News

On the 232nd day of the National Hockey League lockout, equaling the Major League Baseball strike of 1994-95 for the longest work disruption in the history of professional sports, the two sides met again Thursday and accomplished very little.

This, of course, was not an unexpected development.

NHL owners and players blocked off six negotiating days in a three-week span to try to break the stalemate in the NHL lockout. The two sides met Thursday for the first time since Apr. 19 and the session lasted just three-and-a-half hours before it was adjourned. They will talk again Friday morning in Toronto, after which the sessions will switch to New York for further negotiations Monday or Tuesday.

At that point, it will become clearer if there is any real progress being made, or if the stalemate will continue.

Once again, the focus of the negotiations was on trying to make the numbers work within a proposal the NHLPA brought to the table more than a month ago.

Under that framework, there would be floating team-by-team payrolls, with a defined upper and lower limits, linked to league-wide revenues.

The first NHLPA proposal, which was based on last year's total revenues of $2.1-billion, established the salary ceiling at $50-million and the salary floor at $30-million.

Sources familiar with the talks suggest that the two primary stumbling blocks from the NHL's perspective remain the same - the league wants a smaller gap between the payroll ceiling and floor, to enhance competitive balance; and it also wants the upper spending limit to come in at considerably less than the $50 million proposed by the players during the last meaningful negotiating session, which took place back on Apr. 4.

On the plus side, the two sides are now discussing a framework that may be acceptable to both, or as commissioner Gary Bettman likes to say, they are talking the same language.

On the down side, there is little to suggest that the two sides can agree anytime soon on what numbers to plug into the aforementioned framework. Bettman has said that the dispute is now down to dollars and cents, but that may be something of an oversimplification. Even if they can get closer on the numbers, there are also systemic issues that need to be addressed, relating to salary arbitration, qualifying offers, the rookie salary cap, the entry draft and revenue sharing, any of which could undermine the talks in a heartbeat.

Representing the NHL at yesterday's session was the usual cast of characters: Bettman, chief legal counsel Bill Daly, outside counsel Bob Batterman, Devils' GM Lou Lamoriello, board of governors chairman Harley Hotchkiss, Bruins' owner Jeremy Jacobs, Predators owner Craig Leopold and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell.

The NHLPA was represented by executive director Bob Goodenow, senior director Ted Saskin, associate counsel Ian Pulver, outside counsel John McCambridge, director of business relations Mike Gartner as well as three members of the executive committee, Trevor Linden, the NHLPA president, plus Bill Guerin and Bob Boughner.