Commissioner Bettman Statement Transcript
Toronto, October 16, 2012
Good afternoon, everyone. Bill Daly and I just spent the last hour
with Don and Steve Fehr, and I would like to briefly report to you on what
was discussed. As I think all of you know we have been extremely
disappointed, and that's an understatement, that we've been unable to get
these negotiations on the essential elements moving forward. So, today, we
began by discussing with Don and Steve that if we were to drop the puck on
November 2nd for the start of the regular season, we could preserve an
82-game schedule for the regular season and play full playoffs as we
normally do and be done before the end of June.
We very much want to preserve a full 82-game season, and in that
light, we made a proposal, an offer, really that is our best shot at
preserving an 82-game regular season and playoffs, and this offer that we
made obviously was contingent upon having an 82-game regular season.
A lot of you know we don't negotiate publicly, and I'm not going to
break that habit because I don't think it's constructive. The fact of the
matter is, we offered a 50-50 share of HRR, hockey related revenues, and we
believe we addressed the concern that players have about what happens to
their salaries as a result in this year of reducing the percentage from 57
to 50%.
Beyond that, I don't want to get into the substance other than to say
we believe that this was a fair offer for a long-term deal, and it's one
that we hope gets a positive reaction so that we can drop the puck on
November 2nd -- which backing up, entails at least a one-week training
camp. So we have about nine or ten days to get this all put to bed,
signed, sealed and delivered, in order for this offer to be effective and
for us to move forward.
We hope that this effort that we've undertaken today would be
successful because we know how difficult this all has been for everybody
associated with the game, particularly our fans.
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012
