Salary Cap

Donald Fehr, executive director of the NHL Players' Association, gave two different spins on the labor war with the league. In a letter he sent to players before Friday's meeting with the NHL in New York, Fehr said there was a "significant gap" between both sides. After the meeting, however, he changed his tune, saying the NHLPA does not feel it is as far apart on core economic issues as the NHL says. In any event, the league and the union seem no closer to an agreement than they did in the summer.

IMAGINE, FOR a second that the NHL's season is a $3.3 billion pound anvil teetering on the edge of a cliff, having been pushed halfway out there by commissioner Gary Bettman. On Thursday, NHL Players' Association executive director Donald Fehr has a magnificent chance to pull the season back from the brink, and finally begin negotiating toward a resolution of this disgusting labor dispute. After the NHL swallowed its pride Tuesday and put on the table what looks like a last-ditch effort to play an 82-game season, Fehr was left with two choices when the two sides sit down for another bargaining session Thursday in Toronto: 1. Use the league's honest-to-goodness proposal as a starting point.

Privately, many NHL players think the league took a step toward ending the labor dispute when it made a new proposal for a six-year collective-bargaining agreement Tuesday. But that's not the impression given by Donald Fehr in a letter he sent to players after he reviewed the proposal. The letter, which was released to TSN in Canada, shows a lot of negotiating still needs to be done if an 82-game season is going to be played. Fehr, executive director of the NHL Players' Association, wrote that "the proposal does represent movement from their last negotiating position, but still represents very large, immediate and continuing concessions by players to owners, in salary and benefits . . . and in individual player contracting rules.

A little over a month into the lockout, there is some hope that the entire NHL season can be saved. The NHL on Tuesday offered the players' union a 50/50 split on hockey-related revenue, provided that an 82-game season starts on Nov. 2. The season was originally slated to begin Oct. 11, but it has been shut down because of a labor dispute. "We very much want to preserve an 82-game season," Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, said. Translation: We don't want to lose any more money.

The Eagles locker room seems happier this season as opposed to last. Winning will do that. Despite the popular perception four months ago after Joe Banner stepped down as team president, the locker room didn't suddenly turn into Tijuana when general manager Howie Roseman formally assumed the handling of all contract matters. Roseman had been in charge, really, as far back as February. He, with Jeffrey Lurie's blessing and Andy Reid's counsel, engineered contract extensions for four key members of the Eagles.

Day 3 of the NHL's lockout passed Tuesday with no end to the labor dispute between the players and owners in sight. Both sides seem ready for a long, drawn-out battle, one that features the Fehr brothers - Donald and Steve - representing the players, and Gary Bettman and Bill Daly leading the owners. Neither side is willing to make a bigger compromise on the main issues - how to divide hockey-related revenue (HRR), and how to help the small-market teams through increased revenue sharing.

After the NHL lost the 2004-05 season to a labor dispute, the players crawled back and were big-time losers in the negotiations. Salaries were drastically cut and a cap was installed. This time, the players are more unified and determined to stand up to the owners, veteran Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen said. The owners are united, too. After a board of governors meeting in New York City on Thursday, Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, said owners unanimously support a lockout if a new collective-bargaining agreement isn't in place at Saturday's 11:59 p.m. deadline.

NEW YORK - After both sides spewed their rhetoric Wednesday and did their selective numbers crunching following their first formal meeting since Aug. 31, the NHL inched closer to a lockout. Representatives for the owners and players met for nearly three hours and exchanged proposals at NHL headquarters here, but they seemed no closer to resolving their many differences. Gary Bettman, the league's commissioner, said the NHL Players' Association's proposal was "not much different" from its last one and labeled it "unacceptable.

Howie Roseman joked that there aren't many issues that don't keep him up at night, the type of concerns that leave a general manager rolling over in bed and staring at a dark ceiling. But there's one overriding problem that Roseman admitted is particularly troublesome, and it's one without a concrete answer. "You have a limited number of resources, whether it's draft picks or salary-cap room," Roseman said. "You try to build a team with depth. It's not always going to be perfect.

NEW YORK - If there is one thing we have learned in the 18 years of his reign as NHL commissioner, it's that Gary Bettman does not like to lose. Twice already, the NHL has locked out players in search of more favorable economic terms for owners. They are now 16 days away from doing it again, when the current bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 15. Rest assured, the puck will not drop on any NHL season unless all 30 owners are receiving a larger share of the revenue pie at the players' expense.