High School It
Resume:
Today's Forecast
Light Rain
Business:Location:
NHL labor talks set to resume Monday
NHL labor talks set to resume Monday
MORE!
by Associated Press
KING5.com
Posted on November 17, 2012 at 3:16 PM
Updated
today at 3:21 PM
NEW YORK -- Just over a week since the last set of failed negotiations, the NHL and the locked-out players' association will return to the bargaining table Monday night.
Conversations that restarted Friday between NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr produced enough positive movement Saturday to set up another face-to-face meeting that the sides hope will lead to an agreement to save the hockey season.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman suggested to union executive director Donald Fehr on Thursday the sides take two weeks off from negotiations. The union maintained its desire to keep talking, and now bargaining is back on.
Owners and players met for several consecutive days last week in New York, but made little progress. Negotiations ended in an angry exchange last Friday, but bargaining resumed two days later only to break off again in just over an hour.
Staying apart never appeared to be a good option, and the NHL now seems to agree.
All games through Nov. 30 have already been taken off the schedule, more cancellations are likely within a week, the Winter Classic has been wiped out, the All-Star game is the next big event in jeopardy, and the whole season could be lost, too, in the blink of an eye if a new deal can't be hammered out.
The players have stuck to their position that negotiations are the only way to work out differences, and that they are willing to meet any time the NHL wants to.
The NHL contends that the union has submitted the same proposal multiple times without moving in the league's direction. The union says it has agreed to come down from receiving 57 percent of hockey-related revenues to a 50-50 split. The league wants that to go into effect in the first year of the agreement, while the union wants to get there gradually.
Seven years ago, after the entire 2004-05 season was lost to a lockout, the players' association accepted a salary-cap system for the first time. The union feels it shouldn't have to bear the brunt of the concessions now after league revenues reached a record high of over $3 billion last season.
This 63-day lockout has claimed 327 regular-season games, and hope of a new deal and the start of the already-shortened season -- likely of 68 games per team -- on Dec. 1 has started to wane.
It is more than just finances preventing a deal. The disagreements over player contract terms have emerged as just as big an impasse.
The NHL wants to limit contracts to five years, make rules to prohibit back-diving contracts the league feels circumvent the salary cap, keep players ineligible for unrestricted free agency until they are 28 or have eight years of professional service time, cut entry-level deals to two years, and make salary arbitration after five years.
Once those issues are settled, the sides will then have to figure out who will cover the financial damage the lockout will ultimately do to this season.
Players missed their third pay day of the season Thursday, and the clock is ticking toward more losses. The 2004-05 season was canceled in February. A lockout in 1995 ended in January, leading to a 48-game schedule.
NHL lockout at a glance
DATE: Saturday, Nov. 17.
DAY: 63.
LAST NEGOTIATIONS: Sunday, Nov. 11, in New York
NEXT NEGOTIATIONS: Monday in New York.
GAMES LOST: 327 (all games through Nov. 30, plus New Year's Day Winter Classic).
TALKING AGAIN: Just days after it seemed that NHL labor talks might take a two-week break, conversations Friday and Saturday between deputy commissioner Bill Daly and union special counsel Steve Fehr led to the scheduling of a new round of bargaining, Monday night in New York.
WHAT WE MISSED: A heavy 11-game schedule was wiped out Saturday, including a prime-time provincial matchup between the visiting Ottawa Senators and the Toronto Maple Leafs. It has been a week of celebration in Toronto following the induction of longtime Maple Leafs captain Mats Sundin into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday night.
ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR: Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara avoided criminal charges from a Quebec prosecutor for a hit on Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty, who broke a vertebra and was out for the season after being shoved into a stanchion by the 6-foot-9 defenseman the previous March. The provincial prosecutors' office said in a statement that it didn't believe a court would find Chara guilty of a crime, and the prosecutor closed the case. Chara received a game misconduct but wasn't suspended for the hit. The ensuing uproar in Montreal prompted a police investigation. Pacioretty was critical of the NHL's handling of the incident, but had called police involvement unnecessary.
MORE!
Previous article
High School State Soccer Finals
Next article
First conceptual designs for Seattle arena released
Sports Video
Credit: 360 Architecture
Photos
Football upgrade comes as WSU's program is under scrutiny
WSU's Leach denies that players are abused
TEXT ALERTS: Closings, News, more...
Privacy Policy
Contact this candidate