League, union to meet for first time in 3 months

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.

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After nearly three months of silence on and off the ice, the sides agreed Thursday to meet in Toronto on Dec. 9. 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, said. "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.

Bettman has said that a luxury tax won't work.. He is seeking "cost certainty" for the clubs, which the union says is tantamount to a salary cap - a solution it refuses to accept.