When the Stanley Cup is presented at the end of a National Hockey League season, Commissioner Gary Bettman hosts the brief ceremony and hands over the cherished trophy donated in 1892 by the governor general of Canada. The champion team’s captain then hoists the silver icon over his head in exultation, inadvertently exposing the Hockey Hall Of Fame logo on the bottom of the Cup — which suggests that while the Stanley Cup’s governance is the domain of the NHL, the trophy itself belongs to hockey at large.
When the 4 Nations Face-Off trophy was presented recently, after Canada’s 3-2 overtime victory over the U.S. in the title game, Bettman had company on the carpet: Marty Walsh, executive director of the NHL Players’ Association. The bottom plate of the trophy bore a subtle but unmistakable message: Etched into the bronze creation, side by side, were the logos of the NHL and NHLPA, the two organizations that collaborated in the ideation and execution of the wildly successful event — certifying to all that the once-warring factions had joined forces to create a magnificent entertainment.
The symbolism of the scene was unmistakable and unforgettable. Bettman and Walsh presented their trophy together, just a few days past the 20th anniversary of the day when the 2004-05 NHL season officially was canceled because the league and the players union were unable to achieve a collective-bargaining agreement. Hockey’s power tandem presented the trophy to Canada’s captain, Sidney Crosby — the first player selected in the 2005 draft, for which the order of selection had to be determined by lottery because no season had been played and teams pick in inverse order of the standings.
More irony: The trophy presentation was broadcast by ESPN to 9.3 million U.S. viewers, its largest audience ever for a hockey game. ESPN had dropped the NHL after the 2004-05 work stoppage, the killing blow being ABC’s average 2.6 rating with a 5 share for the closing five games of the Stanley Cup Final between Calgary and Tampa Bay. That average was the lowest since the network had begun broadcasting the Final again in 2000.
In 2004, the NHL game was broken — too much holding and hacking, too little scoring and entertainment. The NHL economics were broken — too many teams were hemorrhaging cash. The league faced enough business emergencies to fill an entire issue of this publication.
On Feb. 16, 2005, when he announced the cancellation of the season, Bettman’s prepared remarks included the following passage: “Through the decades and the generations, we have faced a variety of crises and challenges — some of which seemed catastrophic at the time. The league persevered through all those adversities and the league will persevere through this one, as well, to emerge with a framework for the future.”
The future arrived with an economic system that was mandatory for the NHL’s survival. It arrived with rules that opened the game for a generation of stars who would have been too small, too slight or too intimidated to play the game the old way. It allowed world-class talents — such as Connor McDavid, who was 8 years old when the successor CBA was signed — to display their exceptional skills. It cleared a pathway to Las Vegas and Seattle … and the return of ESPN. It charted a course for the return of what had been the cruelest casualty of the work stoppage — a predictable arc of international competitions for a league replete with international standouts. And it arrived, most formidably, in the 4 Nations Face-Off, an All-Star Game replacement that would have been inconceivable, given the labor climate, 20 years ago. The trophy presentation at TD Garden was a moment to cherish for anyone who lived through the worst war in hockey history.
Frank Brown serves in a consulting role with the Professional Women’s Hockey League. He covered the NHL for 25 years as a journalist before spending 20 years as the NHL’s group vice president of communications.
