The NHL’s labor negotiations shift back to Manhattan next week after today’s talks in Toronto. The fear is that Rockefeller Center will freeze its rink and light its tree before there’s a new collective bargaining agreement.
The sides hadn’t met for a full week with a Sept. 15 lockout looming, yet the NHL and its Players Association cancelled yesterday’s negotiations following 2 1/2 hours of morning talks among each team’s top two executives.
The cancellation was to allow each side “to consider how best to move forward with the process,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, Daly, and union executives Donald and Steve Fehr discussed economic and procedural issues before cancelling the afternoon meeting.
“You could probably observe that there is some degree of frustration between the parties,” Donald Fehr said.
Daly said there were “no cross words,” in yesterday’s session, nor any suggestion the sides were arguing “apples and oranges,” from their initial proposals.
The NHL initially asked the union to accept a share cut from 57 percent to 46 percent, which the union says would be 43 percent as currently accounted.
The union then proposed to limit payroll total increases to 2, 4 and 6 percent, respectively, in the next three years, with the option to revert to the present 57 percent cut of total hockey-related revenue in a fourth year. The players’ pot would increase 2 percent from the current $1.87 billion to $1.91 billion, then to $1.99 billion, then to $2.11 billion. If league hockey revenue rises 10 percent, the players’ share would revert to 57 percent.
Today’s talks conclude two weeks in Toronto, at PA HQ. Previous negotiations this month were held in midtown Manhattan at NHL headquarters.