Commissioner Gary Bettman's address last month to a group of
powerful Canadian business leaders on the troubled state of
their country's six NHL franchises was an embarrassment. Bettman
stood at a lectern in the plush Royal York hotel in Toronto with
a mammoth Canadian flag behind him and implied that Canada's
government was responsible for the financial hardships of those
clubs. The 25-minute speech was a rehearsal for a talk Bettman
was to deliver on Tuesday to a parliamentary subcommittee that
is reviewing hockey at all levels in Canada.
Bettman was rightfully concerned that three of the Canadian
teams—the Flames, the Oilers and the Senators—are struggling,
and his vow that he will "not allow Canada's great gift to the
world to be diminished in its home country" was admirable. But
it's hard to take him seriously. He downplayed both the sharp
increase in NHL salaries (up 263% since 1991) and the sharp
decline in the Canadian dollar (at week's end it was worth 70
cents U.S.) as significant factors in the teams' troubles.
Instead, Bettman cited "pressing issues of building control
[and] taxation" as the NHL's main concerns.
He lectured the businessmen about the huge tax breaks and
subsidized arenas U.S. municipalities often afford hockey
franchises, while adding that Canada's governments do no such
thing. The Senators, he pointed out, pay $3 million annually in
municipal taxes—more than the 20 U.S. teams combined.
That appeal for government help was presumptuous and disturbing
for Canadians because Bettman, a U.S. citizen, is essentially
telling their country how to run its affairs. Canada taxes all
residents at a much higher rate than America does and needs the
revenue for such national hallmarks as socialized medicine and
its well-supported public-education system. "The U.S. shouldn't
be subsidizing those puck-flipping jocks," says University of
Toronto professor emeritus John Crispo, an expert on political
economy. "Thank god our municipalities aren't doing that to the
same extent."
The fate of the three teams is important to the NHL because
Canadian markets are the only ones where hockey is the top game
in town and because Canada still produces 61% of the NHL's
players. In the wake of the Nordiques' move from Quebec to
Colorado in 1995 and the Jets' defection from Winnipeg to
Phoenix in '96, the league adopted an assistance plan to aid
struggling Canadian franchises. While the Flames, Oilers and
Senators each received $2.5 million from that pool this season,
that's a small sum for franchises that could lose double that
amount or more in each of the next several seasons.
The best solution would be for the NHL to institute some form of
revenue sharing among its teams, but the players' union, headed
by Detroit-born Bob Goodenow, has expressed no interest in
making sacrifices to aid Canada's teams. Bettman either has to
take on Goodenow or divert more of the NHL's wealth to its
neediest cases.
Issue date: May 4, 1998
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