It's a start

That's about all that can be said for the new proposal from the NHL Players' Association presented to the owners yesterday. The biggest splash was the news that the proposal contained an immediate 24% rollback on player salaries. The proposal also contained lower limits on entry level salaries and bonuses, a revamped arbitration process, the creation of an NFL-esque competition committee -- an idea also floated at Brendan Shanahan's summit on game-improvement, an offer to participate in the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics, and a dreaded luxury tax. SALARY ROLLBACK: A huge concession from the players -- their last proposal called for a rollback between 5 and 10 % -- is a great idea. This will immediately drop the salaries on all existing contracts, and force future free agents to negotiate from a much lower starting point than they do now. ENTRY LEVEL SALARIES: This offer drops the limit on entry level salaries from $1.295 million to $850,000. I think this is fine, but I find it very interesting that players are willing to cap salaries for rookies but not for veterans. ARBITRATION: The current arbitration process calls for a player to make a proposal and his team to make a proposal and then allows for the arbiter to award any amount he or she feels is just. Under the new proposal, this system would be more akin to baseball where the player and the team each submit a number and the arbiter chooses one of those numbers. Again, I think this offer is fine. COMPETITION COMMITTEE: Under the current CBA, rule changes are proposed by GMs to the owners and implemented unilaterally by the owners. In the new offer, a competition committee would be created that is comprised of both players and club representatives that would be in charge of recommending rule changes to the league and would also seek to improve the league's marketing and revenues. I love this idea. To me, it makes no sense that the people who play the game have no say in how the game is played. OLYMPICS: I hate this idea, simply for the fact that it undermines the very idea of what the Olympics are supposed to be about -- amateurs and not professionals. Perhaps I'm living in a different time, but I would rather see a bunch of college kids and junior players playing than NHLers. It's not enough that they make all the money, but they have to take away some kid's dream of representing his country as well? LUXURY TAX: The players' offer calls for a starting threshold of $45 million, with a 20% tax imposed on those clubs that spend between $45 million and $50 million. If a club is over the limit two years in a row, in the second year the tax increases to 25%. If it's three years in a row, then the tax goes to 30%. Those teams that spend between $50 million and $60 million will be taxed at a 50% rate in the first year, with a five percent increase again in the second and third consecutive years. The teams that spend more than $60 million on payroll will be hit with a 60% tax, with -- again -- a five percent increase in the second and third consecutive years. Also included in this is a revenue sharing provision that calls for the bottom 15 teams in revenue to receive enough money to bring them within 30% of the revenue of the top 15 teams. I think this is an area that can be worked on and improved, but as it stands right now is unacceptable. The threshold needs to be much lower -- considering that the owners wanted the hard cap limit set at $31 million -- and the penalties much stiffer. If you set the original threshold at say $35 million, with a starting tax of 50%, and increase the amount of tax -- by more than 5% -- for every year a team is over the limit, I think you have an offer that the owners may be able to live with. Throw in a minimum amount of money -- say, $20 million or so -- that all teams must spend on revenue and I think you have an offer that the players can live with. (If a team does not spend the minimum amount on player salaries, they will be fined some monetary amount and/or be forced to forfeit future draft picks.) Keep the revenue sharing plan the same as in the offer the players made, and you just may have a deal that both sides can live with. Here's hoping that the owners take a serious look at the offer over the weekend and come up with a counterproposal that is genuinely aimed at getting back on the ice as soon as possible. All indications are that talks will continue on Tuesday, with the owners presenting their counterproposal at that time. Keep your fingers crossed. For the entire proposal, click here for a PDF file on the NHLPA web site. (Note: I have been having trouble opening this.)