NHL still not ready to ring in new year On the day the NHL was to celebrate its game with the widely watched Winter Classic, the league and the players’ union spent New Year’s Day behind closed doors in New York attempting to salvage what remains of the 2012-13 season.
Instead of Detroit hosting fellow “original six” member Toronto at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, where conditions Tuesday would have been gorgeous for the estimated crowd of 120,000 fans (a temperature of 23 degrees and welcomed cloud cover), the sides still were trying to end the now five-month long lockout.
The NHL and the players’ union met in the afternoon to review the union’s counter-offer and then reconvened at 8 p.m. St. Louis time, when the league issued its own counter-proposal.
That meeting lasted only 30 minutes and although the sides did not indicate a new collective bargaining agreement was imminent, their ongoing back-and-forth cordial negotiations hinted toward the potential for a deal.
“We’re clearly not done,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told reporters. “(But) we anticipate being back together (today). The fact that we’re involved in a continuous process is something that I am glad to see, but we’re clearly not done yet. It’s up to the players’ association to come back to us now in response to what they’ve been given (Tuesday) evening.”
Following the NHL’s offer last week, Bettman said the league made more movement toward the union’s position in its counter offer, but held its ground in other areas.
It’s believed that the players, meanwhile, have accepted the league’s proposal of a 10-year collective-bargaining agreement. Whose turn it is to make the next move is unknown.
“There were certain things that the players’ association asked for that we agreed to, there were some things that we moved in their direction, and there were other things that we said no,” Bettman said. “That’s part of the process.
“Nobody is counting. We’re not keeping score, we’re trying to get an agreement done.”
The league and the union appear close on the split of hockey-related revenue, or “HRR,” and contracting rights. But a few hurdles remain, such as the proposed salary cap for the 2013-14 season, a cap on escrow, pensions and revenue-sharing. To help clarify their points, the sides met in small groups and spoke via conference call Tuesday about details of the respective counter-offers.
“They did make a comprehensive response to what we gave them (Monday),” said Don Fehr, the union’s executive director, who also confirmed the plan to meet with the NHL today. “We asked a couple of questions, and now what we have to do is go through the document, try to make some sense out of it, compare it and see what the appropriate thing is to do next.”
Interestingly, today is the deadline for the NHLPA to file a disclaimer of interest, which could lead to a vote to dissolve the union and allow it to become a trade association. The motive behind such a move would be to remove anti-trust exemptions afforded to the NHL, setting up potential lawsuits against the league.
It seems doubtful, however, with the current state of the negotiations that this type of action would be taken by the players. If today’s deadline passes without the union filing the disclaimer, another authorization vote could be held, allowing it to file at a later date.
Fehr did not address the possibility of filing today, while Bettman said “it’s not something we’re focused on.”
What the NHL and the union now seem to be focused on finally is playing hockey. There seems to be far less posturing and much more constructive negotiating in recent days, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. The date before the NHL likely would cancel the entire season is rapidly approaching. A deal must be reached by Jan. 11 for the league to get in a partial season.
“We’ve said we need to drop the puck by Jan. 19 if we’re going to play a 48-game season,” Bettman said. “We don’t think it makes sense to play a season any shorter than that.”
The NHL missed out on the Winter Classic but there are still plenty of snowy days ahead — now if the league and players could just agree to drop the puck and ring in the new season.
“It is better to be meeting than not,” Fehr said. “I am not saying anything more about it.”
The Associated Press contributed
information to this story.
