NHL lockout: Turn over the league's present and future to Brendan Shanahan

[Irishjim]

Jesse Spector Sporting News

On Mondays during the NHL lockout, Sporting News will present radical—and, in most cases improbable—proposals designed to get the league back on track and ensure its long-term health. The first in that series: Brendan Shanahan, hockey czar.

The NHL and NHLPA remain at loggerheads on the second day of the 2012 lockout, with the hockey world waiting to see how nasty things will get now that the last, best offers from before the old collective bargaining agreement expired have come off the table.

With negotiations that morphed into a game of chicken, with chest-thumping and browbeating from both sides turning into the public discourse, it remains unfathomably stupid that a multibillion-dollar industry is shut down over ego, greed, and percentage points. You could say that the time has come to get serious and make a deal, but you’d be wrong—that time was last week, and there were no formal negotiations between the league and union between Wednesday afternoon and the start of the lockout at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday.

What has been particularly galling to hockey fans caught in the middle of this mess is that the NHL and NHLPA seem more interested in blaming each other than in returning to the bargaining table. The system is so broken that you already have to wonder how the NHL will avoid another work stoppage at the end of a CBA that doesn’t even exist yet. The primary interest is self-interest, and unless that changes, hockey will be stuck in this self-destructive cycle until the NHL falls behind MLS, WNBA, and Major League Lacrosse in the North American pecking order.

There is a solution to all this, and it is to take CBA negotiations out of the hands of two sides who clearly do not trust each other.

Brendan Shanahan played in the NHL for 21 seasons, losing a 22nd to the 2004-05 lockout and eventually retiring in 2009, but not before building a reputation as a respected consensus builder; it was Shanahan who, during the darkest days of the last lockout, spearheaded a two-day summit in Toronto that brought together both sides of the disagreement to help lay out a plan for the post-lockout NHL.

The future Hall of Famer has worked in the league office since one month into his retirement, first as vice president of hockey and business development, and now as the head of the Department of Player Safety and the league’s chief disciplinarian. In his position with the league, Shanahan has worked with the NHLPA on safety issues, and there is no better candidate to step into the breach and restore sanity to the proceedings.

The point is not to ask Shanahan to analyze all the finances of the league and come up with a CBA on his own, but to revolutionize the way that relations work between the NHL and NHLPA.

In the spirit of getting the game on the right path, the league and union should agree to put aside 1 percent of hockey-related revenue per year to fund a new joint venture, which would be responsible for ensuring the health of not only the players, but the game. The money would pay hockey czar Shanahan and the staff that he would need—including an arbitrator to sort out the CBA—with anything left over to be donated to concussion research to help stamp out the scourge that has hockey in danger even before the men in suits muck it up further.

After selecting the CBA arbitrator and overseeing those proceedings, Shanahan’s role would include his current responsibilities, as the man in charge of NHL disciplinary decisions. It would be up to him, in concert with the league and union, to develop a fair appeals process, as well, something that has been sorely lacking. Doing so also would remove the stigma of the league’s current disciplinary system, seen as a tool of ownership.

The annual 1 percent of hockey-related revenue going to fund the hockey czar’s office would incentivize growth, which is good for everyone involved. Decisions on realignment, rule changes, and salary arbitration also would go through Shanahan and his lieutenants.

Shanahan would be what the public believes a commissioner should be: the person tasked with ensuring the future of the league and publicly accountable for what happens. What a commissioner really is, is Gary Bettman, a hard-edged negotiator who cares deeply about the game, but ultimately represents the owners, rather than the public trust—the reason, ostensibly, that Major League Baseball made Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis the first commissioner in sports in 1920. When athletes became unionized, the job changed forever, and it is time to finally recognize that.

With funding off the top of hockey-related revenue, the hockey czar would be beholden to neither the owners nor the players, and could make decisions that are in the interests of both parties, plus a third: fans. Given that all of this power now rests with the owners, including the power to lock out the players, it will not happen. But neither will the “partnership” that the NHL and NHLPA touted after the last lockout. If it did, players would be flocking to training camps this week instead of Europe.

[DinahMoeHumm]

Shanahan would be what the public believes a commissioner should be: the person tasked with ensuring the future of the league and publicly accountable for what happens.

Nicely done!

Sporting News will present radical—and, in most cases improbable—proposals designed to get the league back on track and ensure its long-term health.

I'd call this improbable only because the league would never let it happen. However, in my opinion the idea itself is actually a pretty good one. This might be the exact type of arrangement needed for a league who can't seem to get out of its own way. Further, Shanny wouldn't be a bad candidate to lead that type of "crusade." And this idea does dovetail nicely with player safety, at least as proposed in the article. Anyway, it'll never happen, but it's not a bad idea overall.

[radoran]

IMO, Shanahan's decisions have had the smooth consistency of rock salt.

The real "improbable" solution? Replace all the so-called "hockey people" at the NHL offices, from Bettman on down.

They are too close, too insulated and too concerned with the status quo to make any serious changes.

[DinahMoeHumm]

IMO, Shanahan's decisions have had the smooth consistency of rock salt.

The real "improbable" solution? Replace all the so-called "hockey people" at the NHL offices, from Bettman on down.

They are too close, too insulated and too concerned with the status quo to make any serious changes.

I can see your point, but I don't think that Shanahan currently has a system in place that allows for consistency. Heck, he may not ever get there. But, with a system like the article describes I think there'd be a better shot, and overall I do think Shanny has good intentions and wants to be fair. As it stands now, none of us have any idea of the "behind-closed-doors" pressures he may be facing.

As for changes in the NHL offices... I'm all for it. I'd say a combination of that and some of the things this article describes could go a long way toward helping the health, stability and consistency of the league.