<p><strong>Regular Season Not Far if League Compromises according to Players' Association -NHL Update</strong></p>
<p>Special Counsel for the National Hockey League (NHL) Players’ Association, Steve Fehr, believes that the 2012-2013 NHL regular season could start almost immediately if the league compromises on some key issues like they have done.</p>
<p>During a panel discussion at the PrimeTime Sports Management Conference, Fehr was talking about how a deal could be “done very quickly”, only when the moment is right and would not take more than a couple of days to be enforced.</p>
<p>"One thing (deputy commissioner) Bill Daly and I agree upon is that when the moment is right the deal could be done very quickly," Fehr said Monday. "One day, three days or whatever."</p>
<p>A number of key participants like Pittsburgh Penguins captain, Sidney Crosby, and many others are seriously considering leaving North America and continue playing during the lockout overseas, since they are not seeing any significant progress as of yet.</p>
<p>Core economic issues still are needed to be covered by the two stakeholders and it is hard to see them being resolved anytime soon. It has been quite a while since the previous collective bargaining agreement came to an end in September, while talks had
kicked off earlier in June. With nearly six months gone, both sides need to continue working hard if they hope to get something done by the start of the New Year.</p>
<p>"We're not making any real progress in those areas," Fehr said. "It's kind of hard to believe anyone's going to drive the industry bus off a cliff over things like that, but I've seen things before that surprise me."</p>
<p>The league is looking towards securing a longer term deal, which would obviously have more benefits for the team owners and management overall, but players do not believe that any of the proposals made so far have any equal treatment for them. Both sides
have been meeting continuously these past few days, but still nothing has been achieved as of yet which could be termed to be a breakthrough.</p>
<p>Updates should be expected in the next 24 to 48 hours on whether the league and Players’ Association have got back to talking or not.</p>
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