League, Players Association fails to make Significant Gains after 2 days of Mediation -NHL Lockout Update
The National Hockey League (NHL) and Players’ Association have unfortunately failed to make any significant progress after two days of continuous mediation between the two sides and the third party federal mediators. Wednesday and Thursday has lengthy meetings
of the two stakeholders with the FMCS mediators, but thus far, nothing conclusive can be said about getting a regular season back on track.
Work stoppage has gone well over two months now ever since the previous collective bargaining agreement, which was signed post the 2004-2005 NHL lockout, came to an end on September 15th, 2012.
Both sides are still far apart in the negotiations and third party interference, which was nonbinding on either, did not have anything that made them boast about any of the factors that came under discussion in both days.
"Today, we concluded two days of mediation with FMCS mediators and representatives of the NHL Players' Association," NHL Deputy Commissioner, Bill Daly, said in a statement. "After spending several hours with both sides over two days, the presiding mediators
concluded that the parties remained far apart, and that no progress toward a resolution could be made through further mediation at this point in time. We are disappointed that the mediation process was not successful."
NHLPA executive director, Donald Fehr, also went on to say that there was nothing productive that went on in the two meetings and “that they did not think it was productive to continue the discussions further today”. It is easy to say that either side will
not be coming back any time soon to continue negotiations under the wing of the mediators, but Fehr went on to add that they just might stay in touch in the future.
The most recent cancellations due to the lockout have been the much anticipated NHL Winter Classic and 2013 All-Star Game, while the regular season is also under serious threat of being definitely locked out for the remaining part that may still be recoverable.
It will be interesting to see whether the upcoming days will be significant for the lockout, or else players and fans will just have to move on to other things.
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