Veteran Hockey Agent Steve Bartlett predicts Hockey Lockout not to last too long -NHL Update
The National Hockey League (NHL) and NHL Players’ Association (NHLPA) might not be showing any significant progress when it comes to continuing negotiations on a new labour deal with a lockout currently in play, but veteran hockey agent Steve Bartlett is
confident, according to his sixth sense, about the deadlock not lasting for more than a few weeks.
While many have termed the second lockout in less than a decade to also go as long as lasting a fully hockey regular season, hearing Bartlett’s statement, according to the Calgary Herald, might be a little unbelievable for some.
Why Bartlett believes that the lockout will end in weeks instead of months is mainly due to the reason that Donald Fehr is a much better negotiator compared to previous representatives of the Players’ Association along with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman
being much softer this time around.
“Gary Bettman and (NHL Player’s Association executive director) Bob Goodenow hated each other. There’s no throwing of spears now. Nobody’s saying the other side are a ... holes,” said Bartlett.
“My gut tells me this is going to weeks we’re out, not months,” said Bartlett. “I think the tipping point is (the American) Thanksgiving. That’s six weeks or so after the season (is supposed to start).”
Looking at Bartlett’s record of representing so many players throughout the years like Ryan Callahan of the New York Rangers, Erik Cole of Montreal Canadiens and former Edmonton Oilers captain, Doug Weight, it is easy to see why he can be trusted to be a
credible source of information on such a topic.
The biggest reason as to why experts are criticising the agent is due to the fact the kind of proposals the NHL has made up until now, since they cannot be termed to be soft in any sort of way and have been rejected by the labour union in every sense up
until now.
Updates should be expected in the days to come as both sides look to formally kick off the negotiation process again in order to work out their differences and have something settled before the regular season is scheduled to take off.
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