Bettman: “I hope it’s clear that our intention is to make a deal”

James O'Brien

Aug 29, 2012, 6:24 PM EDT

19 Comments

AP

Contrary to Zach Parise‘s comments, Gary Bettman claims that the owners want to wrap up a new CBA.

Renaud P. Lavoie has the quote:

“I hope it’s clear that our intention is to make a deal,” Bettman said. “We hope it’s fair.”

Speaking of “fair,” Bettman also discussed the much-debated league revenue issue.

“You need to consider what’s fair because we run the league at 43 percent of the revenues,” Bettman said.

If you want more specifics, here is how Bettman described how players’ shares would be handled through the first three years:

Bettman: "In our proposal, the share of the players will go down 11.5% the first year, 8.5% the 2nd, 5.5% during the 3rd...
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Renaud P Lavoie (@RenLavoieRDS) August 29, 2012

Bettman said that salaries are likely to go up after that third season.

The money quote came when Bettman said that the league’s latest proposal “moved more money” than the NHLPA’s counter, as Travis Hughes collected.

“Our counter-proposal was more significant that the NHLPA proposal,” Bettman said. “The counter-proposal moved more money than the initial proposal made by the players’ association.”

Agent Allan Walsh provided this counter-argument, though:

NHL 1st offered 43%, not hard to do. RT@drosennhl: Bettman: If trying to measure, our proposal moved more money than initial PA proposal.
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Allan Walsh (@walsha) August 29, 2012