NEW YORK: Three days of talks between National Hockey League officials and NHL players union leaders failed to produce an end to the two-week lockout and no new talks on a new deal have been scheduled.
Both sides are planning to talk among themselves before scheduling a new round of discussions as next week’s scheduled season-opening games look to be called off before the end of this week.
“It’s not like we’re breaking off negotiations,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.
“It’s that we need a little more time to do some work. They have got some work to do too.”
The league locked out players September 16 and has already wiped out all pre-season exhibition games. Regular-season games are set to begin October 11. A similar stalemate wiped out the entire 2004-2005 NHL season.
Players had received 57 percent of $3.2bn in revenues under the old deal. Owners reportedly want at least 53 percent under a new agreement.
Five hours of talks on Sunday focused on player health and safety issues, including doping tests, while Saturday’s session centered on revenues.
“It’s good we’re talking,” NHL Players Association special counsel Steve Fehr said. “It is true that we could have done this last week or the week before or the week before that, but it’s a lot better than doing it three weeks from now. So I think it’s some progress and hopefully it will continue.”
Meanwhile, Hall of Fame centre Wayne Gretzky expressed optimism on Monday that the NHL second lockout in eight years will be resolved in time for the showcase outdoor Winter Classic on New Year’s Day.
Gretzky, who retired from the NHL in 1999 and remains the league’s all-time points leader, said obstacles behind the labor dispute between owners and players should be quicker to overcome than the ones that forced the cancellation of the entire 2004-05 campaign.
“In 2004 we were changing the whole landscape, ownership wanted to have some sort of revenue sharing, and once we came to the revenue sharing, the hard part from my point of view seems to be out of the way,” Gretzky told a news conference in Toronto after making a speech on retirement planning.
“Now it is a question of working out a number that both sides think is fair. And that is why I believe that I don’t see this lockout being as long as the last one.”
Agencies
