‘Slow progress’ keeps players, league up late
Negotiations continue in a bid to save shortened season
NEW YORK — Hope has been a dangerous and foolish thing during this National Hockey League lockout, which enters its 113th day on Sunday.
Several times the two sides have created some small burst of momentum, or have drawn relatively close, only to see the whole thing go tumbling back into the deep freeze.
There is a distinct lack of trust between the league and its players — it was believed a deal could conceivably be reached Sunday, but that could not be confused with inevitability.
But there was a genuine sense of slow but steady progress on Saturday, leavened with serious caution, as the two sides negotiated for most of the day.
There are still five days until the league’s stated Jan. 11 deadline for a 48-game schedule — there remains the possibility of 50, or perhaps 52 — but for the first time the possibility was raised that they might not need to push negotiations to the limit.
After over 13 hours of separate talks with federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh on Friday, the two sides resumed mediator-supervised sessions Saturday morning.
The sides progressed to the point that they convened the first faceto-face meeting since the session broke up at 10 p.m. PT Wednesday, and met from 10:15 a.m. Saturday until very late Saturday night.
This time, the player contingent was comprised of Ron Hainsey, Kevin Westgarth, George Parros, Mathieu Darche, Martin St. Louis, Chris Campoli, Jamal Mayers, Shane Doan, Andrew Ference and Craig Adams.
For the league, Commissioner Gary Bettman and his deputy Bill Daly were both in attendance, but no owners.
That the meeting took place at the players’ hotel — the same New York hotel made unfortunately famous by former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn — was a first, and a symbolic step forward.
It was variously reported that the two sides had agreed on a collective bargaining agreement term of 10 years, with an opt-out after eight — the players had wanted seven.
But by the early evening TSN reported the two sides were just $1.8 million US apart on a salary cap for 2013-14 — $62.5 for the league, $64.3 for the players — down from a gap of $5 million before the session began, which had been a major point of contention.
Since that number will be subject to escrow, and since not every team will spend to the cap, it was even less than the maximum gap of $54 million spread over 30 teams.
It was a tiny slice, but that’s what is left.
The relative breakthrough in negotiations came in the hours before players concluded 48 hours of re-voting to give the union the power to disclaim interest and dissolve, opening the door to antitrust lawsuits that the league said would effectively doom the season.
That seemed like a bluff — the NBA reached a deal 12 days after its union disclaimed and went to court — but the hammer of disclaiming interest was at least re-introduced to the proceedings. It didn’t seem to hurt. The league wants to put contracts in a box, to avoid the long-term cap-avoiding contracts that were employed in the last agreement, which is creating the gap on yearto-year variance on contracts.
Pensions and contract terms limits were believed to remain issues as well.
A source in the room described it as “slow progress” — but any reports of progress are tricky things, because the agreement is full of moving parts, and the two sides were finally engaged in horse trading.
That Beckenbaugh got the sides back into the same room was itself an accomplishment.
It could all blow up — these two sides emphatically do not trust one another, which is why Beckenbaugh, who was involved in the 2004-05 lockout, was so important.
If and when an agreement is reached, the two sides will insist that everything be committed to writing, and carefully vetted.
This will be a handshake where both sides will need to carefully count their fingers, before and after. But a handshake may be in sight.
Cross your fingers, if you like.