Expect Nhl Owners To Turn Thumbs Down On Settlement Offer

NHL owners apparently have a response to the players’ latest offer to save the season: This won’t do.

“I’ve talked to 10 teams today and they all said it was not acceptable,” Jack Ferreira, general manager of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, said Thursday. “It doesn’t even come close to being acceptable, as far as we’re concerned. It definitely will be rejected.”

Hartford Whalers owner Peter Karmanos told The Canadian Press: “There is absolutely no way it will pass.”

The NHL owners are to vote on Saturday, with prospects for ending the more than three-month lockout as grim as ever.

The governors have been studying the players’ latest offer, which was presented Wednesday in Chicago and sent in a 12-page fax to each of the 26 teams.

A management source, who asked to remain unidentified, told The Associated Press there is a possibility the owners will offer a counter-proposal.

“The league doesn’t want to be the one to reject the last offer,” he said. “They don’t want to be the ‘bad guys.”’ Then if the season is over, the onus would be on the players.”