League, players agree to resume talks next week

NEW YORK -- The NHL and the players association will resume talks next week in an effort to end the 78-day lockout and save the season.

After nearly three months of silence on and off the ice, the sides agreed Thursday to meet in Toronto next Thursday. Talks might continue into a second day, NHL spokesman Frank Brown said.

Those plans were made after players' association executive director Bob Goodenow sent a letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman on Thursday, inviting the league back to the negotiating table. The letter also said the union was working on a new proposal.

No official talks have occurred since Sept. 9, when the union made its last offer.

"There's been a lot of rumblings for the last couple of weeks that they were preparing something and that this might be imminent, so I can't say I was shocked," Bill Daly, the NHL's chief legal officer, told The Associated Press. "I hope to be optimistic. We'll see what they have to bring to the table."

The most recent offer by the NHLPA was a luxury tax-based deal that was rejected by the league, and the lockout began one week later. As of Thursday, 334 regular-season games, plus the 2005 All-Star game, have been wiped out.

"I'm glad the union has finally decided to come to the table and we really have to reserve judgment until we see what the offer is," Bettman said. "Hopefully, it will be a good one."

Bettman has said that a luxury tax won't work for the 30 NHL teams, which he claims are losing money at a pace that makes it impossible for the league to survive under the current system. He is seeking "cost certainty" for the clubs, which the union says is tantamount to a salary cap -- a solution it refuses to accept.

The players' association said its new proposal should provide the basis for a new collective bargaining agreement.

"Almost three months have passed since the players made their last proposal and we have yet to receive a counteroffer from the league," Goodenow said in a statement. "We have been working hard at other creative solutions and believe our new proposal will provide a basis to end the owners' lockout and resume NHL hockey."

The announcement that talks would resume came just hours before the league's general managers were to get an update from Bettman during a meeting in New York.