Union official miffed at NHL management's contact with players

AS IF there was not enough animosity brewing between the NHL and its players' association in their ongoing, 38-day labor dispute, the league dropped another bomb last week. It opened a 48-hour window for management to speak with players about the league's latest contract offer without first notifying the NHLPA.

Since the lockout began on Sept. 16, team officials were forbidden contact with players - even outlawed to speak publicly about negotiations.

Now, after watching its union nearly fall apart during the last lockout in 2004-05, the NHLPA questioned the league's motives to allow executives to speak with locked-out players for the first time.

"Most owners are not allowed to attend bargaining meetings," Steve Fehr, the NHLPA's special counsel, told the Canadian Press. "No owners are allowed to speak to the media about the bargaining. It is interesting that they are secretly unleashed to talk to the players about the meetings the players can attend, but the owners cannot."

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly fired back, saying that players were inquiring with club personnel about the latest proposal, and the league simply gave teams a "limited window" to respond.

The window reportedly opened when the NHL made its latest proposal - which includes a 50-50 revenue split - public on its website last Wednesday, with 2,700 words worth of verbatim commentary that commissioner Gary Bettman presented in the bargaining meeting that day. Team employees were allowed to answer questions from players until 11:59 p.m. on Friday.

A lengthy internal memo, which was leaked by Yahoo! Sports and the Canadian Press, set guidelines for the conversations and limited the type of questions that management could solicit from players, such as "what he or others may have in mind" to get a deal done.

It is important to note that the league memo did not specifically give team executives permission to contact players, but rather opened a window for them to field calls.

According to a source, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren - like many other general managers throughout the league - did not speak with his players about the lockout because of the delicate and uncomfortable subject matter.

After a conference call with their executive board, the NHLPA requested to meet with the NHL on Wednesday or "any day," though it remained unclear at press time whether such a meeting would take place.

"They suggested they were willing to meet," Daly told Canadian television station RDS on Monday night. "But they also told us they weren't interested in the proposal made last Tuesday and that they weren't prepared to make their own proposal. I'm not sure what we would be meeting about."

Time appears to be running out on an opportunity to cobble together a full, 82-game season. Bettman pegged Friday as the date for a new collective bargaining agreement to be completed, which would allow for a week's worth of training camps before schedules opened on Nov. 2.

Players continue to openly question Bettman's deadlines.

A source told the Ottawa Sun on Monday that Bettman will "not be able to offer up any more concessions to try and get a deal and, in fact, he has gone further than some owners expected he would."

So far, a total of 135 regular-season games through Nov. 1 have been canceled. Without significant progress this week, it is believed the league will be inclined to cancel a bigger chunk of games in November - perhaps as much as the entire month - to free up dates for arenas to book new acts.

With the Flyers' group of players still in the area dwindling, forward Scott Hartnell was in Scottsdale, Ariz., on Tuesday working out with members of the Phoenix Coyotes . . . According to the Saratogian (N.Y.), Phantoms defenseman Marc-Andre Bourdon is still hampered by an undisclosed upper-body injury, which kept him off the team's trip to Newfoundland last weekend . . . Wayne Simmonds was scoreless in his debut with Liberec in the Czech Republic's extraliga on Tuesday.