Hockey Players Striking Out for Greener Patches of Ice

Just as Pavlov had his dog, Gary Bettman had his hockey players, and a theory to prove.

Drop the puck, Prof. Bettman maintained, and hockey players are at their happiest--wide-eyed, panting, entirely captivated by the simple joy of chasing and fetching a small, round play toy.

But stop the puck, Bettman hypothesized, and it won’t take long before the players are reduced to drooling, quivering basket cases. One month ought to do it. Take away their paychecks, lock them out of their rinks, and the players are going to break ranks. First by ones, then by twos and threes, they are certain to cave in and cross and come back to play.

And so they have.

They have crossed the Atlantic to play for professional teams actually playing games.

Jari Kurri, Teemu Selanne and Esa Tikannen to Finland.

Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka and Frantisek Kucera to the Czech Republic.

Dan Quinn and Calle Johansson to Switzerland.

Robert Reichel and Josef Beranek to Germany.

Patrik Carnback and, any day now, Tomas Sandstrom, Mats Sundin and Peter Forsberg to Sweden.

Or they are planning to cross league affiliations. Alexei Yashin, runner-up for 1993-94 NHL rookie of the year, has jumped to Las Vegas of the IHL, a franchise that also has offered to provide sanctuary for wayward thug Marty McSorley. Two of Toronto’s most prized Maple Leafs, Doug Gilmour and Dave Ellett, are presently mulling proposals from the IHL’s Detroit Vipers and the CHL’s Wichita Thunder.

Or they are contemplating crossing the international date line. Former NHL defenseman Slava Fetisov is attempting to organize a Russian “super team” and barnstorm Europe, playing exhibitions against club teams.

Might there be anyone in Switzerland interested in paying to see Pavel Bure, Sergei Fedorov and Alexander Mogilny skate on the same line?

In Germany?

In Orange County?

Such is the state of North American major league hockey, circa late October 1994. The agony and the exodus. Financial hardship was supposed to be the sledgehammer in Bettman’s toolbox--bludgeon the players into submission was the basic strategy--but Bettman and his NHL board of lemmings neglected two important details when they decided to lock the players out on Oct. 1.

1. They locked the players out, but they didn’t shut them in.

2. They forgot this was hockey and not baseball.

On a global scale, baseball is a regional phenomenon. Big in Japan, yes. Huge in the States, well, once upon a time. Central America. The Caribbean. Canada’s a Johnny-come-lately.

After that, career opportunities in baseball are rather limited. Venture south of the equator, or east of Manhattan, and it’s pretty much all soccer fields, basketball courts and bull rings.

And hockey rinks.

Jari Kurri has options Barry Bonds never dreamed of. Europe is teeming with professional hockey leagues, with more than a half-dozen NHLs of its own, all operating at the same time of the year, all competing for the best available talent--or eager to bring it back home.

With so many Finns, Swedes, Czechs and Russians playing here--amid unfamiliar surroundings, alongside teammates speaking a strange tongue--the NHL lockout was a clarion call to phone home.

What’s to keep Carnback, a young Mighty Duck forward born and raised in Goteborg, Sweden, hanging around in Anaheim while Bettman and Bob Goodenow refuse each other’s phone calls?

Especially when his old club team, V. Frolunda, can not only guarantee him ice time, but also regular paychecks, dinners with the family and a few laughs with the old gang?

The Ducks’ counteroffer was a spot on the fourth line, maybe, provided the season resumes some time before next Easter.

Fellow Swedes Sandstrom, Sundin and Forsberg are poised to book return flights, too, now that the Swedish league has decided to relax restrictions on signing stranded NHL players. Sweden had to do something, with all the deutsche marks being thrown around by the Germans, blatant opportunists that they are.

German hockey has always trailed Scandinavia and Russia in reputation and prestige, and you know how the Germans hate that. For them, the NHL lockout is a chance for a quick-fix, and German clubs are rolling out the short-term, open-ended, stay-as-long-as-you-like contracts for any goal-scoring winger hankering to sample each and every one of the top 35 beers of Germany.

“It’s almost like keeping up with the Joneses,” says NHL player agent Jeff Solomon.

So there go the Makelas and the Jagrs, to their safe European homes, with others undoubtedly to follow as Bettman holds press conferences to announce he’s whittling the regular season down to 80 games . . . and then 76 . . . and then 70 . . . and 60 . . . and 50, if we’re lucky.

Now we know Bettman’s game plan, and a brilliant one it is. He and the Gang of 26 have taken the NHL--an entirely functioning and flourishing athletic league--and turned it into the MLS.

Why hockey would want to borrow soccer’s headaches is a mystery, but the owners have gone and done it. Now we have two sports where the best players in this country, if they wish to play for reasonable pay, are forced to pack a duffel bag and do so abroad.

And what are we left with?

Hockey in the Winter Olympics.

You know, we can get up for these foreign sports once every four years.