Mario speaks out
Hopefully, this will stop the ridiculous stories that Bettman used that last weekend as some master plan to break the union and destroy the NHL...
Mario Lemieux:
Big time meetings this week. The NHLPA and the players then the NHLPA and the agents. Hopefully the executive will be told to make sure a deal is done soon.
Mario Lemieux:
Lemieux said he and Gretzky only took part because they were led to believe the union was prepared to make an offer that included a $45 million slary cap.Mario - scab number one.
"The only way that Wayne and I would have gotten involved is because we believed there was a new proposal coming from the Players' Association," Lemieux told the Post-Gazette. "We were told by some of the players we were talking to that there would be a new proposal on the table at the $45 (million) level."
No such offer was made at the meeting, and the NHLPA later denied that an offer was even in their pocket, never mind on the table. The NHLPA said they only attended the meeting at the league's invitation. League commissioner Gary Bettman later told a New York radio station that he, Gretzky and Lemieux had been "set up" by the union, a notion NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow vehemently denied.
Lemieux avoided such talk in the aftermatch of the failed talks, but acknowledged he felt he was misled by the players - he just doesn't know why.
"It's a mystery to me," he said.
Big time meetings this week. The NHLPA and the players then the NHLPA and the agents. Hopefully the executive will be told to make sure a deal is done soon.
