NHL Talks Start Again

In what may be a last chance to salvage the NHL season, league and NHL Players’ Assn. representatives will meet today in Toronto to go over a union proposal.

The meeting comes with the contentious backdrop of players criticizing NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman this week. Bettman, though, could face tougher opposition.

A source within the NHL said that owners of a few teams that have made profits in recent seasons would question Bettman’s strategy should the lockout extend into January. Unless a large number of owners go against Bettman, it is unlikely the 12-week-old lockout will end without his approval. A two-thirds vote of owners is needed to rule against Bettman under NHL bylaws.

A source familiar with the union’s proposal said it includes a luxury tax, 75 cents on the dollar on payrolls over $40 million, and fines for teams exceeding $60 million. It also caps the entry-level salaries for rookies at $850,000 and curtails the bonus clauses in those deals.

The proposal is expected to be rejected by the league, but it could serve as a basis to move negotiations forward. Union leaders were hopeful that talks would be continued Friday. It is the first time the two sides have met since Sept. 9.

The union is said to be unlikely to make another proposal unless it gets a counteroffer from the league. Bettman has said there is no drop-dead date to call off the season, but if the lockout carries into January, the season probably would be in jeopardy.

Players, meanwhile, have followed union senior director Ted Saskin’s lead and begun pointing a finger at Bettman. Saskin criticized Bettman last week and Shane Doan, Phoenix’s player representative, followed this week, saying Bettman’s insistence on “cost certainty” has more to do with saving his job than improving the financial health of the league.

“I think it’s almost solely that, I really do,” Doan said in the Vancouver Province. “It boggles my mind how Gary has kept his job.”

Detroit’s Kris Draper said in the Toronto Sun that “Bettman’s plan was expansion. He brought in the Floridas and the Nashvilles of the world and now he wants the players to fix it.”

Bettman responded by saying the union may be becoming desperate.

“In the course of collective bargaining, it’s not uncommon for a union that’s not getting what it wants to attack or have its members attack the negotiators on the other side,” Bettman said at a meeting with Toronto Maple Leaf fans Tuesday. “And those are sounding like words of desperation on behalf of the union. But I don’t make anything of it.”