SAVING THE NHL SEASON : A Suite Deal Finally Came Together : Hockey: Bettman, Goodenow go down to the wire to get an agreement.

NEW YORK — At 10 a.m. Monday, they wore nicely tailored suits, crisp shirts and neatly knotted ties.

By midnight, Commissioner Gary Bettman’s top aides and the NHL’s attorneys had shed their ties and jackets. By 3 a.m. Tuesday, Jeff Pash, the league’s general counsel, and Brian Burke, the director of operations, were in their stocking feet.

“They were all walking around shoeless,” an NHL official said. “It must be a lawyer thing.”

While they sprawled on couches and chairs in the league’s plush Manhattan offices, Bettman was at a nearby hotel, coaxing, cajoling and sometimes cursing at Bob Goodenow, executive director of the NHL Players Assn.

The NHL’s season was on the line. Bettman and Goodenow, who had last talked face to face on Dec. 6, spent nearly 20 hours together working out the details of an agreement that the union sent to its members on Wednesday and recommended that it be ratified.

Most of that time, Bettman and Goodenow were alone in a room at the Four Seasons hotel. Once, they took a 90-minute dinner break. No doubt remembering Burke’s comment several months ago that the negotiators should be locked up in a room for continuous talks and send out for Chinese food, they went to a Chinese restaurant.

When they heard that, Burke, Pash and other NHL officials waiting back at the league’s offices ordered in Chinese food.

From the recollections of various sources, here is a reconstruction of the last hours of a long and arduous dispute.

*

Goodenow, who was in Toronto at the union’s headquarters Sunday when its negotiating committee unanimously rejected an offer the league had presented less than 24 hours earlier, arrived in New York late Sunday. He holed up at the Four Seasons with his top lieutenants, Bob Riley and John McCambridge.

Bettman arrived at about 10 a.m. Their first words were let-bygones-be-bygones, abandoning their posturing so they could negotiate frankly.

They talked about the NHL’s last offer, which proposed unrestricted free agency at age 32. Goodenow wanted it at 30. Bettman said his owners, fearing bidding would drive salaries up and squeeze them economically, would never go for that.

They got nowhere. But Goodenow had been given orders by his players to make a deal. They didn’t want to lose the season, because they knew the league’s revenues--money they will eventually share--would shrivel if labor problems scared off advertisers and television networks.

They made progress on the other key issues, salary arbitration, the rookie salary cap and whether the union should have the right to reopen the deal for negotiation, a right the league had kept for itself in its last proposal.

Occasionally, they tried indirect negotiations, not wanting to be confrontational and end their newly cordial relationship.

When they got to a sticky point, Bettman called Pash and Burke and asked them to call influential player agents. They would tell the agent something like, “Can you get to Goodenow and tell him it isn’t going to fly?”

Goodenow did the same with Riley and McCambridge. They called Mike Barnett, who represents Wayne Gretzky, and Don Baizley, a respected agent who served as a go-between several times before.

Burke and Pash also talked to general managers, who were calling for updates. There wasn’t much they could say. “We didn’t know what we had,” a source said.

But not every general manager was in the loop. Some were in the dark. “We’re in the mushroom division,” said Jack Ferreira of the Mighty Ducks.

But while few knew it, Bettman and Goodenow were plowing ahead steadily. Pash and Burke went to the Four Seasons to join them.

At about 4 a.m. Tuesday, they had made enough progress for Gretzky--who was home in California getting word from Barnett--to call teammates and tell them an agreement was imminent. Go to practice, he told them.

Not much later, Pash called the NHL office to tell them the deal was off.

*

The season almost ended at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. Goodenow and Bettman thought they had a deal, but they took a second look at what they had put on paper.

Somehow, the age for unrestricted free agency was 30 for the last two years of the six-year contract. Bettman said there had been a misunderstanding. Goodenow said that’s what they agreed to. Bettman said forget about it.

Gretzky called teammates and told them it had fallen apart.

Bettman, Pash and Burke returned to the league offices. They began caucusing. “They were down, but not out,” another source said. “They talked through a series of possible alternatives to try and get it done.”

They kept talking. “There was an amazing sunrise Tuesday morning,” a source said. “Gary’s office has windows facing east and a great view.”

At about 5:30 a.m., a radio station on Long Island called with a rumor that there had been a settlement. Its call letters: WGBB--Bettman’s initials.

Somewhere after 6 a.m., weary staffers decided to freshen up and lined up to use the shower in the office suite. Rick Dudley, chief operating officer for NHL Enterprises, broke into the closet that holds samples of NHL merchandise and gave out towels so people could dry off.

Burke, Pash and Bettman tried some new wrinkles. Bettman called Goodenow at about 6 a.m. Goodenow promised to call back. It was essentially the deal they later agreed upon.

*

First, though, Bettman had to get through two phone calls with his governors. The first, at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, “was almost embarrassing,” one governor said. People screamed. They voted down a proposal that Bettman did not endorse, one that would have had 32 as the eligibility age for free agency in the first year of the deal and 31 for the next five years.

Bettman then asked for ideas, by phone or by fax. Barry Shenkarow, Winnipeg’s owner and governor, suggested three years of free agency at 32 and three at 31. Some governors like it, some don’t. The hawks think he’s giving Goodenow too much. Philadelphia’s Ed Snider calms them.

“We hired this guy to get a deal,” he tells them. “We’re not going to get a tax or a cap. Let’s get a deal.”

They adopt Shenkarow’s suggestion and approve the proposal, 19-7. They call it their final proposal and threaten, again, to cancel the season if the players don’t accept it promptly. Bettman went home about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. He and Goodenow spoke by phone. Wednesday morning, Goodenow calls Bettman and says his negotiating committee will recommend that players accept it in a rank-and-file vote, to be conducted by noon Friday.

Bettman, looking exhausted at a 1:30 p.m. news conference, had to be reminded by a photographer to smile after telling everyone how thrilled he is. Goodenow, at a separate news conference about an hour later, said he’s “very confident” players will accept it.

The season, apparently, is saved.

* RELATED STORY: An uneasy peace settles over the NHL, as a settlement is reached in the 103-day labor dispute. A1

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