The NHL season is dead -- again.
After 6 1/2 hours of negotiations, with Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux at the bargaining table, talks broke down Saturday, leaving the already canceled hockey season beyond saving.
"It's certainly not going to be resurrected after today," players' association senior director Ted Saskin said. "It's 100 percent certain coming out of today's meeting that nothing could impact the cancellation of the season."
Just three days after the season was called off because of the protracted lockout, the NHL and the union restarted talks at an undisclosed location in New York.
Commissioner Gary Bettman and players' association executive director Bob Goodenow weren't in attendance, but two of hockey's greatest stars were.
However, Gretzky, the managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes, and Lemieux, the player-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, couldn't help the sides bridge the gap over the salary cap.
"Mario and I were happy to be part of the process, and everyone seemed to work very hard together," Gretzky said. "We had a constructive meeting, and we only hope they will continue meeting for the betterment of the NHL and its fans."
On Wednesday, Bettman canceled the season, saying it was too late to play any semblance of a schedule. That made the NHL the first major North American sports league to lose a full season to a labor dispute.
And now the focus shifts back to trying to reach an agreement as soon as possible so next season isn't lost, too.
Gretzky and Lemieux were joined on the owners' side by NHL chief legal officer Bill Daly and outside counsel Bob Batterman, while the union was represented by Saskin, director of business relations Mike Gartner, players' association president Trevor Linden, vice president Vincent Damphousse, and outside counsel John McCambridge.
"The talks were cordial and informative, but revealed that there remain significant differences that need to be discussed and resolved by the parties," Daly said. "No new proposals were made by either side. While no new meetings are scheduled, we remain committed to continue working through the process until a new agreement can be reached."
Linden said Daly called him on Thursday night and invited him back to the table. Some players urged Linden not to go, but the Vancouver forward gave talking another try.
"I know that today was not good," Linden said
"From both sides, this is not a good situation.
"It's basically uncharted territory. Where we go from here? I don't know if anyone is sure."
Before Daly called Linden, there was no official contact between the NHL and the players' association since Tuesday night -- when the sides traded what they said were final offers.
All proposals were rejected, and Bettman canceled the season at a news conference Wednesday.
"I hope all parties continue talking and come to a solution for the betterment of the game," Lemieux said.
Bettman said in a letter to Goodenow on Tuesday that the league's salary-cap proposal of US$42.5 million was as far as he could go and that there was no time or flexibility for negotiation.
Goodenow sent a letter back, proposing a soft cap at US$49 million that could be exceeded by as much as 10 percent by teams twice during the course of the six-year deal.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier