NHL players planning to present counter-proposal

• Eighteen players are to attend the session in Toronto
• NHLPA will respond to NHL's offer of 50-50 split
• Maple Leafs fan wants to know what Bettman, Fehr will do for fans.

TORONTO -- Hours before NHL officials and the league's players association sat down for what could be called a last-ditch effort to save a full 82-game, Toronto Maple Leafs fan Barry Murphy stood outside NHLPA offices with a sign that read: "Mr. Bettman and Mr. Fehr, Please take time to talk to a hockey fan."

Murphy said he expected Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players' Association executive director Donald Fehr to both stop, and if they do, he has written four questions to ask them.

"But if I had one question to ask it would be, 'If the puck drops on Nov. 2, what are you going to do for the fans to show them that the owners and players really do care about the fans,'" Murphy said.

Whether the NHL's objective to launch a full schedule on that is still very much in doubt, because Bettman has said the two sides have to reach an agreement by next week some in order to make that happen.

Thursday afternoon, the players will offer their formal response, presumably a proposal, in reaction to the owners' Tuesday offer of a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue, a proposal made with the hope of triggering serious negotiations to get the season back on track. With negotiations previously stalemated, the NHL had canceled the first two weeks of the season.

Eighteen players were to attend, including captains Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Jarome Iginla and Eric Staal.

The meeting with the NHL was moved back to 2:30 p.m. because Fehr was talking with his executive committee.

The NHLPA's public reaction has been mixed, pleased that the NHL said it was willing to negotiate and yet still displeased with the league's position, particularly on many of the secondary issues, such as free agency, arbitration, contract length, etc.

From the beginning, the owners have seemed intent on achieving a 50-50 split of the revenue, and this week's negotiations will probably be about the players attempt to persuade the league to back off on the vast majority of secondary issues.

Players are looking for a more gradual decline toward a 50-50 split. They were receiving 57% when the last collective bargaining agreement expires, and the decline from 57 to 50% means a loss in the range of $1.6 billion over the length of the deal, depending upon how the league's revenues grow.

Bettman, arriving with a handful of owners, did walk by the Maple Leafs fan on the way in and while slowing briefly, said to him: "We're trying to make it work."

Murphy clearly isn't happy with either side.

"It's a bad business model, and fans deserve more," Murphy said. "I think they should stop talking and do something."

Murphy has hopes that his formal protest will grow.

"I'm standing out here by myself today," Murphy said. "But maybe the next meeting there will be four or five us voicing our opinions and showing them that we just aren't going to sit around and wait."

Murphy said he recently moved back from Europe, and "one of the reasons I moved back was because I couldn't watch my Leafs play hockey."

Did he have tickets to watch them?

"God no," he said. "I have minus-35 dollars in my back account."