Labour Talks expected to Resume Wednesday between League, Players Association -NHL Lockout Update
According to latest reports and a number of sources, labour talks between the National Hockey League (NHL) and Players’ Association are expected to resume this upcoming Wednesday, after they broke up and totally collapsed earlier last week.
Getting players and team owners face-to-face in a rather candid meeting for the first time since the lockout came into effect on September 15, 2012, with the previous collective bargaining agreement ending, was termed to be a breakthrough in talks. It all
fell apart when the league and Players’ Association followed up in the next days and rejected each other’s offers yet again to shock and surprise the world.
Monday brought about further cancellations for the 2012-2013 NHL regular season, which has failed to get started up until this point. After cancelling the entire preseason, a huge chunk of the regular season followed by the much awaited NHL Winter Classic
and All-Star Game, hopes have begin to diminish over any hockey being played at all this time around.
"It was the NHL that got up and left and pulled everything from the table," the Chicago Blackhawks Jamal Mayers said, according to the Associated Press. "Certainly there will come a time in the next few days or the next week, they'll start to talk again.
My hope is that the owners realize that we really are that close."
422 regular season games have already been believed to have come under the axe up till the December 14th point and with this cut through to the New Year, 104 games can also be added to that list, bumping up the total to nearly half of the season
already gone due to failed negotiations.
There is no clear answer to what people can expect to go on Wednesday between the league and Players’ Association, but many are not too hopeful that something miraculous will come about. It would be surprising if the talks really do get in-depth, with both
sides not walking through the doors just an hour in like usual meetings.
Updates should be expected in the next couple of days as both sides meet in a series of fresh talks.
Tags: