League bribing Players' Association to sign deal, get 'Meaningful Season' -NHL Update
The National Hockey League (NHL) wants to get going with the regular season, but according to team owners and Commissioner Gary Bettman, the labour union is not serious in their demands, but could get a meaningful season out of them if they just sign the
deal and get the lockout over with.
It is believed by multiple sources that the Board of Governors meeting on Wednesday, following the players and team owners eight-hour long meeting on Tuesday, discussed exactly how long they would want the regular season to go on after having missed nearly
three months of it now.
The lockout came into play following expiration of the previous collective bargaining agreement on September 15, 2012, and both sides have failed to reach any significant deal ever since then.
A 56-game regular season is easily in the pipeline if they agree on a labour deal, but it is yet to be seen if that remains a possibility as the two stakeholders have entered a new whole deadlock altogether after the league and labour union rejected each
other’s proposals in a meeting on Thursday which barely lasted an hour.
Having a hockey year with any fewer games than 56 would not make it meaningful according to various experts and going above 50 is something crucial to sustaining the excitement and following of the game.
"You don't want to have a 48-game season like they did (in 1994)," former Columbus Blue Jackets general manager and current Sportsnet analyst Doug MacLean said Thursday. "You've got to have something in the 56-to-58 game range to make it meaningful. That
seems more like it."
Some sources also believe that the NHL may be playing on Christmas day, but for many, that would not be something useful for the league as the NBA controls the airspace usually on that holiday.
"I just don't think the league should play that day," added MacLean. "I don't like the idea. That's one day to me they need to stay away from. Don't play on Christmas Day and change the schedule just because you had a lockout."
It will definitely be interesting to see how much they manage to play, if they come out of the lockout that is.
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