MIGHTY DUCKS NOTEBOOK / ROBYN NORWOOD : Hockey Is Next Sport in Labor Spotlight

Mighty Ducks Bob Corkum, Stu Grimson and Guy Hebert were in Toronto on Thursday for the first contract talks in five months between the NHL and the Players Assn.

And the question is this: Is hockey about to go the way of baseball?

“Basically we are at a parallel, though not at as advanced a point, as baseball,” said Grimson, an assistant captain who chose to attend the talks.

What Grimson is saying is that a salary cap is at issue, and the players are adamantly against it.

The NHL says it is not insistent on having a salary cap, but clearly the emphasis is on limiting salary escalation with league-wide legislation.

“I think any sports executive has got to be concerned with the rampant amount of inflation associated with the cost of playing,” said Tony Tavares, president of Disney Sports Enterprises. “You don’t have to be a genius or a rocket scientist to figure out you can’t have 30, 40, 50% salary increases and expect to get that back in ticket-price increases.”

Said Grimson: “All we can see is that their position is to quash us into accepting a salary cap, and we are not willing to give in.

“We have said all along, as long as negotiations are tied to a salary cap, discussions are no longer fruitful. As long as a salary cap is part of it, there’s really no point.”

With the trade of Troy Loney to the New York Islanders in June, the Ducks lost their elected NHLPA player representative. Corkum, the assistant player rep, is now in that role, and Grimson and Hebert chose to join him.

The players have been without a contract for almost a year, and they are unhappy that Commissioner Gary Bettman brought them to the bargaining table by threatening unilateral rule changes (Grimson calls them “impositions.”)

Bettman has said that if no collective-bargaining agreement is reached, a 16-point plan for rules changes will be put in place Sept. 1. Among them: players will have to pay their own way to and from training camp and will not receive their $54 per diem food allowance for training camp or regular-season road games. Also included: reduced game rosters and reduced retiree medical benefits.

Though the possibility of a work stoppage looms, Grimson said the players aren’t threatening a strike--at least for now.

“The Ducks are reporting to training camp,” said Grimson, who will join Corkum and Hebert in a phone brigade to report developments to their teammates.

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Tavares acknowledges he is preparing for the possibility of a strike--or a lockout.

“I think the players are preparing for a stoppage and so are we,” Tavares said, saying he is preparing in case the Ducks need to cancel dates at The Pond of Anaheim and refund ticket money or cancel television broadcasts. “We’ve been doing all that preparation work ever since this thing started rearing its head.”

Much as baseball players were upset by the owners’ failure to make a scheduled pension payment, hockey players are upset by the NHL’s threatened rules changes.

“The dispute over the (collective-bargaining agreement) has escalated radically. Things that have been in place for years have been stripped,” Grimson said. “It’s their attempt to choke us into knuckling under . . . It’s a radically different game than the one we left in April.”

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Kariya update: Paul Kariya and his agent, Don Baizley, will meet with General Manager Jack Ferreira and club President Tony Tavares on Monday in Vancouver, near Kariya’s parents’ home. However, Ferreira said the chances of the sides striking a deal Monday are remote, and that the meeting is simply another step in a slow process.