All NHL 2013 preseason games scrapped amid lockout

By Lindy Rumer

The Los Angeles Kings celebrate after defeating the New Jersey Devils in Game Six of the 2012 Stanley Cup Final at Staples Center.

NEW YORK, United States (TheSportsNEXT) September 28, 2012: All the preseason games of the National Hockey League 2012-13 (NHL 2013) were cancelled Thursday by the NHL authorities after it failed to achieve common grounds with the NHL Players Association which resulted in the lockout.

 

The NHL, which locked out players on September 16, 2012 when the collective bargaining agreement expired, announced the decision to scrap all the preseason games in a two-line statement.

Scott Parse of Los Angeles Kings celebrates with Stanley Cup

Previously, the NHL had cancelled the NHL preseason games scheduled for September and while the NHL regular season was due to commence from October 11, 2012 the authorities failed to reach an agreement with the NHLPA and now have been forced to cancel all the preseason games.

The move has come just a day ahead of the NHL-NHLPA talks scheduled for Friday where both sides will be negotiating secondary economic and financial issues. The crux of the disagreement is the distribution of over 3 billion US dollars in annual NHL revenue.

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New York to host next round of NHLPA-NHL talks

By Lindy Rumer

WASHINGTON, United States (TheSportsNEXT) September 26, 2012: The city of New York will be hosting the next round of negotiations between the NHL owners and the NHL Players Association (NHLPA) on Friday in what would be the first talks since the NHL lockout commenced.

 

The NHL commissioners heralded lockout on September 15, 2012 after NHL and NHLPA failed to reach a conclusion in a series of negotiations to find common grounds on players’ revenue generation formula.

The Friday’s round of talks would primarily focus on secondary economic issues but experts are looking at it as a start of an ice-melting process if both the parties end on the same page.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and NHL Players' Association special counsel Steve Fehr already has had a meeting on Tuesday in Toronto which gave birth to Friday’s negotiations. The last time when the two sides discussed issues was on September 12, 2012 and since then it has been nothing but frustration for the NHL fans.

The NHL 2012 Lockout is the third lockout since 1993 when Gary Bettman became NHL commissioner and training camps were to open on September 16 for the fresh and new NHL season but the talks collapsed on September 12 which resulted in the stalemate.

The last NHL lockout had occurred in 2004-05 when it ate up the whole season and eventually ended with players made to accept a salary cap.

Nothing much is expected to happen on Friday because the NHL and NHLPA are firm on their respective stances over revenue generation formula but the other economic issues which are also vital for an agreement would be put on the table of negotiations.

Steve Fehr told local reporters Tuesday that pension and medical plans, schedule rules, drug testing, and the grievance procedure are the topics which would be negotiated in New York on Friday.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told reporters after Monday’s talks, "Obviously, we've got to talk before you can get a deal, so I think it's important to get the talks going again. But you also have to have something to say. I think it's fair to say we feel like we need to hear from the players' association in a meaningful way because I don't think that they've really moved off their initial proposal, which was made more than a month ago now."

The NHL, which has 3.3 billion US dollars in annual revenues, is not going to make a single dough this year if the talks failed to bear a result and NHL experts have already started fearing losing the whole season to the lockout.

The NHL owners want to cut down on players’ share of hockey-related revenues from 57 percent to somewhere around 47-49 percent, which are still around 4 percent more than what they originally offered, i.e. 43 percent.

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NHL lockout in the offing after talks adjourned

By Raleigh McPherson

NEW YORK (TheSportsNext) September 2, 2012: The NHL lockout is in the offing after officials of National Hockey League and NHL Players Association decided to adjourn contract negotiations after discussing an elusive deal for less than two hours on Saturday.

The NHL officials and NHLPA representatives discussed many options to avoid the NHL lockout but both sides failed to reach an agreement and with no schedule was issued for any further negotiations the NHL fans are left to believe the unbelievable as the NHL new season is approaching fast.

Saturday’s meeting was the third in four days and with only two weeks left in expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement the two sides are hoping to hold next round of talks at anytime to finish the disagreement.

And with the ongoing tussle between the NHL and the NHLPA, a lockout is all anybody can predict as NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman has already made it clear that the NHL will go into lockout if new deal is not finalized by September 15, 2012.

The NHL’s fresh season is scheduled to start in October, 2012 and if the NHL and NHPLA failed to strike a deal within the stipulated time, the NHL season would be either delayed or lost for the second time in eight years. It is merit mentioning here that the last time a full NHL season was lost due to a labor dispute was in 2004-2005.

Under the current NHL agreement, the NHL players receive 57 percent of the total NHL revenues and the National Hockey League authorities want this share to be decreased under the new deal and this has been the main point of contention in the talks between the authorities and the players.

As per the latest NHL proposal, the NHL players have been offered 46 percent of the hockey-related revenues for a period of six years, which is 3 percent more than the previously offered deal which promised 43 percent revenues to the players.

However, the strings attached to the improved revenue share is still keeping NHL players from accepting the deal as they are not feeling good about accepting limits on free agency and an end to salary arbitration.

St. Louis Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk expressed exactly how the NHLPA thinks about the latest offer when he posted on his official Twitter account, “Really disappointing to hear the NHL's reaction today. #theplayers put forward another great solution only for it to be brushed aside".

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