Leadership vacuum a problem for the business of professional hockey in North America

Is there anything more deafening than the silence of the lambs behind the National Hockey League Players Association?

Sure, we're the first to challenge the NHL's failure to understand how much a more balanced schedule -- in which each team hosts at least one visit from each of the other 29 clubs -- would add value for season ticket holders, the heart of the league's gate-driven business. We question the league's unclear global marketing strategy and its reluctance to commit to Sochi 2014.

We're always haranguing the NHL commissioner's office for its handling of the Phoenix Coyotes situation in general and its treatment of former owner Jerry Moyes -- not to mention former managing partner Wayne Gretzky. We are convinced the league's spin on its troubled franchises in the southern U.S. does little to create value for either the game of hockey and the owners in the NHL.

We believe the NHL could do much to strengthen its television platform, particularly in the U.S. where Versus is still as difficult to access as a question-and-answers media conference by Tiger Woods.

Yet the inability of the NHL's commissioner's office to inspire hockey fans on either side of the border is less worrisome than the tumbleweeds posing as leadership, advocacy and communications at the NHLPA during this 2010 regular season.

Still seeking to install its fourth executive director in five years, the NHLPA has been as invisible as Casper since the unfathomable firing of Paul Kelly in September. Interim executive director Ian Penny represented the union at the Kraft Hockeyville pre-season game in Terrace, B.C. but resigned himself only weeks later.

Since then, pretty much nada. Yes, former Major League Baseball Players Association kingpin Donald Fehr appears to have at least stabilized the operations of the dysfunctional NHLPA acting as an adviser for the past few months. That didn't give the NHLPA a public voice during the Alex Burrows-Stephane Auger incident earlier this season. It didn't lend the union any discernable profile at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. And it certainly hasn't offered any meaningful representation of NHL players during these weeks of consternation over blind side head shots.

All of this as the NHLPA is supposed to be ramping up to revamp escrow and push for other changes to the NHL's salary cap in the coming round of collective bargaining negotiations.

Firing the polished and media savvy Kelly was a mistake for a union desperately seeking stability and long-term vision and leadership. Going dark for much of the 2010 NHL season has been simply embarrassing.

The sooner the NHLPA confirms Fehr or Doug Allen of the NFLPA or NBAPA outside counsel David Feher or another candidate as its new executive director, the better. The lack of a full-time union boss is not only a liability for the NHLPA, it has only exacerbated the leadership vacuum at the top levels of professional hockey in North America.

It's not good for the association. Ironically, it's worse for the business of hockey.

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NHL's uncertain status for Sochi 2014 an inexplicable question mark as Vancouver 2010 hockey tournament opens

It's here: the much-hyped Vancouver 2010 Olympic men's hockey tournament - the greatest showcase the sport has had in our lifetime.

It marks the fourth consecutive Olympic Winter Games featuring hockey's best players, beginning 12 years ago when Nagano 1998 represented the historic debut of the NHL and NHLPA as partners with the International Ice Hockey Federation on the Olympic stage.

Despite the disappointment of Canada's performance in Nagano, the impact of the NHL's involvement on the '98 hockey tournament in particular and on those Winter Games in general was unmistakable. The global television numbers for hockey at Salt Lake City 2002 -- including the record Canadian ratings driven by Canada's final win over the U.S. -- were terrific for the sport...and the NHL.

Turin 2006 was a seventh-place disaster for Canada and worse for the U.S. but produced a new Olympic champion in Sweden and was a big deal for hockey fans in Europe.

In Nagano, Salt Lake, Turin and now Vancouver, there can be no denying the NHL has been good for the Olympics. Yet four years after the last Games and five years since the last round of collective bargaining, it appears that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his Board of Governors still need convincing that the Olympics are good for the world's premiere hockey league.

That's the conclusion one draws with the Olympic men's hockey tournament at Canada Hockey Place (General Motors Place) opening today without an agreement in place for the NHL's participation at Sochi 2014.

If it was a priority for the NHL, that deal would have been in place by now - even if it required a side-deal with the NHLPA and was contingent on resolving the contentious player transfer issue involving the Russian Hockey Federation. Whatever the complexities of the agreement, a strategic-thinking NHL would have made it happen before Vancouver 2010.

It would have been just one step towards making the most of the business opportunity for the NHL, which is ostensibly one of the league's larger concerns as it weighs whether it should stay or leave the Olympic tent.

The most progressive organizations in sport use one event to promote the next staging of that event, whether it's annual, bi-annual or every four years like the Winter Olympics. The best franchises start selling their season tickets for the next year before the current campaign ends. National governing bodies such as Tennis Canada sell tickets to the next year's Rogers Cup at each tournament.

Anytime now during Vancouver 2010 -- or ideally before these Games -- would have been the right time for the NHL to confirm its place alongside the IIHF at Sochi 2014.

Yet inexplicably, that deal is nowhere on the horizon. In fact, to date Bettman has been nothing but wishy-washy on the issue. His attitude and lack of leadership on the NHL's position with respect to Sochi 2014 make us long for the days of former NHLPA executive director Paul Kelly, who clearly articulated his support of the Olympics. Unlike Bettman, Kelly understood both the tangible and intangible benefits of the Olympics for the NHL brand and the business of hockey - and they far outweigh the costs and disadvantages of a two-week break in the NHL schedule once every four years.

Given the origins of the game, having the most important hockey tournament in history on Canadian ice is a natural. Yet Russia has its own tradition of global hockey excellence and is clearly the game's second leading country. It is only fitting that Russia and Sochi 2014 follow Canada and Vancouver 2010 with a hockey mash-up involving a fully-engaged NHL and featuring the world's best players.

There is no doubt the NHL's return would benefit the IOC, Sochi 2014 and the IIHF. Yet having the game's top players represent their countries, build their own reputations and create Olympic history is great story-telling and it's completely on strategy if the NHL truly wants to grow the game -- and its brand -- globally.

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