Meet Martin J. Walsh: Gary Bettman's newest opponent
The new executive director of the NHL Players' Association was long on generalities and short on specifics when he introduced himself to the hockey world, but he has time to figure things out
One month and four days after he accepted the job as the executive director of the NHL Players’ Association, Martin J. Walsh introduced himself to the hockey world. And when he looked at the legacies of the five men who preceded him in the job, he noticed some stark differences between them and him.
And that might be a good thing, considering the fact that none of Alan Eagleson, Bob Goodenow, Ted Saskin, Paul Kelly and Don Fehr left the job on his own terms. And three of them – Eagleson, Saskin and Fehr – departed with stains on their legacies. Unlike the five before him, Walsh is not a lawyer and actually has real roots in the labour movement. He talked about going to the union hall with his father and uncle, hearing them talk about workers who didn’t have enough hours to qualify for health care and others who were being laid off. He talked about working construction and later running unions that fought for the rights of working people. He dropped out of college, then went back to get his Bachelor of Arts by taking night classes at Boston College. It will be interesting to see how that plays with a constituency filled with millionaires, many of whom come from privilege and money and are completely out of touch with the real labour movement.
He also comes into the job, it’s safe to say, with less knowledge of the business of hockey than any of the previous men who held this job. And that may not necessarily be a bad thing, provided he’s a quick learner. But Walsh was absolutely right when he declared, “I bring a different perspective than probably every single one of my predecessors.”
But what sets Walsh, who turns 56 in 11 days, apart from the others is that he’s a politician. And a very good one, judging by the fact that he’s been elected a union president, a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Mayor of Boston, a job he left to join Joe Biden’s cabinet as Secretary of Labor. In fact, one of his last official duties was to act as the Designated Survivor for Biden’s State of the Union Address in early February.
As a seasoned politician, you can tell that Marty Walsh is not going to make any bold declarations he’d have to recant. That, combined with his lack of knowledge of the NHL and NHLPA file, understandably made his first media conference one that was long on generalities and very short on specifics. It’s unclear whether or not NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has finally met his match in Walsh – he probably hasn’t – but probably the best thing about hiring Walsh now is that he has three years to get up to speed on things before another collective bargaining agreement has to be negotiated.
The one area where Walsh was most unequivocal was in his desire to revive the World Cup of Hockey. “Let’s establish the World Cup of Hockey back,” Walsh said. “And let’s have a forward-looking schedule so people can be consistent with it.”
But the inevitable signs of naïve optimism were on full display when Walsh addressed the media Thursday morning. The most prominent of which likely came when he addressed Bettman’s recent comments that the NHL would be willing to increase the salary cap by more than $1 million next season. Walsh recently had a short meeting with Bettman and, “He brought that up,” Walsh said. “We’re open to any conversation, but we’re not open to changing escrow.”
Good luck with that one. Perhaps Walsh is so new at the job or perhaps it’s because that’s all he’s heard from a constituency that doesn’t seem to get it, but if anyone thinks Walsh is going to be able to extract a $90 million salary cap and keep escrow payments at six percent each of the next three seasons is dreaming in technicolour. What the players still don’t seem to understand after all this time is they split revenues with the owners 50-50. As such, the salary cap could absolutely rise, but it will come at the expense of higher escrow payments. That’s the way the system works. As one agent once put it to me, “I don’t get what (the players) don’t get about that.”
The players will pay 10 percent escrow this season and six percent each of the next three seasons. When they renegotiated the CBA after the pandemic, if they had been willing to go to, say, 12 percent this season and 10 percent each of the next three, the salary cap would be substantially higher. But the players’ abhorrence for giving up any up-front money is well-documented. They hate escrow and those who are currently under contract want it to be as low as possible. And their voices won out in all of this. Meanwhile, there’s less money and salary cap room in the system, which means they get their money, but there might not enough star teammates, or they might be bought out or sent to the minors. It has been this way since the NHL shut the business down for a full season almost two decades ago.
As another agent put it to me, he can’t seem to get it through the players’ heads that escrow is not a completely dirty word. He can’t convince a player that making $1 million with 20 percent escrow is the same as making $800,000 with zero escrow. The only difference is that with the 20 percent escrow, the salary cap can be higher, which helps everybody. It remains to be seen whether Walsh will ever be able to convince the players of this, but judging by their past behaviour, nobody should be terribly optimistic.
Which brings us to another enormous obstacle faced by Walsh. The players getting on their hind legs about escrow is another example of how disengaged they are in the process of bargaining and only seem to be vocal when it affects them personally. So far there has not been an NHLPA head who has been able to get players out of their state of apathy. In many ways, players are no different than Gordie Howe, who told union pioneer Ted Lindsay that he just wanted to play hockey. Players now just want to play hockey, too, and collect millions of dollars for doing so. With Walsh’s background in labour, we’ll believe him when he says that typically about one-third of membership is engaged in its union. He wants to exceed that with the NHL players. Again, good luck with that one. “The players shouldn’t be coming to the table just around CBA time,” Walsh said. “We should be getting more engaged all the time.”
Walsh focused much of his message on communication, both with the membership and the other side of the table. He talked about needing two partners to negotiate and how everything doesn’t need to be a turf war. He talked about caring about both injured players and their on-ice assailants. He agreed with Bettman that players should always have a choice when it comes to participating in Pride initiatives. The players have been in the position of giving back in almost every negotiation they’ve had with Bettman, and even hard-liners Goodenow and Fehr couldn’t prevent that. Walsh has a couple of years to figure out whether he can turn that tide because one thing is certain. As long as Bettman is on the other side of the table, the NHLPA will be facing a ruthless, cunning and canny negotiator.