Getting a new CBA without a lockout is bad, actually: The Contrarian returns

New York Times

19 hours ago

It's late July, we're two months away from games that matter, and NHL GMs have apparently taken the rest of the summer off. Let's get Contrarian.
This is the feature where you send in your most obvious takes, and I tell you that you're wrong, whether I believe it or not. In the past, we've made the case that Mark Messier was a great Canuck, Ray Bourque's Cup win was bad, but Brett Hull's crease goal was good and Bobby Orr's flying goal photo is overrated. Last time, we made the case for Alex Ovechkin being an overrated bum, and also for Alex Ovechkin being an underrated legend, because we're flexible like that.
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This time, we've got a new CBA, an old legend and everything in between. Let's dive in.
Note: Submissions have been edited for clarity and style.
The NHL and NHLPA agreeing on a new CBA quickly and without any work-stoppage drama is a good thing. — Kevin S.
On the contrary, Kevin S., you twit. Unless, of course, you're an owner.
Are you an owner, Kevin? Are you?
Because if not, you should be concerned about what we just saw play out. We had the two sides of this multibillion-dollar industry come together, and the result was a one-sided victory for the owners, one that appeared to come with next to no resistance from the players. Sure, they got a few minor concessions in the form of payroll taxes and an increased playoff fund. But in today's NHL, those 'wins' represent pennies on the dollar. Meanwhile, the owners got more games, shorter contracts and smaller bonuses. And they'll keep all the coming expansion money, a multibillion-dollar windfall that the players didn't even seem to try to get a piece of.
And sure, you can see why it played out that way. After all, this is Gary Bettman's NHL, where history shows us how these things usually go. If the players try to stand up for themselves, even a little, Bettman shuts everything down. Sometimes the players win, sometimes they lose, and sometimes nobody's even sure, but it always comes with a cost in a league where careers are short. When it comes to work stoppages, Bettman isn't bluffing. He's proven that over the years. So why even try?
The position was summed up perfectly by a player quoted in this excellent piece. 'What can we do? There can't be another lockout,' the player said. 'Those don't go our way. It's better to get it done.'
'What can we do?' indeed. That's rational, on some level. But it's not healthy. And it's not fair to the players, who are the reason we watch this league. Nobody thinks that Marty Walsh should have come in with guns blazing, trying to recreate the animosity of the Bob Goodenow era. But if this were a hockey fight, it sure looks like the owners wiggled their gloves and the players immediately turtled.
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After three decades of Bettman's 'shut it down' approach, we now have labor peace. But that peace apparently just means the players roll over without any sign of a fight, while the owners tilt the ice even further at every opportunity. That's good news for fans who just wanted to watch hockey without hearing from the accountants and mediators. But it's not a good thing for the game.
The 4 Nations Face-Off was an overwhelming success for the NHL. — James
On the contrary, James, you clodpoll.
Was it fun? Of course. Did it blow away expectations? I'd say so. Did the best team win? Indisputably.
But that last bit is the problem. You're talking about what's best for the NHL. And when it comes to best-on-best tournaments, here's what's best for the NHL: Team USA finally winning one of these things.
That's it. That's what needs to happen. If you could hook Bettman and friends and up to lie detectors, they'd tell you that's the whole point. From the league's perspective, shutting down a season for a best-on-best showdown is ultimately a marketing exercise. And when it comes to marketing this sport in the USA, only one result moves the needle. And Team Canada winning — again, like they always do — isn't it.
Short of a Team USA win, this year's tournament delivered everything you could ask for, including a signature moment: The infamous Nine Seconds from the round robin, the rare hockey game that seemed to take over the sports discourse for days. Fans of other sports were hooked because what they were watching didn't look anything like the leagues they were used to.
Unfortunately, it didn't look much like the modern NHL either, meaning that wild night in Montreal couldn't draw in new fans on its own. The tournament needed the right outcome, and it didn't get it.
American sports fans will dip in to sample best-on-best hockey, as the record ratings for the 4 Nations final show. But they want to see a happy ending. They didn't get it this year, just like they didn't in 2002 or 2010 or any other year beyond 1996, which is too long ago to matter. And that's why they don't stick around. Less than four months later, we got a Stanley Cup Final featuring a rematch between Connor McDavid, who scored the OT winner, and Matthew Tkachuk, who worked hard to make himself the face of Team USA. Nobody watched.
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(Well, they watched in Canada, as they always do. But the NHL has been clear over the years: When it comes to Canada, the only priority is to cash as big a check as possible from Sportsnet every decade or so. Beyond that, they couldn't care less.)
The bottom line: There's a reason that the typical American sports fan still thinks a round-robin upset from 1980 is the most important hockey game ever played. Until a Team USA can deliver that sort of moment again, nothing is going to be a 'success' for the NHL, in any way that matters to league leadership. American players can keep kicking the can down the road, always telling us that the next tournament is the one that matters. But eventually, they're going to need to do more than talk a good game.
The decentralized draft was awful, and the GMs of this league proved their incompetence by voting for its return. — Jackson S.
On the contrary, Jackson, you dumbbell.
I mean, you're right about the first part — the decentralized draft that we all watched a few weeks ago was, indeed, awful. I wrote that at the time, and not many of you disagreed.
But was it awful because it was a decentralized draft? Or was it awful because it was the first decentralized draft (of the modern era, that wasn't forced on us by a pandemic)? Or did the NHL just try a few things that didn't work, in a way they can learn from and fix for next year's edition?
