It will be contested at negotiation tables by team owners and players, each fighting for their own vision for the future of the NHL.
The NHL's collective bargaining agreement with the NHL Players' Association expires Sept 15, 2004. If pundits and experts are to believed, sustained labour peace and prosperity for all will not be achieved without a war.
A work stoppage -- either a strike or lockout -- isn't a possibility; it seems almost a certainty. Consider this:
It's exactly the situation many, the owners included, felt the existing CBA would prevent.
Signed in 1995 after a four-month lockout, the deal, with its rookie salary cap and restrictions on free agency, was hailed as a victory for the owners. Owners felt that limiting how much a player could earn in his first few years and preventing him from becoming an unrestricted free agent until after he was 31 years old would provide a sufficient drag on escalating salaries.
They were wrong.
Bettman says players' salaries have increased 240 per cent since 1995, while revenues have increased only 160 per cent. The average NHL salary in 1994-95 was $733,000 US. Coming into the 2002-03 season, it's just shy of $2 million per season.
Meanwhile, a recent report in the Wall Street Journal claimed that more than two-thirds of the NHL's 30 franchises reported losses last season.
The current CBA failed, Bettman believes, because it underestimated owners' willingness to do whatever it took to win, including paying players big salaries.
NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow says that the market dictated salaries and that it isn't the players' responsibility to protect the owners from themselves.
"The players are paid what the owners believe they are worth, and every time an owner signs a contract with a player, it's like a vote on what that player's value is. From our perspective, it's pretty straight forward. There's no mystery at all," Goodenow said.
Bettman says this time around, instead of going after free agency, NHL owners want to establish an economic framework for the game that gives them "cost certainty."
"If you look at the leagues that seem to be performing well, franchise by franchise from an economic certainty, they all have some measure of cost certainty."
Exactly what Bettman means by cost certainty is unclear, but most assume it refers to a salary cap or some other method of tying player salaries to team revenues. The NHL is the only one of the four major sports that does not have any mandated form of salary control.
The players insist a hard cap will never be accepted. Owners say "cost certainty" is a must.
The battle lines have been drawn. What remains to be seen is whether the game gets caught in the crossfire.
"Everyone knows the game needs a new economic system," Bettman said. "I promise a new system can and will be attained."
