Hockey

Talks to restart today but with no proposals

By wire services
Published January 26, 2005

Any chance of saving the NHL season rests on continued dialogue rather than introducing new proposals at today's meeting in Toronto, both sides said.

A small group representing the owners and players will try to make headway to end the lockout, which has wiped out 707 games and the All-Star game.

Talks hinge on how owners can achieve the "cost certainty" sought by commissioner Gary Bettman without imposing a hard salary cap, which players have said they won't accept.

With time short before it would become impractical to play a season, Bill Daly, the NHL's executive vice president and chief legal officer, said he would discuss what has been put forth and not make a new proposal that might spark time-consuming debate.

The union also has said it won't make a new offer.

"Both parties agreed at last week's meeting that the time for formal proposals, at least during this process, may be behind us and we should try to sit at the table and discuss through the issues and maybe jointly craft something that might work," Daly said Tuesday.

That echoed what Canucks center Trevor Linden, the union president, said last week.

"A proposal does not do anything for us," Linden said. "We have a better chance working in a room and working mutually together on this."

The same group that met in Chicago and Toronto will gather again: Linden, NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin and outside counsel John McCambridge as well as Daly, board of governors chairman Harley Hotchkiss and outside counsel Bob Batterman.

And also like last week, Bettman and union executive director Bob Goodenow will not participate.

No proposals have been made since early December, when the players offered a 24 percent rollback on all existing contracts as part of a luxury-tax and revenue-sharing system. The owners turned that down and made a counterproposal, which included a salary cap, five days later that was quickly rejected.

[Last modified January 26, 2005, 00:14:07]