NHL Season Dead Again

The last, faint hope of reviving the NHL season was obliterated Saturday when league and union executives walked away from a 6 1/2 -hour meeting in New York without an agreement -- and with a deepening distrust.

Although Commissioner Gary Bettman had canceled the season Wednesday, players thought enough time and flexibility remained to forge a deal and play a 28-game season. But even the addition of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux to the NHL’s negotiating team couldn’t lift the two sides to common ground on such issues as a salary cap, luxury tax, arbitration and qualifying offers to free agents.

Sources said players felt stung by a “bait and switch” when the NHL didn’t improve its last offer of a salary cap at $42.5 million and stipulated the cap would not rise if revenue grew during a six-year deal. The NHL is also said to have cut its revenue-sharing offer, tightened rules on salary arbitration and qualifying offers to free agents, and set a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax at $35 million.

League sources said the union continued to seek too high a salary cap and wouldn’t negotiate a luxury tax potent enough to curb spending.

“The bottom line is they just don’t trust each other,” said a source familiar with Saturday’s talks. “It’s done. It’s over with.

“This is worse than what happened on Wednesday. I don’t know where we go now. The league and everyone involved with it is in a free-fall at this point.”

Gretzky, managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes, and Lemieux, player-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, contacted Bettman on Thursday and urged him to hold one last meeting before it would become impossible to squeeze in an abbreviated season. The three met Friday in New York, where it was believed they discussed whether the NHL would accept a $45-million salary cap if the union agreed to conditions that would discourage extravagant spending.

Bob Goodenow, the NHL Players’ Assn. executive director who opposed renewing talks and didn’t initially accompany the union delegation, was excluded from the main meeting Saturday. However, he and Bettman were nearby and were consulted during the numerous breaks.

In addition to Gretzky and Lemieux, the NHL was represented by Bill Daly, its chief legal counsel. The union was represented by Ted Saskin, its senior director; Trevor Linden, its president, Colorado Avalanche forward Vincent Damphousse, a member of its negotiating committee, and former player Mike Gartner, its director of business relations.

“I didn’t think they were going to start up another meeting for failure,” said Ron Salcer, a prominent agent. “I thought it would be the perfect ending: You bring in Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux -- the game has never seen greater ambassadors. What better ending than to see these two knights in shining armor riding in on white horses to save the season?

“I truly believed something significant could happen.”

Instead, they were tripped up by their long-standing differences.

“We knew for a long time this is where it was going,” said King President Tim Leiweke, a staunch backer of Bettman. “Mr. Goodenow is very predictable.

“We have rolled over in the past and he thought we would roll over again. You look at the track record the last 10 years and look at who gave in each time: It was us. I told everyone we owners had put ourselves in this position. Too often we’ve panicked, given in, caved. Not this time. And we never will. Do I love not having hockey? No. But if we have to exist another year without hockey, we will.”

The unity of each side had fractured since the cancellation announcement. Several owners voiced anxiety to Bettman on Thursday about damage to the league’s image and bottom line, and many players said they were puzzled by the union’s about-face and acceptance of a salary cap Monday. The failure to save the season or generate enough understanding to schedule further talks could intensify an already caustic and costly dispute.

“I think it’s a bad ending,” Leiweke said. “Whatever pool of revenues we had to share just got a lot smaller. This thing is going to go backward. The pain will get larger, the effect will get larger and the revenues the league generates will get smaller.”

Bettman, whose decision to reconvene talks was criticized by a few owners, explained his actions in a letter to the league’s Board of Governors, who will meet next week. In the letter, obtained by The Times, he said:

“After Wednesday’s announcement we were hearing a number of reports that Trevor Linden wanted to hear from us. Since we ultimately want a new collective-bargaining agreement, we did not stand on ceremony and we made contact.... However, we also advised that the union should not assume that the season would be resurrected.

“On Friday morning Trevor spoke with Bill and said they would like to have us include Wayne and Mario in the meeting. To sum up the discussions, the union is still intent upon negotiating for more than we can afford. Incredibly, the union put nothing new or concrete on the table. At this time, there is no deal here. I was correct on Wednesday when I said we were much further apart than the media was portraying.”

A source said players feared that if they had yielded a little Saturday, Bettman would have pushed for a lot. “It was crystal clear from our standpoint that we weren’t [close to a deal], and that was evident today,” Linden said.