NHL rejects new giveback

Who says the NHL isn’t playing games?

Nothing on ice — no, but plenty in the board room. Gary Bettman is dealing up Gimme, Gimme, and the players are hitting on 19.

Bettman looked yesterday as if, rightly or not, he smelled blood. As the two sides in the NHL labor dispute met again in Manhattan, the players offered up another huge concession, which the commissioner promptly turned down, with thanks, to put in his pocket along with a Dec. 5 Board of Governors meeting schedule.

While there is outrage in the union ranks at being rejected again, without compromise, in a week or two this union offer toward a 5050 revenue split will no longer seem a great concession.

Despite a union official’s suggestion that it should take its offer off the table, it won’t go away now, just as Bettman’s October offer of 5050 remains alive, despite supposedly expiring more than a month ago.

No, yesterday’s sweeping union giveback will shortly become the New Normal, the next starting place from where the appeasers in the union who forced Donald Fehr to produce yesterday’s play will make their next concession to get themselves on ice and cashing checks. By accepting the owners’ demand of percentage share rather than specified amounts, the players moved to the place where only numbers are an issue, the place where a deal can be made.

Despite the union’s anger, there is now hope for Christmas hockey. But it didn’t feel that way to the union.