It keeps going on and on as The Globe and Mail reports contract talks are expected to resume. They will but they won't drag out. I'm not a believer that we're out of time but I can do the math. 60 days for playoffs. 65 days for a 30-game season. A couple of weeks to get tickets sold and players in camp. We still have a week or 10 days to get an agreement and get it memorialized. That's the good news.
The bad news is that nothing is going to happen until the NHLPA looks in a mirror, asks what's best for the majority of the rank and file, and negotiates a deal that includes a cap of some sort. That was, is, and will be the problem.

So I guess it's just watch and wait. This is down to one issue - the same issue as always: will the NHLPA accept any form of cost-certainty or will they refuse? It's been pretty apparent for weeks that the NHLPA's refusal to come off this issue is going to bring them down and now it's really a time when the NHL needs to show mercy on the union. Personally, I wouldn't except that it's the only way the season happens and it needs to. I think the NHL realizes that aside from the obvious problems, missing a season sets up a lot of fallout which includes the status of juniors and that could be a problem for years.
But if the NHLPA thinks the owners are going to fold, read this piece on the Wild: Wheelock holds out hope for hockey. While optimistic, it's clear that this club, and it's typical, can go this season and maybe longer without hockey.
Settle now, boys. You have one more kick at it: take the cap, make your best deal. But don't miss the season.

There wasn't a whole lot to write about yesterday. One could pick up and repeat a lot of Hockey Rumors but I'm not sure that it does anything more than add to the general air of uncertainty. Optimism, very cautious optimism, seems to be the operative mode just about everywhere although this piece on Sportsnet seems more pessimistic than most. For what they're worth, here are my two cents: I think there's a deal to be made - a combination of a soft cap (one with exemptions for certain players), luxury tax, and a hard ceiling that is higher than had been talked about. I think the players will take a pay cut as they offered and, in return, I think they get better free-agency and maybe some other benefits. I have no clue on arbitration but I think the clubs will get the right to take the player nder certain circumstances.
It all revolves around the NHLPA's willingness to accept reality and that is a cap. Almost every article says this thing has been prolonged by the NHL's insistence on a cap. Why not by the NHLPA's refusal to accept one?
We should know for sure by the weekend. It's 19:30 in the third period and this one isn't going to OT (or maybe a shootout??).

Well, the season may not be lost. According to this report on TSN.ca, Chellie is making nice and that can only be with Bob's blessing. Chris has been one of the more vocal PA members throughout this fiasco and now he's saying the season is on. Let's hope he's actually right about something for a change.

It really is like the song at the end of Dr. Strangelove - you know: We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when.." Let's just hope that everyone checks their ego at the door and, for the good of the game, something gets done.

While I hate the thought, this piece from Newsday titled Kill NHL season, make fresh start is thought-provoking. But maybe we can take some of the ideas without losing the whole season? Guess we'll know soon!

I think the Boston Globe gets is exactly right when it says it's Hard to see how the players can win this time. They can't. I'm hoping that a lot of the nonsense the NHLPA reps put out on Friday was the venting of frustration as they came to that realization and not them digging in further. If it is the latter, there is going to be, or should be, a wholesale revolt among the rank and file. Knowing that they can't win, the PA leadership is violating the trust the players have put in them and they should be removed.

Things are either looking really grim or not too bad, depending on if you're a "glass half empty" kind of a person. Why? Because we have arrived at the point of no return. Either there will be a deal done with a cap, and this is now very clear to the NHLPA, or many guys will throw away a good piece of their hockey careers as well as money. After Trevor Linden, who is showing a lot of guts in the last few days, was spoken to by Dr. Evil (NHLPA Chief Bob), he came down and spoke about how he thought the season was lost but only because the NHL continues to insist on a cap. What a shock. Linden and the other NHLPA guys knew this when they took the meetings on Wednesday and Thursday and I believe that Trevor would make a deal with a cap today. But Bob is doing what unions do: take care of the union and screw the rank and file. There is supposedly a vote going on among the PA to see if they'll take a cap. The real results will never be made known - the NHLPA will say the players are overwhelmingly against it even though there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Read between the lines of this piece in the New York Post where Marty Brodeur says they need to solve this and play. He knows there has to be a cap and he knows the terrible toll this is taking on the game.
Once more - the end game is this: there will be a cap. Now or later, but it is coming. To best serve the players and the game, the NHLPA should accept this and make a deal - lower the free agency age, get a bigger cut of the pie, but make a deal. Because whatever deal they can make today cannot be made next fall, and the piece they get will be of a much smaller pie.

When you find yourself wondering why the NHLPA distrusts the NHL leadership so much, you don't have to go much further than Alan Eagleson. Yesterday, Eagleson plead guilty to bilking hockey stars, while he was head of the NHLPA. If you believe in the concept of institutional memory, that, in part, is what you're seeing in the NHLPA's unwillingness to accept the NHL's numbers or just about anything they set forth as fact. Too bad - one bad apple really did spoil a $2.2 billion barrel...

