League, Players Union not expected to meet on Monday to continue talks -NHL Update
After three straight days of negotiations, for the first time since an ice cold deadlock between the two stakeholders, the National Hockey League (NHL) and Players’ Association have decided not to continue talks on Monday, in order to return and go over
what they achieved over the weekend.
It is seen to be a major development in terms of the lockout, since just days earlier, both sides were not even ready to talk with each other, but managed to work something out by talking for three straight days.
"It's not like we're not breaking off negotiations," NHL deputy commissioner, Bill Daly, said. "We need a little more time to do some work. They have some more work to do, too."
According to sources and NHLPA’s special counsel, Steve Fehr, the negotiation process could start as soon as Tuesday, after a day to go over what they want to put forth to the other side, and restart the process in order to get the most done in the least
amount of time.
"We offered to meet and, (Daly) can speak for himself, but they indicated they thought they had some homework they needed to do and things to discuss so it would be more productive to meet internally than meet tomorrow," Fehr said.
Both NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr, did not participate much in the events as they held two separate and private meetings on Friday and Saturday. This was also seen to be a major breakthrough and hopefully, the core
economic issues, which at the moment are the reason for the deadlock, will be able to be dealt with in the upcoming days.
"They will be at the table when we're talking about the issues that are really going to get this deal done or not," Daly added.
Hopefully, fans can see this as a breath of fresh air and hope to move on to something productive soon so that the regular season is at least not affected by the negotiation process as many are hoping for a deal to be met in the near future.
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