hockey,
it's the other part of the business, which as a player, it's not great to be
involved in. But I know from my standpoint, there's no hard feelings at all."
Privately, however, things weren't so easily glossed over. LeClair was
said to be seething afterward, so much so that he saw the prospect of impending unrestricted
free agency in a much more attractive light.
|  | | LeClair proved his toughness for the Flyers, but in arbitration, the team questioned him more than most thought appropriate. |
Said one executive familiar with what was in the Flyers' brief: "Not only
did it send a message to other guys on that team, but news travels fast. The
whole league knew right away what was in that arbitration brief from Clarke.
They couldn't believe it. You see a guy like LeClair, he takes a gash in the
playoffs that would put most people in bed for two months, and the next day
he's out on the ice.
"Look at him -- he's a mess. He's a true Flyer. He's what that team is all
about. All those guys take shots for injuries and work their tails off. And
then, after all that, he comes into the arbitration to listen to his team say
he's not appreciated?"
"That's just the way the lawyers do things," Clarke countered. "John
understands that's all part of the process. And he knows how good we feel
about him as a player. Arbitration's tough. It's a solution, but it's not a
good process."
Perhaps that's why Sakic avoided it by signing a one-year, $7.9 million
deal during the summer. Like LeClair in Philadelphia, the presumption in
Denver is that this will be Sakic's last season with the Avalanche. Not that
anyone's thinking that aloud.
This is the way things seem to be getting done with the top players who
look to drive the market up next year. Delay the process until they're
free to strike it rich. Where they do so apparently doesn't matter.
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We also want to make sure the player understands the impact of his contract on other negotiations. That's simply how the marketplace works. The top players determine what the market is -- how it's going to impact two years down the road or four years down the road. So it's really an arm's length negotiation for us. ” |
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— NHLPA Dir. Bob Goodenow on the union's involvement in contract negotiations. |
"But if that's so," NHLPA executive director Bob
Goodenow said, "it's their own individual decision.
"One of the functions of the PA is to provide help to players and agents
in making business decisions," said Goodenow, a former minor league hockey
player, graduate of Harvard Law and player agent himself. "If agents call us
and ask our opinion on certain negotiations, we'll provide them that. But our
goal is to help management and the players reach a conclusion they're
satisfied with.
"We also want to make sure the player understands the impact of his
contract on other negotiations. That's simply how the marketplace works. The
top players determine what the market is -- how it's going to impact two years
down the road or four years down the road. So it's really an arm's length
negotiation for us."
What the PA doesn't do, Goodenow and his agents-in-arms say, is use any
strongarm tactics -- be they gentle words or idle threats -- on agents to
extend negotiations in an effort to bleed teams or hold them hostage.
"What really precipitated the PA-agent relationship that has benefited the
players so much was Bob's feeling that knowledge was confidence, knowledge
was influence, and we should share the knowledge," said agent Rick Curran, a
former NHLPA executive under Alan Eagleson. "Up to that point (in the early
1990s), the league was in a vacuum. Bob's greatest contribution to the cause
was saying, 'Look, you can compete with each other, but it's ridiculous that
you don't share information.'
"That was the single most critical factor for players achieving salaries
commensurate with what the market was dictating."
Curran was making an important delineation between shared information,
which is what the NHLPA claims it employs, and exerting direct influence on
negotiations, which is management's definition of what the union specializes
in.
"To me, it's player driven and the PA tends to be unfairly represented by
the teams as saying it is interfering," hockey agent Steve Mountain said. "I
think it's all overstated. The PA befriends the player, not the agents. To
me, the agents do the dirty work."
Though in his capacity as union chief, Goodenow essentially works for the
players, that doesn't mean he always has to agree with their causes. Witness
the holdout last year of Ottawa's Alexei Yashin, an action which eventually
wound up in court, where Yashin failed in his plea to have a full year away from the
ice count against his eligibility for Group II free agency.
But those deaf ears first had to listen to Bob Goodenow argue for the
vacationing plaintiff.
"Bob and I talked about it a lot, and Bob talked several times personally
with Alexei during that time," said agent Mark Gandler. "Bob advised us not
to do it (hold out). Bob never wants a player under contract to sit out. But
by the same token, Bob and the players association are always going to
support a player.
"I'm sure the headache we gave Bob was immense. I'm sure Bob and the
Association had other things to do. But it's also the players' right to
protest under the CBA whether Bob agrees with the player's decision or not.
So Bob felt compelled to support our argument, that Alexei's contract should
have been allowed to continue to run while he was away."
If that rankled the fans, so be it. If it strengthened the argument that
Goodenow and the office he runs wields too much power ... maybe
that's not so completely wrong.
But since when isn't being right worth some might?
"Goodenow and his staff are very good at making us aware of what's going
on," said one NHL agent. "But I don't sense or feel any unnecessary pressure
from them. Throughout the years, I've never had the feeling they were trying
to run my business for me. After all, if they were trying to do that, why
would John LeClair have signed the two bad contracts right in a row like he
did?"
Now let's not get into that again, OK?
Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. His NHL East column appears every week on ESPN.com.
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ALSO SEE
Parent: Goodenow, keeper of NHLPA
Goodenow bio: The skinny on NHLPA leader
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