No sign of a thaw in row between ice hockey players and clubs

ICE HOCKEY’S NHL in America is on the brink of becoming the first American sports league to lose an entire season due to a labour dispute.

Club owners and players have been meeting to reach a resolution and after a five-hour round of negotiations at Chicago’s O’Hare airport yesterday, both sides said progress had been made and the talks would continue in Toronto.

However, despite that positive note, there were no breakthroughs or new proposals. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players’ Association chief Bob Goodenow have been at odds throughout the dispute, and neither attended the most recent meeting. There’s no immediate indication they’ll take part in the next round of talks either.

Before this week’s meeting the sides last met on December 14, when the NHL rejected a union proposal that included a 24% pay cut. The union rejected a league counter-proposal.

The club owners claim they have lost $1.8 billion over the last decade, and close to $500m in the last two years. They are demanding “cost certainty” in any new deal in a bid to gain control of rising costs. On the other side of the table, the players’ union has interpreted the owners’ demands as the introduction of a salary cap, which they have vowed never to accept.

A decade ago, a similar lock-out was settled on January 11 and play resumed 10 days later, allowing a 48-game season to be salvaged. This season’s lockout was imposed on September 15 and neither side appears ready yet to break the ice and come up with a new proposal to end a lockout that has gone on over 128 days.

Over half of the regular season - 671 of 1,230 games, up to and including yesterday - has been wiped out so far, plus the All-Star game. There have been signs of a thaw. “The parties had a good, candid dialogue,” said NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly of this week’s meetings, while players’ union leader and Vancouver Canucks player Trevor Linden invited Calgary Flames owner Harley Hotchkiss to talk. Linden had hoped that holding general discussions without Bettman and Goodenow would remove some of the acrimony from the negotiating process.

Hotchkiss responded to the union leader’s invitation generously: “we credit Linden’s initiative in requesting this session, which was informal, open and professional.”

If this week’s round of talks does not move the sides towards a settlement, however, the season will probably be lost. This would mean the Stanley Cup, the NHL championship trophy, would not be awarded for the first time since 1919, when a flu epidemic cancelled the final series.