NHL, Union continue negotiations; to meet Wednesday

NEW YORK -- Negotiations toward a new Collective Bargaining Agreement continued Tuesday as the National Hockey League tabled a comprehensive response to the counterproposal it received Monday from the National Hockey League Players' Association.

"The fact that we're involved in a continuous process is something that I'm glad to see," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said, "but we're clearly not done yet.

NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr said Tuesday evening that the Union's negotiating committee was going to immediately begin examining the documents it received. Fehr also said the Union plans to get back in touch with the League's negotiating committee Wednesday morning to plan the next step in the process.

The sides say they expect to reconvene for further bargaining at some point Wednesday.

"The Players' Association said they would be back to us [Wednesday] morning to let us know when they'd be ready," Bettman said.

On Monday, the NHLPA responded to a proposal it received from the NHL last week. The League took Monday night and most of Tuesday to go over the documents it received from the NHLPA in order to craft its response. The League delivered its response late Tuesday during a meeting at the League office that lasted a little less than an hour.

"We asked a couple of questions and now what we have to do is go through the document, try to make some sense out of it, compare it and see what the appropriate thing is to do next," Fehr said. "And, that's what we are going to do.

"We are going to start tonight, we'll continue in the morning and we'll be in touch with them in the morning. There is really not anything that can be said at this point."

Commissioner Bettman characterized the League's response in this manner:

"In our response there were certain things that the Players' Association asked for that we agreed to, there were some things that we moved in their direction and there were other things that we said no. But, that's part of the process."

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