NHL, players union to resume talks Friday

New York, NY, United States (4E Sports) – In their first face-off since the lockout was imposed Sept. 16, the NHL and the players union will continue negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement Friday.

The negotiation, however, will focus on “non-economic issues” and will not tackle how revenue would be split among owners and players, according to the NHL Players Association.

The resumption of negotiations was earlier agreed upon by NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHL Players’ Association special counsel Steve Fehr when they met in Toronto Monday.

“We are resuming discussions on all of the other issues that need to be resolved in order for us to reach agreement,” Daly told Yahoo! Sports.

“We still need to hear from the PA on economic issues. They have been working off the same basic proposal since Aug. 14. We have made it abundantly clear to them that the proposal is unacceptable to us,” he added.

Friday’s talks will center on rules governing player salaries, Olympic participation, realignment and all other significant issues that will be included in the new collective bargaining agreement, but not matters regarding revenue split.

The issue on how to split the league’s $3.3 billion revenue has been the biggest hindrance to the approval of a new labor deal. Team owners want to reduce players’ revenue share from 57 percent to 46 percent.

The NHL has already cancelled its preseason games through September and is expected to cancel the remainder of the preseason schedule this week.

Next week, the league then is expected to begin cancelling games in the regular season, which is scheduled to begin Oct. 11.

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