Rucchin: NHL Players Aren’t Preparing Offer

Steve Rucchin, the Mighty Ducks’ player representative, said Monday that the National Hockey League Players’ Assn. was not preparing a new offer to end the 4-month-old lockout.

The NHL Board of Governors will meet Jan. 14, with the possibility that Commissioner Gary Bettman will officially cancel the season.

“I’m hoping there will be last-minute negotiations, but this is up to them right now,” Rucchin said. “It would be really sad if they didn’t have a season.”

Rucchin said that the players went as far as they were willing to go in a proposal Dec. 9, which included a 24% salary cut, a luxury tax and significant changes in entry-level contracts. League representatives rejected that plan and countered with an offer that set player salaries at 54% of the league revenue. The players rejected that proposal, calling it a salary cap.

On Sunday, Wayne Gretzky, part owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, said that not only could this season be lost, the lockout could wipe out the 2005-06 season as well.

“If this is not decided in the next few days, I’m scared we could be looking at a year, a year and a half, two years, not just three months like a lot of people thought in September,” Gretzky said during a news conference at the world junior hockey championship in Grand Forks, N.D.

-- Chris Foster

Motor Racing

NASCAR will allow its competitors to use only the HANS device this year, because the other head-and-neck restraint system did not meet performance standards.

Drivers have had a choice of restraint systems since 2001, when NASCAR began requiring all competitors to use either the HANS or Hutchens devices after an investigation of Dale Earnhardt’s death.

NASCAR driver Robby Gordon retook the overall lead in the Dakar Rally with his second stage victory.

The American won the third leg of the two-continent road race, a 76-mile run from Rabat to Agadir, Morocco, in 1 hour 14 minutes 1 second in a Volkswagen.

Tennis

James Blake won three consecutive points in a second-set tiebreaker to beat Peter Wessels of Netherlands, 6-1, 7-6 (4) and clinch a 2-0 victory for the United States in the Hopman Cup at Perth Australia. Meghann Shaughnessy, a late addition to the U.S. team to replace injured Lindsay Davenport, beat 15-year-old Michaella Krajicek, 7-5, 6-4. Mark Philippoussis and Alicia Molik outlasted Daniela Hantuchova and Dominik Hrbaty, 11-9, in a third-set super-tiebreaker to give Australia a 2-1 victory over Slovakia.

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Roger Federer beat David Ferrer, 6-1, 6-1, in the first round of the Qatar Open at Doha. ... Third-seeded Rainer Schuettler was upset by Olivier Patience, 6-2, 6-2, in the first round of the Chennai Open at Madras, India.... Third-seeded Nicolas Kiefer beat Sjeng Schalken, 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, in a first-round match twice interrupted by rain in the Australian men’s hard-court championships at Adelaide.

Miscellany

Swimmer Michael Phelps will participate in the Michigan-USC dual meet at 1 p.m. today at the USC McDonald’s Swim Stadium on campus. Phelps, who won six Olympic gold medals in Athens and is now a freshman at Michigan, will swim for Club Wolverine, which trains at the school.

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Former UCLA assistant baseball coach Vince Beringhele was hired at Loyola Marymount and will serve in a similar capacity to Coach Frank Cruz. Beringhele spent 15 years as an assistant to former coach Gary Adams.

Passings

Joseph Durso, a sportswriter who worked for the New York Times for 51 years and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame for his contributions to the sport, died at 80 of cancer.

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Rex Bowen, the baseball scout who signed Bill Mazeroski, Maury Wills and Dick Groat, among others, died at 93.