What Stanely Cup Final?

In a book I’m reading (again) on the business history of the NFL, the league’s commissioner, Pete Rozelle, said that if his teams or his league was being talked about on the business pages of the newspaper rather than the sports pages, his league was in a lot of trouble. On the surface, the NHL is going to be in a lot of trouble as a fine Stanley Cup final series (Globe and Mail) is being overshadowed by a court case in that hotbed of hockey, Phoenix (Toronto Star). But the further you go into this issue, the worse it gets for everybody involved.

First of all, we have to understand that what’s happening with the NHL is the result not of capitalism, but a financial, oligarchic, cartel. Anybody with a lick of business sense – at least those who weren’t writing off the team’s losses as a tax dodge – would understand that it’s easier to make money in a hockey market than it is in a non-hockey market.

Now, I’m no lawyer, and I don’t pretend to understand all the ins and outs of the legal issues involving the sale of the ex-Jets to the Blackberry Man. But there seems to be two contradictory trains of thought when capitalism meets a business oligarchy – as a capitalist, the owner of the team can do whatever the hell he wants with his own property, while the oligarchy has the right to set the rules and force the capitalist to play by their own rules.

The judge has brought in what is the real reason why the NHL doesn’t want to move the team – they want the league to expand. God knows why, from a hockey aesthetic sense – 30 teams are too many, and most non-playoff hockey games are filled with little more than highly-paid shinny. Even with the collapse of the Iron Curtain, and players from the Czech Republic, Russia, and Sweden coming to North America, there aren’t enough good players to fill the current rosters, and every team has five or six palookas who would be in the Wild Goose Hockey League if it wasn’t for the fact that Gary Bettman thinks the league should be expanding all the time.

So, the judge has asked the league to put a price tag on Hamilton’s territorial rights. My bet is that the NHL will put up a massive dollar figure to try to force Basillie out of the game – a massive poker bluff. And if the judge says, that’s too high, what then? (Steve Simmons, Toronto Sun, in a – surprisingly for him – literate and researched column).

What’s the real disaster scenario? Let’s say the relocation goes through. The Jets/Coyotes make big money in Hamilton. Suddenly, many owners who (a) have backed Bettman and (b) own teams in the southern States suddenly want to pick up and move stakes north of the border – Winnipeg, Quebec City, maybe Halifax, maybe Saskatoon, and at least one or two more in Toronto proper. Bettman’s dreams for the NHL to become a major American league are dust: the established Canadian teams are unwilling to share more of the lucrative television contract, and attempts to get American corporate support dry up in the instability, screwing up the bottom lines of many of the remaining American franchises. In the ensuing carnage Bettman will not only be removed as commissioner but possibly also be sued for negligence: the new league commissioner will come in in the midst of a boardroom revolt, and internal fighting will create a boardroom ‘China Syndrome’ that’ll set the NHL back, on a business standpoint, for a generation.

More NHL teams in Canada will, in the end, increase the NHL’s bottom line and lead to a more stable and profitable league (barring another Canadian dollar nosedive). But Bettman and most of the NHL can’t think that far ahead. Hell, I don’t think their thought processes could take them through an entire NHL season.