It's so close you can hear the sound of steel on ice. The Winnipeg Sun reports there's a deal on the table to settle the lockout but the article left me confused. On the one hand, there seems to be an acceptance by the NHLPA that the deal has to contain some sort of cost certainty. On the other hand, it says the NHLPA once again says it will not accept a cap.
I guess it doesn't matter what it's called as long as it stops the clubs from bleeding permanently. Today should be another interesting day.

This is why Espo is in the Hall Of Fame - he's always been a leader on and off the ice. So when he saysthat he doesn't agree with the NHLPA's stance it carries a lot of weight. Let's hope enough that some progress is made tomorrow!

Could peace be breaking out? The Union and the NHL are going back to table even if the table is a little smaller (no Gary, no Bob). Personally, I believe that this is a sign the rank and file are speaking out to their leaders and letting them know that they recognize where this is all leading: the deal the NHLPA can cut today is better than the one they'll be able to cut in a year and there is no reason why 700 guys should bear the brunt of this to protect 30 or 40. By the way, those 30 aren't going to starve: $7 million, vs. the $10 million they're making now, is a lot more money than most people will make in their lifetimes much less in a hockey season.
Kudos to Trevor Linden for being leader enough, and man enough, to listen to his membership and take action. It's more than the paid NHLPA leadership has done. Remember - the NHL Board tells Gary what to do. They are the ones who laid down the "cost-certainty or die" mandate, not the Commissioner. The NHLPA leaders are telling the players they can't live with a cap - I'm not so sure the players feel that way and I'm hoping they told Trevor Linden exactly that.
No movement can live without its members. The NHL Board only has 30 and 25 or more of them are solid as rocks. The NHLPA has roughly 800 members and the vast majority of them see the handwriting on the wall. It's over - make a deal (there are still a LOT of points that can be won) and play hockey.
Please!

We can only hope that this rumour of a meeting on The Province is true. Time's almost up, boys.

Good question raised by Wojo in the Detroit News:Is the NHL headed to the Ice Age? Who knows? I'm so sad about (but in agreement with) his rhetorical question - so this is how it ends? I hope not. It doesn't have to. And while I know the fan base is solid and, for the most part, in agreement with the NHL that this needs to get fixed permanently, we're very much getting to unexplored territory - the loss of an entire season. Lots of rumors around that the players are caving or that the owners are not happy but I don't place a lot of faith in the rumors. Based on what I see reported as fact - quotes from people, etc. - I guess I'd believe the players are more uncertain, as they should be, as to their prospects for victory or even a compromise solution that leans their way.

Frankly, among the things I don't understand is the NHLPA's attitude. The NHL responded to the NHLPA's offer, accepting some things, asking for others, such as the 24% roll-back, to be structured differently. Yet, as shown in this piece on TSN.ca, the PA continues to say the NHL won't negotiate. Isn't negotiation a back and forth? Didn't the NHL respond in great detail and point by point to the PA's proposal? Yes. And so when Bill Daly says ''From my perspective, if there are elements of our counter-proposal that are unacceptable to them or that they don't like, let's talk about them - let's get back to the negotiating table,'' Daly said. ''Let's discuss it," I think that's an invitation to the PA to keep the process going. But like all the other lies the NHLPA tells, the lie of "the NHL won't negotiate" is shown for what it is by the facts.

Mike Modano has been around the NHL long enough that when he speaks, people do pay attention. That's what makes the current controversy over yesterday's remarks so interesting. Under the headline "Players' Resolve is Finite: Modano" the National Post reported yesterday that he holds out little hope for a resolution to the lockout in time to play this season and feels the resolve of the 750-member NHL Players' Association may not hold up through another season. Obviously, after the NHLPA got to him within hours, he clarified his remarks, but there really was no need - he gets it.

Today, there's a story in the Dallas Morning News (reg. required) that clarifies the clarification. "At the very least, we should be talking about it and how we're going to handle it," Modano said. "I think we need to organize a meeting pretty soon so we can sit down and talk and get everything out." Good thinking, Mike. Maybe then you can make your peers..well...fellow players - you don't have a lot of peers - aware of the truth you've obviously figured out: the NHLPA has lied to you about a lot of things, the biggest of which is that the owners' resolve will crumble over the prospect of a lost season (or two).

Mike Modano has been around the NHL long enough that when he speaks, people do pay attention. That's what makes the current controversy over yesterday's remarks so interesting. Under the headline "Players' Resolve is Finite: Modano" the National Post reported yesterday that he holds out little hope for a resolution to the lockout in time to play this season and feels the resolve of the 750-member NHL Players' Association may not hold up through another season. Obviously, after the NHLPA got to him within hours, he clarified his remarks, but there really was no need - he gets it.
Today, there's a story in the Dallas Morning News (reg. required) that clarifies the clarification. "At the very least, we should be talking about it and how we're going to handle it," Modano said. "I think we need to organize a meeting pretty soon so we can sit down and talk and get everything out." Good thinking, Mike. Maybe then you can make your peers..well...fellow players - you don't have a lot of peers - aware of the truth you've obviously figured out: the NHLPA has lied to you about a lot of things, the biggest of which is that the owners' resolve will crumble over the prospect of a lost season (or two).

