COMMENTARY

By Michael Wilbon

updated 1:51 a.m. ET Feb. 19, 2005

There was one moment of stupefying arrogance during Gary Bettman's news conference yesterday when the NHL commissioner, moments after announcing the cancellation of the season, said with the straightest of faces, "I don't have any concerns that the fans will come back."

During this man's tenure, four NHL franchises have declared bankruptcy and two teams have left the game's home, Canada, to move to the U.S.

This is a man who oversees a league that walked to the brink of economic ruin by putting franchises in places that value palm trees, not ice. Bettman is a man who will be perfectly ready to trot out replacement players to start the 2005-2006 season in October.

Ray Ferraro, the former NHL player who works for ESPN as a hockey analyst, said during an interview from Vancouver on ESPN's "Pardon The Interruption" yesterday, "If I had a business and he was the face out front, I'd poke my eyes out."

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And having said that, because everything in sports comes down to winners and losers, I should probably point out Bettman has won the great hockey labor debate of 2005. He won because he answers to the owners and the owners made clear when this lockout began that they would lose less money canceling the season than they would playing it. Bettman won because the players' union, or at least the leaders of the players union, caved in the 11th hour like you wouldn't believe.

After saying for two years the players would not agree to any kind of salary cap system, even though salaries in the NFL and NBA have increased under such restrictors, union chief Bob Goodenow made an offer yesterday that included a salary cap. The number the players asked for went from $52 million to $49 million, but it was still a cap, when as recently as Monday they said any form of salary cap was a deal killer.

Imagine if you're one of approximately 350 NHL players currently competing in Europe and you hear out of nowhere and probably without input that your union just caved on the issue that has been at the heart of the dispute. Wouldn't the negotiating process have had a better chance to produce an agreement if the union had accepted a salary cap even four months ago and negotiated the biggest slice of pie possible? Matthew Barnaby, a Blackhawks forward, told the Associated Press, "We probably could've gotten this thing done in the summertime. I'm just a little disappointed that it went this far to play poker and to have someone call your bluff."

Ferraro said he believes the union is "fractured" over caving on the issue of adopting a salary cap so late in the game and with so little input from its players. At the very least the union has been severely weakened. If the players don't soon agree to a cap number very close to the $42.5 million per team the owners have offered, the NHL will simply roll in the replacement players next fall and we all saw how that worked out for the NFL players' union in 1987, didn't we? Bettman is already promising the next offer will be less than the one on the table yesterday morning.

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