The NHL's collective bargaining talks resumed Wednesday with a sense of urgency and a flurry of activity, but one thing remained unchanged - the unmistakable gap between the sides.
With Saturday's 9 p.m. PT deadline for a lockout looming, Donald Fehr and Gary Bettman each tabled proposals that highlighted the differing views still held by players and owners on core economic issues.
The NHL's offer came with an added twist as commissioner Bettman indicated it would be taken off the table Saturday, citing the damage another lockout would inflict on the business. Fehr, the executive director of the NHL Players' Association, suggested the league had done its own damage.
"Think about it this way," he said. "You have a case where you talk about a lockout, you threaten a lockout, you tell your season ticketholders and advertisers you're going to have a lockout and then [once] you impose a lockout, then you want someone else to pay for it."
The NHL's latest proposal would see players receive more revenue than the previous two it had tabled and also took an important step by using the current definition of hockey-related revenue.
It called for the players' share to be reduced to 49 per cent next season and would see it drop back to 47 per cent by the end of the six-year deal. Players currently receive 57 per cent of revenue.
The league's original offer in July came in at 43 per cent and was followed by one last month at 46 per cent.
"[This proposal] had meaningful movement in it and it was an attempt to engage the union finally in trying to make a deal," said Bettman.
However, the union leader characterized the change in the NHL's offers differently. Fehr said the league had moved from asking for an "extraordinarily large" amount of money back to a "very big" amount.
The first formal session of bargaining between the sides since Aug. 31 kicked off with the NHLPA tabling changes to its previous offer. It kept the first three years intact - a system not linked to hockey revenues with fixed increases of two per cent, four per cent and six per cent over the first three years - before having the final two years determined by a return to the percentage of overall revenues.
The precise number would be determined by the league's growth rate at that time, with the players' share set at a lower rate if business is booming, according to Fehr.
Bettman said the union's offer represented "very little movement, if any," which prompted him to draft a new deal on the fly with Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs and Calgary Flames owner Murray Edwards.
"Their proposal was really not much different, except around the edges, from the last proposal they made, which we had indicated was not acceptable," said Bettman.
Perhaps the most telling thing about the status of negotiations is the fact the sides are still working off different models with only days remaining before the NHL's fourth work stoppage in 20 years. To make matters worse, they're currently only tackling the league's economic model, leaving such potentially contentious issues as revenue sharing, contract length and discipline to be worked out later.
Fehr kicked off a meeting with about 300 players on Wednesday night while Bettman was scheduled to preside over a session with the league's board of governors today afternoon. It's expected the commissioner will formally be given the mandate for a lockout during that sitdown.