The answer is we don't know. But we'll find out, because they're doing it again next year.
That's upset some fans, especially the kind of whiny babies who never like anything. But the reality is that we had decades of centralized drafts and one year of the alternative. We can't know if the new way can work. All we know is that it didn't, once.
The league deserves a chance to ditch the cringey Zoom interviews, figure out a way to speed things along and try again. If that one stinks, then fine, attack the GMs if they insist on sticking with it. Just not yet.
Comment sections are trash. — Paul W.
On the contrary, Paul, you (tries to think of the most insulting label possible), commenter.
Comment sections can be great … sometimes. If I had to guess, I'd bet that 90 percent of the commenters on a typical post of mine are pretty cool, even if they don't agree with what they've just read.
Of course, that number can get a lot higher depending on whose post it is and what the subject matter might be. I generally get to play on easy mode, because how fired up can you really get over stuff like this? I've seen some really interesting discussions break out in my comment sections, not to mention having some really neat suggestions for future posts.
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But it doesn't take much to ruin the vibe, even if 90 percent of people are cool — nobody's fine with 10 percent turd content in their punchbowl. And yeah, some of you are just weird. That includes the garden variety trolls and those who've made a permanent state of grievance into their whole personality. It also includes some sports- and hockey-specific types, like the super-homers, or the 'slow news day?' slugs, or the Leaf-pilled anti-fans who make everything about one team and then complain about it, or the single-issue obsessives, or the stick-to-sports losers, or Bruins fans. It is what it is.
So what can you do? Not much, unfortunately. You can ignore the troll, upvote the first guy telling them they're an idiot, and then move on. (Piling on in the same thread just makes it look like that comment is the most important one on the piece.) Other than that, just be cool, remind yourself that we're talking about a game here, and remember that sometimes it's OK to just not post anything.
That story about the Oilers learning how to win from the Islanders in 1983 is one of hockey's best. — Sean M.
On the contrary, Sean, you … wait, this is me. I'm submitting my own questions. That's kind of pathetic, but in my defense, I basically asked you guys to send this one in a few weeks ago and nobody took the bait.
So yeah, on the contrary, Sean, you absolute beauty. The Oilers/Islanders story is bad, and we need to stop bringing it up every year at playoff time.
If you've somehow missed it, the story goes like this: It's 1983 and the upstart young Oilers are facing the Islanders in the Stanley Cup Final. They're the better team, in terms of regular-season record, and have all the pieces in place. But the Islanders are a dynasty, having won three straight Cups. Sure enough, the Isles sweep the series. After the deciding game, various Oilers players (including Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier in most tellings) walk by New York's dressing room, expecting to see a raucous celebration. Instead, they see a bunch of beaten-up players with ice packs, barely celebrating at all because of how much they've left on the ice. At that moment, the Oilers finally understand what it takes to be a winner, and they go on to beat those same Islanders one year later for the first of five Cups in seven years.
Here's Gretzky himself spinning the tale:
It's an awesome story. You can see why fans love it. It's also completely fake.
I mean, come on. Let's use some common sense. We're supposed to believe that the Islanders have just won the Stanley Cup, and they're all sitting in their locker room with the door open for some reason. Nobody's celebrating. Nobody's happy. They're just all strapping ice packs to their broken limbs or whatever, not even so much as cracking a beer, even though just a few minutes earlier they looked like this.
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You're buying that? Really? Because if so, I'm inviting you over to play the new Super Mario that I got from my uncle, who works at Nintendo.
Now, does this mean I'm calling Gretzky a liar? Not necessarily. He's not a historian, he's a storyteller, and he's going back 40-plus years for this one. He's not making things up out of nothing. I don't doubt that he may have walked past that room, and maybe things weren't as boisterous as he expected. He's just exaggerating, being dramatic and shaping a story over the decades in a way that plays best. But what he's describing didn't happen that way.
And if you don't believe me, why not ask somebody who was there: Islanders' legend Bryan Trottier. He was on a podcast a few months ago and mentioned the legend of the quiet dressing room. He says it's not true, or at least not accurate, the way Gretzky tells it. 'That's not the way we remember it,' he says. Instead, he says that somebody told the Islanders players when the Oilers were on their way past the room, so they quieted down the ongoing celebration out of respect for their opponent, not wanting to seem like they were rubbing it in. But they were celebrating. Of course they were. They'd just won the Stanley Cup!
That version makes sense, and squares with where Gretzky (and others) got this idea in the first place. But over the years, it's morphed into the Islanders' post-Cup room being a morgue. That's not true, it was never true, and it's not a good lesson about how to win. When you achieve a lifelong dream, you absolutely should celebrate. And the Islanders did.
You know who else did? The Oilers! If the story had really played out the way the modern version does, and was so instrumental to Edmonton learning how to win, shouldn't their celebrations have been muted? Instead, this is the team that invented the Cup handoffs and team photos and maybe did some other things.
Does that sound like a team that had learned that the key to winning was being too beat up to be happy about it? No, because that never happened. Let's stop pretending it did.
If you'd like to submit a take for future editions of The Contrarian, you can do that here.
(Photo of Islanders' Bryan Trottier hoisting the Stanley Cup in 1983: Bruce Bennett Studios via Getty Images Studios / Getty Images)