Well, at least the NHL and NHLPA are feeling what those on the outside looking in are feeling, and in a word it is FRUSTRATED. While the 30 NHL teams should be playing exhibition games and fine tuning their rosters for opening day next week, instead they are in boardrooms trying to figure out how to make it happen.
September 12, 2012; New York, NY, USA; NHLPA executive director Don Fehr speaks during a press conference at the 2012 NHLPA summer player meetings at the Marriott Marquis. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE
Finally, it is starting to become “real”. NHL Deputy commissioner Bill Daly admitted Tuesday that the NHL clubs have lost about $100million in revenue already due to cancelled games.
Meanwhile, the number of NHLers playing in Europe has now surpassed the century mark.
The combatants in this CBA war both seem to have dug in, and I’m not sure what it will take to remove the key stumbling blocks that sit on the road to an agreement. If you have been reading my opinions on the issues, you know where I stand, firmly on the side of the players. I think the onus is on the owners to make the first significant move, and that would be the allowance to gradually decrease the revenue percentage rather than take away a big chunk at once. The players made this concession last time around to get a deal done and I don’t expect them to break this time and do it again.
Both sides seem to have a similar idea of what the end goal of the CBA should be (at least in the same ballpark), but how to get there is the elephant in the room.
Either way, the frustration felt by everyone and openly discussed by the top dogs on both sides, means the cracks could come fairly soon (best case) OR it could entrenched each side deeper into their beliefs and we should get used to KHL highlights on SportsCentre for a while.