Donald Fehr, Players meet to deal with rising Tensions as Lockout persists -NHL Update
It has been 45 days since the National Hockey League (NHL) was officially locked out due to the previous collective bargaining agreement coming to an end on September 15, 2012, but the league and Players’ Association are still deadlocked on a new labour
deal.
The 2012-2013 NHL regular season was scheduled to start on October 11, 2012, but that too has come and passed now with both stakeholders still in odds over what the new CBA should include and what not.
Players and team owners are certainly on their toes as they realise that the annual Winter Classic event is also on the verge of being cancelled, bringing an end to what would have been a bang to kick off the New Year. Executive Director of the NHLPA, Donald
Fehr, has reportedly been meeting with the players as frustrations rise and confusion is widespread on when fans can actually expect the puck to finally drop.
NHLers are worried for many reasons. One major reason is the fact they are letting millions of fans down along with their future, contracts, salary and everything else involved in building up the frustration. Not having a hockey year is one thing, but not
seeing any sort of progress but instead, just everything going downhill is certainly something to stress about.
"It's their contract, it's their futures, it's their agreement and it's their union, and I work for them," said Fehr, according to MiamiHerald.com. "So I go wherever they want me to be. And when the guys say they want to have a meeting, I say, 'Sure, absolutely.'"
October 18th was the last time that both sides sat down to formally talk and by the way things are looking, the upcoming days do not hold a lot of promise for those hoping for the lockout to come to an end.
"The more things change, the harder it becomes," Fehr added. "But I'm not going to talk about future contingencies in the event we can't reach an agreement. I'm not going to discuss what we might do in other proposals down the road.”
The scenario seems to have reached the point where fans are giving up hope, but still are looking at that slightly open window of opportunity for a miracle to take place.
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