FanHouse Paul Kelly

If the sport of professional ice hockey "has the best people," as People In Hockey like to tell each other all the time, then how come it's often a living hell to be a hockey fan?

Monday's kick in the rear came from the good people at the National Hockey League Players Association. Paul Kelly, the union's executive director for less than two years, was fired. Kelly's persona was of a peacemaker and dealmaker, of -- oh no! -- a gentleman.

The NHLPA announced early Monday morning that it had voted "overwhelmingly" to relieve executive director Paul Kelly of his duties after nearly two years on the job at the groups annual meeting in Chicago. According to TSN's Darren Dreger, Sunday's meeting lasted nearly 10 hours and consisted of heated debates. Kelly had held the position since October 31, 2007.

The NHLPA executive board issued the following statement in a press release:

"Following the Executive Board's review of the overall operation of the NHLPA, it was decided that Paul Kelly should no longer continue to serve as Executive Director. We appreciate Mr. Kelly's service to our Association."

All 24 fighters stepped on the scales Friday in Cologne, Germany, for an eventful UFC 99 weigh-in. The loudest cheers were for Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, who will have the crowd on his side fighting a day's drive from his home in Croatia. Wanderlei Silva, fighting at a catchweight of 195 pounds for the first time in the main event against Rich Franklin, looked chiseled as he stepped on the scale at one pound under the limit. And two shoving matches broke out during stare-downs featuring undercard fighters: Denis Stojnic and Stefan Struve got a little too close and UFC President Dana White had to break them up, and then Paul Kelly bumped heads with Rolando Delgado, prompting Delgado to respond with a hard push. White could be heard saying, "Don't put your hands on each other" when the next pair of fighters had their stare-down.

Video is here and full weigh-in results are below.

Last night between games on HNIC, NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly was interviewed by Ron MacLean (link to HD video of the entire interview). The first thing they discussed was the rumor that escrow payments made by the players would be rising from 13% of their pay to 17-20%. Kelly wouldn't say exactly how much the payment would rise, but he did answer in the affirmative that the 17-20% range was accurate.

It is the escrow system that allows for the NHL to have both guaranteed contracts and a Salary Cap tied to a percentage of revenues. What this rise in escrow means is that the players contracts in total will likely be much more than the 56.5% of league revenues for the year. It was already pretty much taken for granted from the beginning of the season that the 13% that was being taken out of their checks and held in escrow would be returned to the owners at year's end.

For those who follow the goings on in the financial markets closely, the recent rally in the US Dollar in terms of the trade-weighted index was quite an event, considering the extreme weakness of world's reserve currency over the past 7 years. The blast upwards to 76 on the index has some people proclaiming (and I'm not one of them, mind you) that the Bear Market in the dollar is over:

"This is the watershed week for the US dollar," said Marc Chandler, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. "The magnitude of the dollar's moves and the breaking of key technical levels suggest that a major shift in the outlook towards the dollar is occurring as massive positions are adjusted." Other analysts described the widespread buying of dollars as "capitulation"

One might be wondering what this has to do with the NHL, and, as the title of this post suggests, the salary cap? Allow me to build my case slowly if you would. Considering that according to this article in the Toronto Star I found at this post by my old blogging buddy the EclectEcon over at the Sportseconomist.com, the driving force behind the >10% rise in the salary cap for each of the past two seasons was the strengthening Canadian Dollar:

The increase in the value of the Canadian dollar may be responsible for as much as half of the league's revenue gains since the NHL went through the lockout of 2004-05, say several sources familiar with NHL finances.

"If you take out the Canadian teams, which have done so well since the lockout largely because of the Canadian dollar, the league's revenues are actually only growing at a 2 per cent clip per year," says an executive with a U.S.-based NHL team, who requested anonymity.

With the Loonie averaging near parity with the $USD over the past year and having broken down out of the box formation that held it in check between $1.02 and $0.97US for the past 9 months to its closing price as of this writing to $0.938, there is a real possibility of a contraction in league revenues due to this breakdown of the exchange rate.

While most of us in North America were trying to find a way to get away from the heat, Paul Kelly, head of the National Hockey League Players Association wasn't being chary about raising the heat when it came to the fight that's beginning to engulf international hockey.

On Saturday, Kelly released a statement protesting an action by the International Ice Hockey Federation suspending six players from international play, including Alexander Radulov, a Russian now currently under contract to play next season for the Nashville Predators in the NHL as well as Salavat Ulaef of the KHL.

Kelly's statement follows in full:

"Yesterday's announcement by the IIHF that they have suspended certain Players from international competition has no basis in fact or law, and constitutes a violation of the rights of these Players. The affected Players are being unfairly singled out in a dispute between the NHL and the KHL over whether to respect each others' contracts. The NHLPA's strong objection to this unilateral action by the IIHF has been registered, and unless this action is reversed, the NHLPA will consider all legal options available.

As has been previously reported, the IIHF, the KHL, the NHL, the NHLPA, and several IIHF Federation members met in Zurich, Switzerland on July 10th to discuss the issues existing between the NHL and KHL, as well as other international ice hockey matters. Contrary to public comment by various attendees, while the meeting was productive and progress was made in several areas, a transfer agreement was not reached by the parties. In the absence of a transfer agreement or a written memorandum of understanding agreed to by all necessary parties, including the NHLPA, the IIHF cannot unilaterally act to sanction members of the NHLPA.

