Saturday,  September 15, 2012 • Vol. 13--No. 060 • 31 of 51 •  Other Editions

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n't ring genuine when something poor is all of a sudden deemed good.
• We trust that the district knows that, too, and is making sincere efforts to get everyone a high school diploma, no matter how difficult that job can be.
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Still no talks hours before NHL lockout kicks in
IRA PODELL,AP Sports Writer

• NEW YORK (AP) -- With only hours until a threatened NHL lockout, the league and the players' union appear no closer to a deal.
• For nearly a year, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has vowed to lock out players for the second time in eight years if a new collective bargaining agreement isn't reached by the time the current one expires at midnight EDT Saturday.
• NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and players' association special counsel Steve Fehr, the brother of NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, were expected to speak to each other Saturday morning to see if face-to-face talks would take place. If a deal isn't set by the end of the day, the NHL begins its fourth work stoppage since 1992.
• While this lockout might not wipe out the whole season the way one did in 2004-05 lockout, a good chunk of games could be lost without productive talks soon. Brief conversations Thursday night and Friday between leaders on both sides have yet to spur the parties to return to bargaining. The phone conversations concerned information requests from both sides.

• Bettman has repeatedly said that the NHL won't operate under the CBA that ended the previous lockout in July 2005. Under that scenario, it would appear unlikely that training camps will open next week as scheduled,. The regular season, to begin Oct. 11, also would be in peril.
• Once the lockout was imposed in September 2004, the sides didn't get back together again until December.
• Players absorbed a salary-cap system and took an immediate 24 percent rollback of existing contracts in 2005 in exchange for 57 percent of hockey-related revenues. The NHL now says that figure is too high, and is willing to have another league shutdown to reduce that share to 49 percent to 47 percent.
• Its original offer was to cut it to 43 percent, and an updated proposal raised it to 46 before another new offer pushed it a little higher Wednesday, the last time the sides met at the negotiating table.
• The most recent proposal from the league -- with a six-year term -- came in direct response to one put forth by the union earlier Wednesday that was rejected as

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