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- BUSINESS, Page 53Business NotesLABOR NEGOTIATIONSPutting a Season on Ice
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- Hockey players can be brutal on the rink, but at the
- bargaining table they have been the softies of the sports world.
- No longer: last week the N.H.L. Players Association voted 560 to
- 4 to stage the first major strike in the league's 75-year
- history. The skate-out occurred a week before the Stanley Cup
- playoffs -- the most lucrative games of the year -- were to
- begin.
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- Salaries, which average $350,000 in the league, are not
- the chief issue. What players mainly want is fewer restrictions
- on free agency so they will have more mobility to move from team
- to team when their contracts expire. They also want, among other
- things, to retain the estimated $10 million a year they receive
- from trading cards; team owners have been arguing for contract
- language that could give them a bigger piece of that business.
- Unfortunately, both sides in the dispute see little chance of
- salvaging the play-offs.
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