The NHLPA appreciates that the IIHF is taking action in an attempt to resolve the dispute between the NHL and KHL. The NHLPA will support these efforts by the IIHF, but not if individual Players are subjected to improper sanctions."

When the NHLPA announced that it hired Glenn Healy away from the television studios to become their "Director of Player Affairs", I was rather happy that our airwaves were now free of his crappy color commentary, and that was the end of that.

What I didn't expect, however, was that this hiring could be the signal that the NHL is preparing itself for a bitter battle with the NHL when the current CBA expires.

Per Adam Proteau of The Hockey News, a dude who knows his stuff, the league and NHLPA are slowly digging in for what could be the nastiest war yet.

NFL Players Association executive director Gene Upshaw wanted to make a statement about the steely resolve his members would have in a potential labor showdown with the League. And he decided to use the NHLPA as Exhibit A:

"We are not hockey players," Upshaw said Thursday afternoon. "And they are not hockey owners. So this is what they have to understand. And if they believe that there's a chance that we're the hockey players, that curved stick on the ice, that ain't us – even though they play in Green Bay, where it gets pretty cold ... That's not where we are. The economics in this league are good and getting better. And the players should get their fair share."

Upshaw clearly sees a parallel between his association's looming war with the NFL and the issues that (depending on whom you believe) initiated the lockout: NFL owners can reopen labor negotiations this fall, and want to reduce the players' share of league revenues from its current level of around 60 percent. But as Upshaw noted: Football owners can't use the crutch NHL owners used in claiming to fight for the survival of the League, and football players are already getting a "fair share" by competing in a capped environment. But Upshaw is selling hockey players short -- he thinks they're labor war pushovers, but, in hindsight, they may have won more than they lost. Maybe his buddy and noted hockey fan Snoop can talk some sense into him. Because if there's anyone who understands the nuance of the CBA, it's the guy who gave the world "Gin and Juice."

The NFL's labor leader did have some sunshine for the NHL's labour leader, Paul Kelly, praising his decision to reach out to Gary Bettman: "I'm from Texas, and we know that you catch a lot more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. And I think Kelly understands that, because he's now trying to catch some flies with some honey by meeting."

Does anyone feel that the NHL season is too short? Do you not get enough hockey after 82 regular season games and four rounds of playoffs to satiate your addiction?

The answer is YES, if you are NHLPA head honcho Paul Kelly. In his mind, it's really quite simple: one more home game per team equals more revenue which equals more money for his players.

The Board of Governors is rumored to be heavily leaning towards adopting this measure, since it would also mean more money for the owners to pocket. Lovely.

Kelly initiated the 84-game talk for a variety of reasons. One extra home game per team - which is the net result of going to 84 games -- would obviously positively impact Hockey Related Revenue and since the players share in that, the NHLPA is all in favor of increased revenue. Who isn't?

But Kelly's desire for two extra regular season games would come at the expense of two to four pre-season games and that, really, is the key.

Now, I, along with many others, would have no problem with reducing the exhibition schedule. All too often, exhibition games involve prospects who have no real shot at the NHL this season, or any other season. Exhibition games don't mean much, and aren't providing us a lot of entertainment. You'd figure players already train so well in the off-season that many exhibition games aren't needed to them to get into game shape.

Unfortunately, The Powers That Be don't seem to realize that the fans get 'hockey fatigue' far too often, as the playoffs end later and later each season. Unless your team is involved in those late playoff rounds, or you are a serious hockey fan, it is very hard to maintain interest in hockey games that are played in June. Hell, I'm a die-hard hockey fan, and my mind begins to wander and my interest begins to wane after the second round is completed.

If the NHLPA and NHL were smart, they'd reduce the exhibition schedule by two games, and then keep the 82-game schedule as it is. One home game per year is not going to provide a monster boost to salaries, and will hinder the opportunity to shorten the season to a more reasonable level.

I was never all that enamored with previous NHL bosses Bob Goodenow and Ted Saskin. Oh, Goodenow was exceptional about making his players rich, and Saskin did help end the lockout, but these men did little to help grow the game. Goodenow was purely obsession with how much coin his charges made, and Saskin was, as we know, hella corrupt and prone to forgetting who his bosses were (the players)

So, the more I read and see of new NHLPA boss Paul Kelly, the more impressed I am that he seems to 'get' the fact that there are many other issues to be dealt with other than how much the players make.

In a two-part interview with The Hockey News, Kelly spills the beans on a variety of topics, including the subject of mandatory visors.

That's a big issue we talk about all the time. I tell the players that, when it comes to visors, there are basically three ways to go: you can make them mandatory, starting tomorrow; you can grandfather them in, so that everyone new to the league has to start wearing them; or you can go with players' choice.

Right after I tell them what the obvious options are, I tell them, 'Look guys, a single eye injury can cost you your career. It is really essential to protect your eyes, and on behalf of the players' association, I strongly recommend guys put visors on.'

One major bone of contention I had with previous NHLPA leadership was how little they cared about player safety. Goodenow didn't seem to care about seamless glass or no-touch icing or visors as health issues that needed to be dealt with. At least Kelly realizes that a safe player is one that will likely have a longer and more prosperous career. Can you think of any non-sports union that cares little about the safety of its members? I sure can't.

Going forward, I have hope that the new NHLPA leadership will continue to address many other topics, such as marketing, that previous NHLPA leadership didn't seem to care about. If the NHLPA takes a more active role in promoting the game, one would have to figure that would mean more revenues, higher salaries, and happier players.