Joe Starkey: NHL Players Better Wake Up

By Joe Starkey
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Saturday, February 5, 2005

The argument against the NHL players can be fairly characterized in one sentence:
Chris Pronger makes $10 million.

OK, Pronger actually receives $10,000 per month in union-generated lockout pay. The point is that the St. Louis Blues -- essentially at gunpoint -- signed Pronger to a one-year, $10 million contract last July.

Yeah, right around the time the players were insisting that the market was "correcting itself."

More accurately, around the time union boss Bob Goodenow was telling the players to insist that the market was correcting itself.

See, the players don't think for themselves. If they did, they would vote on the NHL's latest proposal or maybe work to improve their lot within the limits of that proposal, which featured, among other things, a minimum $32 million payroll per team.

The Columbus Blue Jackets had a $32 million payroll last season, and nobody had to subsist on Ramen Noodles.

In fact, more than half of Columbus' opening-day roster (12 players) made at least $1 million. Three made at least $3 million and six "earned" $2 million-plus (including defenseman Luke Richardson, who was minus-11 with six points in 64 games)

Not a single player was ticketed for less than $425,000, not even Chris Pronger's brother, Sean, who was coming off a season in which he had 13 points and a minus-26 rating in 78 games.

Need proof that players don't have a real say in their plight?

Check this out:
A few days after the union announced a surprising proposal that called for a 24-percent rollback on existing contracts, Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik said, "A lot of us learned about it through the media."

Hmmm. Do you think Goodenow and his executive committee -- composed of hilariously overpaid players such as Bill Guerin (2003-04 salary: $8.7 million; times he's reached 70 points: once) -- might have had the courtesy to clear a 24-percent pay cut with their constituents?

Meantime, go stand at any bus stop in America and ask 10 people to identify Chris Pronger. If more than one can do it, you've got a scoop.

Pronger is a very good player, but nobody in this league should be making $10 million, even if some misguided owner offers as much.

One other thing about that $32 million minimum payroll -- it implies significant revenue sharing among owners. How else would low-revenue teams such as the Penguins be expected survive while radically increasing their payrolls to meet minimum standards?

The owners must have a fairly extensive revenue-sharing plan. They better.

Goodenow keeps telling everyone that the players merely want to continue to work in a free-market system. Truth is, there never was a free-market system.

Not when so many players were guaranteed a 10-percent raise regardless of their production. Not when players could go to arbitration and win inflated contracts based on their peers' salaries (instead of what owners would have chosen to pay). Not when there was a minimum salary.

As for Pronger, the Blues had to offer him the same $9.5 million salary he made last season if they wanted to retain his rights. They did so (imagine the outcry if they hadn't) and threw in a $500,000 signing bonus.

"Owners have the ability to determine player values," Goodenow has said, "and to decide what they're going to compensate the players for."

Fair enough. And unless I'm missing something, the owners determined a few months back that every player's value is $0 (just like the league's network television contract) and decided that none would be compensated until a fiscally sane CBA emerged.

Hey, maybe this is a free-market system after all.

Joe Starkey is a sports writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be reached at jstarkey@tribweb.com