WHAT DOES IT TAKE?

As of September 7^th, hockey season is upon us soon, and you hear very little about it. Why, because of a lockout deadline that is looming. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr have discussed the procedural details that could soon lead to negotiations that broke a while back.

NHL COMMISSIONER BETTMAN

The current collective bargaining agreement between the NHL and the NHL Players' Association expires on September 15, and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman will impose a lockout if a new deal isn't reached.

Everyone claims they see the urgency in coming to a new agreement, yet a whole summer has gone by, without a portion of it in negotiations and a sense of no urgency! September 19 starts the pre-season and October 11 the regular season. If you remember, the NHL canceled the entire 2004-05 season and playoffs before the current deal with the union was finally hammered out in July 2005.

The NHL made its first counterproposal, after the union's most recent offer, asking the players to cut their share of the revenue from 57 to 43 percent, the NHL upped its proposal to have the players get a 46 percent share over a six-year deal.

The NHLPA was willing to give back between $465 million and $800 million in revenue over the first three years of the deal as long as the system switched back to the existing agreement in the fourth year. The union revised its initial offer by proposing to restructure the fourth and final year of its initial offering.

The NHLPA, however, is still asking NHL owners to establish a revenue sharing program to help struggling teams.

What we are seeing here is the complication of the last two years of the deal being structured to come back to the original agreement as it stands today. Once a union is involved, the whole thing becomes a convoluted agreement that confuses a simple game, loved by fans worldwide. If the unions or management claims that they care for the fans, that is a lot of BS, it is indeed the money and the fans will pay for it.

Can they play hockey this year? Stay tuned.

That’s all I wrote, folks!