New York, NY (Sports Network) - The National Hockey League issued a new
proposal to the players association Tuesday.
"I'm encouraged because we're talking," said unrestricted free agent forward
Mathieu Darche, who is part of the NHL Players Association negotiating group.
"It's too early to characterize exactly what the offer is because depending on
the wording. It obviously didn't take them five minutes to come up with it and
it won't take us five minutes to analyze it."
The current CBA expires September 15, and Bettman has publicly stated the NHL
will lock out the players if a new deal is not struck by then.
"It is a proposal we believe is significant and had meaningful movement,"
Bettman said. "It was also designed to address issues that they've raised with
us, and to address the proposal that they last made to us in terms of
structure and format."
Union head Donald Fehr seemed less optimistic.
"It's a proposal we intend to respond to," Fehr said. "I'm just going to leave
it at that."
TSN of Canada reports the league's latest offer, which is a six-year
collective bargaining agreement proposal, is meant to reduce the NHL's
financial demands. Players would see a gradual reduction in revenue share
percentage, according to the report.
The first proposal by the NHL was to decrease the players' revenue share from
57 percent to 43, but TSN reports the percentage would drop to as low as 49.6
in 2014-15 before coming up to 50 percent for the final three years of the
deal.
"I'm trying to get us on the same page. I'm trying to get us into a common
language. Hopefully this will do that," Bettman said.
The Sports Network