TORONTO (CP) - Any sliver of hope of avoiding an NHL lockout seemingly went out the window Thursday.
The NHL Players' Association delivered its first proposal since last October to the NHL on Thursday and the league was not impressed.
According to sources familiar with the NHLPA's latest offer, the proposal calls for a luxury tax to begin at $50 million US. The players' offer 15 months ago reportedly proposed a payroll tax of $40 million US.
"I don't believe that the proposal today was anything but window dressing, if that," Bill Daly, the NHL's executive vice-president, said in a conference call Thursday evening.
"It is clear the owners remain stuck at trying to get a salary cap," countered Vancouver Canucks centre Trevor Linden, the president of the players' executive committee. "At some point the owners need to understand the players will never accept a salary cap or any system arbitrarily linking payroll to league revenues.
"Our proposal today was the best chance we saw to save the hockey season."
With no talks planned before Wednesday's expiry of the collective bargaining agreement, a lockout is expected to be triggered after the NHL's board of governors meet the same day in New York.
That would mean no NHL hockey for the foreseeable future.
"It certainly looks that way," said NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin. "They've been planning for this since 1998 when they put together their $300-million lockout fund.
"I think they fully intend to commence the lockout on Sept. 15."
Said Daly: "We need to find a solution to our problems and right now the union is not willing to talk to us about that."
The NHLPA, as expected, had a completely different view of things. It believed its offer, an updated version of their October 2003 proposal, was a meaningful package that would save the NHL at least $150 million US next season alone.
"It's frustrating, the players are sitting here offering millions of dollars," said Linden. "We are making a serious, concerted effort to bridge the gap. But they have a one-track mind: a cap. We're trying to find the middle ground. We understand there are issues out there and we're trying to address them.
"Their inability to look at the middle ground is frustrating."
The union's offer once again had four main components:
- A five per cent rollback on all existing player contracts, "calculated to generate over $100 million in savings over the next few years," the union said;
- Changes to entry-level contracts, "which would generate an additional $60 million in estimated savings.";
- A luxury tax;
- Revenue sharing, "the most significant change since Oct. 1."
The league was not interested.
"I would tell you that under the union's proposal, even with all their assumed givebacks - which we don't necessarily agree with their projections - but even assuming everything they say is true, their proposal would still have more than half our clubs losing money," Daly said.
The league says it lost $273 million in 2002-03 and $224 million last season, and needs a salary cap system or any system which guarantees player costs won't eat up more than 50 per cent of league revenues. The league says player costs ate up 75 per cent of league revenues last season.
And that's why a luxury tax doesn't interest them.
"Our problem with the luxury tax, quite frankly, is that by definition, no one will ever know with any degree of certainty what impact a luxury tax will have on the behaviour of the clubs," Daly said. "So it's a best guess.
"And we're beyond a point where that type of system would work for this league."
The NHLPA's executive committee joined executive director Bob Goodenow, associate counsel Ian Pulver, outside counsel John McCambridge and Saskin for Thursday's meeting, which began at 1 p.m. EDT and ended at 5:10 p.m. in downtown Toronto.
The committee, made up of active NHL players, consists of Linden as president, and vice-presidents Bob Boughner, Vincent Damphousse, Daniel Alfredsson, Bill Guerin, Trent Klatt and Arturs Irbe.
Alfredsson and Guerin were not there because of the World Cup.
Commissioner Gary Bettman and Daly were joined on the league side by owners from their executive committee, including Calgary Flames part-owner Harley Hotchkiss (chairman of the board), Boston Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs (chairman of the finance committee), as well as Nashville Predators owner Craig Leopold, Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos, Minnesota Wild chairman Bob Naegele and New Jersey Devils CEO and GM Lou Lamoriello.
It was the first time players and owners were at a negotiating session since Oct. 1, when the NHLPA made its last proposal (although the league claims it was June 2003).
"We don't feel today it was anything other than a pre-orchestrated move to not make a meaningful proposal," said Daly. "And it's something, unfortunately, we saw coming a couple of weeks ago. They're not prepared to negotiate before a work stoppage. They believe their best deal will be negotiated in a work stoppage situation and that's unfortunate for our sport."
Said Saskin: "No, that's in no way accurate. Look, we weren't coming to propose a salary cap. The framework was comparable (to Oct. 1) with exception that there was a significant move in their direction in the area of revenue sharing.
"We don't see this as a step backwards."
The league offered six new "concepts" July 25 but they were rejected by the union Aug. 17.
The current collective agreement, twice renewed over 10 years, has seen salaries grow from an average of $733,000 in 1994-95 to $1.83 million in 2003-04. League-wide revenues have also risen during that span, but the NHL says not at the same pace.