Sunday, January 30, 2005

Wings' Ilitch needs to flex his muscles and try to end impasse

By Bob Wojnowski / The Detroit News

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Mike Ilitch loves to take charge. When inspired, when financially motivated, and especially when embarrassed, he can pull off the impossible.

He turned a sleepy pizza joint into a huge business. He turned a crumbling hockey franchise into the best. When Ilitch is aggressive, he's successful. When he's passive, he births a 119-loss Tigers monstrosity.

So the question, as an NHL season heads to oblivion and beyond, is this: Where is Ilitch, the feisty leader of the famous Red Wings, when he's needed most?

Mike? Hello? You have the best fans in the United States, the biggest stars. So why are you letting yourself be led around by small-market, lame-market owners who haven't invested one-millionth the time and money in the sport as you have?

Many fans and media merrily put all the pressure on the players, calling them idiots for refusing a salary cap, granting owners a free pass. No free pass here. If the players are the greediest, how do you explain the owners' strategy to overexpand and overextend, all in pursuit of a rich TV contract?

Negotiations are going nowhere, which is why the NHL is on the verge of shutting down for a year, and likely longer. I'm less interested in choosing sides between owners and players and more interested in the hidden battle -- owners-versus-owners. And I'm wondering why Ilitch, someone the league should respect, isn't saying anything.

Hockey's financial problems are real, something the players acknowledged with their 24 percent salary rollback offer. But the owners created the mess and now demand the players fix it with complete capitulation. If it costs an entire season, few in the NHL have as much to lose as Ilitch.

I understand Ilitch hasn't spoken out publicly because it's a fineable offense in Gary Bettman's paranoid world. But I'm asking Ilitch, for the good of a great game and a great franchise, to pressure his fellow owners to negotiate. It only takes eight of 30 owners to nix a deal, sapping the power of someone like Ilitch, a member of the Board of Governors.

Surely, Ilitch at least should try. A luxury tax tougher than baseball's could provide a salary cap's benefits. Of course, a luxury tax is a form of revenue sharing, and successful owners want no part of revenue sharing, which might further explain Ilitch's silence. But even if he doesn't want to share the wealth, how can he embrace a cap that would crush his own team?

The Wings' payroll last season was $78 million. The owners' desired cap reportedly tops out at $42 million. There's talk of a dispersal draft to reduce payrolls, which would be staggering.

Yes, ticket prices climbed too high, everyone admits. The spiral might have started right here, in 1998, when Carolina's Pete Karmanos offered Sergei Fedorov a six-year, $38-million deal ($28 million front-loaded), forcing Ilitch to match it.

Karmanos has expressed regret for the offer. And now he's one of the struggling, small-market hard-liners, sticking it again to Ilitch.

Maybe Ilitch is so intent on rebuilding the Tigers, he's willing to give up on hockey. Knowing the man's competitiveness, I find it hard to believe. I find it absolutely shocking he can sit quietly and let it all slip away.

Bob Wojnowski's column appears regularly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Reach him at wojofan@aol.com