NHL, players’ association meet in Toronto

TORONTO (AP) - The NHL and the players’ association quietly resumed collective bargaining talks Friday and expect to be in contact again in the upcoming days.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly met with union head Donald Fehr and special counsel Steve Fehr in the NHLPA office on the 20th day of the NHL lockout.

“We met with the Union today in Toronto,” Daly told The Associated Press in an email. “We are supposed to touch base over the weekend. Nothing more to report right now.”

NHLPA spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon said any discussions this weekend won’t be in person.

The meeting on Friday marked the first negotiating session since talks broke off Tuesday in New York, where the sides had met four times in five days to discuss issues other than core economics.

No specifics were given about Friday’s negotiations.

“Just general discussion of where we are and how to move the process forward,” Daly said.

The sides hadn’t been expected to get together before next week, and the meeting didn’t become public until it was over. It took place one day after the NHL canceled the first two weeks of the regular season, wiping out 82 games from Oct. 11-24.

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