Despite the revelation of an olive branch within the NHLPA's proposal called the Industry Growth Fund, where the players were willing to give upwards of $100 million of their own money to help keep struggling teams afloat, no significant progress has been made in Collective Bargaining Agreement talks this week up in Toronto.
As he did on Wednesday, PA Executive Director Don Fehr met with league principals beginning at 9:30 AM, but it has been widely reported that those talks have concluded after less than 90 minutes.
However, according to Renaud Lavoie of French-language RDS in Canada, the players did manage to offer something in the way of contract issues, though the extent is not known at this time.
The scene will shift to the owners' turf in New York beginning next week. Fehr, Commissioner Gary Bettman, deputy commish Bill Daly and players' special counsel Steve Fehr have all agreed for a Tuesday meeting in Manhattan.
Said Bettman: "We are focusing on making a deal...nhlpa wants to keep things the way they are, and that is slowing the process...we believe that we are paying the players more that we should be...it's difficult to make progress when you don't know what are the fundamentals."
Fehr countered: "We have a lot to do and I still believe we have enough time..we want more flexibility and the league doesn't want that... we remind the nhl that the only league that works (no stoppage) has no cap, and that is the mlb."
Fehr apparently wanted today's session to wrap up quickly, as there is a noon meeting scheduled with the players.
Another facet of the ongoing discussions between the players and the league which also failed to make much headway, was the much-more cordial, but still unproductive, discussions surrounding rules enforcement.
The NHLPA site has the rundown from Wednesday's activity.
No comments:
Post a Comment