Hockey
<article> <header> [h=1]NHL lockout: Bill Daly statement on latest NHL offer[/h] By Adam
Gretz | Blogger
<time class="storyDate" pubdate="" datetime="2012-12-28T18:12:31Z">December 28, 2012 1:12 pm ET</time>
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After reports surfaced early Friday morning that the NHL made
a new proposal to the NHLPA on Thursday, deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed the offer on Friday afternoon.
The NHLPA
is already reportedly working on a counteroffer.
"In light of media reports this morning, I can confirm that we delivered to the Union a new, comprehensive proposal for a successor CBA late yesterday afternoon," said Daly in a league statement. "We are not prepared to discuss the details of our proposal at this time. We are hopeful that once the Union's staff and negotiating committee have had an opportunity to thoroughly review and consider our new proposal, they will share it with the players. We want to be back on the ice as soon as possible."
It wouldn't be a stretch to take the next-to-last sentence about hopefully passing the offer along to the players as quite a dig at union leader Donald Fehr. James Mirtle of the
Globe and Mail talked to at least one player earlier in the day
who hadn't heard of or seen the offer at that point.
The NHLPA has a conference call scheduled for 3 p.m. ET.
Earlier in the day, reports started to come out regarding the offer. They including the news that the NHL showed some movement on some key areas, including contract-term length, the year-to-year variance on contracts and kept the $300 million "make whole" portion of its latest offer, which was supposedly pulled off the table when the union rejected it.
Along with the new proposal, Mike Heika of
The Dallas Morning News reported
the NHL is targeting a start date of Saturday, Jan. 19, while Bruce Garrioch passed along word that owners have informed commissioner Gary Bettman that cancelling the season
is not an acceptable option.
Just something to keep in mind: The 1994-95 season, which was cut down to 48 games (apparently the mininum number of games the NHL is willing to play this season) due to the first league lockout, started on Jan. 20.
The league has already cancelled all games through Jan. 14 (a total of 626 regular-season games) as well as the NHL Winter Classic in Ann Arbor, Mich., and the NHL All-Star Weekend in Columbus, Ohio.
Pushing matters along -- and perhaps forcing the NHL to make a new offer -- was
the result of a player vote last week that will enable the union leadership to file a disclaimer of interest by Jan. 2.
The vote
passed by an overwhelming margin of 706-22.
Just because union leadership now has the power to file the paperwork doesn't mean that they will.
It's worth pointing out that even though the NHL has repeatedly talked about take-it-or-leave-it offers or how offers won't get any better, or that things are being taken off the table ... they have always come back with a better offer to the players. On the surface, this one appears to be no different.
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