This is EXACTLY what I'm saying. This is millionaires vs. billionaires and at the end, the Players will lose.

The Los Angeles Times (reg. required) has an excellent piece that is headlined Forecast: Ice Cold. What is becoming very apparent is this "The league is willing to cut a business that became a $2.1-billion industry to $1 billion and grow it back again." Exactly, and precisely why the NHLPA can't win. The owners are rich guys, most clubs are saving money by not playing, and if this becomes a war or attrition, the NHLPA will lose. Why haven't the NHLPA rank and file, or the agents who represent them, figured this out? Actually, I think a lot of them have but are too cowed by the belligerance of those who represent them to object. And that's a shame, since they could already be back on the ice collecting those capped cheques.

This piece from the Calgary Herald (reg. required) lays it out more clearly than just about anything I've read over the course of the lockout. Here's the crux of the open letter to Bob:

What should be concerning the point man for the players at this very delicate point in time, instead of digging his heels ever deeper into the quicksand, is resuming negotiations, working past the semantics and hammering out the most advantageous deal possible under the circumstances for his clients.
In their best interests, Goodenow should put the personality conflict aside and be at the table right now, negotiating to bump a $38-million cap up to, say, $45 million.
Or proposing a sliding cap starting at, for argument's sake, $50 million in the first year and scaling down over a period of seasons. That way, current players still take a bigger share of the pie short-term, before the hellish economic squeeze of earning, say, $1.3 million instead of $1.8 million begins to become a crippling hardship.
They've already dithered away a small fortune by layman standards.
Are they prepared to sacrifice a second fortune, too?

A sad, but good overview of where things stand as the clock is ticking on the NHL.

Good piece by Scott Burnside on ESPN.com. He says it's the players' turn to try and save the game and themselves. Recognizing that the NHL has repeatedly said there is wiggle room on every issue except one, the players should tell Bob to shut up and go make a deal which takes advantage of the leeway the NHL is offering. Better free agency, etc.

MICHAEL ROSENBERG says it all in today's Detroit Free Press: Boys, it's time to give up and play hockey. He does an excellent job of summing up what I and a number of others out here in the blogsphere have been saying. We all know where this ends so why not end it now, collect your salaries and move on. Our game needs to heal and tearing it apart over some ideologue's misplaced sense of protection for 30 - 40 guys while failing the vast majority of his immediate constituency along with fans and all the "little people" who park cars, sell beer, etc. is grossly irresponsible. Maybe criminal - who knows: the NHLPA isn't immune from that sort of thing.
For Ted Saskin to say "I don't know of anyone who believes that the NHL has made one bona fide proposal aimed at a settlement that could work for both sides" is a joke. Hey Ted! I do! "Working for both sides" is just that, buddy. Just because it's not exactly the way you want it doesn't mean it can't work. In fact, comparing the NHLPA's last proposal and the NHL's, it's pretty obvious that most players are WAY better off under the NHL's proposal. So where do you get off saying stuff like that?

Stan Fischler has his finger on the pulse, as usual, as he reports that the looming NHL Governors' meeting is setting all the papers ablaze. The best line is this:

Public opinion won't be a factor in settling the CBA war, but it's apparent that fans — even in blue collar cities such as Buffalo — are totally on the NHL owners' side.

"I'm still looking for someone out there who thinks NHL players are in the right," notes Buffalo News' columnist Bob Dicesare.

You got that right!

The thing I love about some of these comments made by NHLPA members is that they reveal how utterly uninformed they are by the union. As you can tell from this piece on TSN.ca, the NHLPA will characterize anything but a blanket acceptance of thier offer as bullying. To say "we made what we thought was a good offer and the league didn't engage in any kind of discussions to try to make something happen" is wrong - the League submitted a well thought out, comprehensive counter offer, and the NHLPA then locked themselves in a room for an hour and came out to say there was nothing more to talk about. At least that's what it said in the papers at the time. Why won't the NHLPA respond to this proposal? Because it contains a cap? How about you take the cap (becasue ultimately, that's where this ends) and ask for 60%?
I don't know how many cheques the union has cost these guys, but they've now missed Christmas. How about helping the rank and file give their wives something by Valentine's Day? Locking yourself in a room and ignoring (or denying) the truth isn't going to get a deal done.

Every GM in the league was at the World Juniors - normally it's just scouts. However, they' like all of us, Can Only Watch and Hope. Mike Milbury says it best : "I don't think anybody has given up hope. We are hopeful that something can be done, but someone is going to have to come up with a master plan in a hurry. " Meanwhile, everyone on both sides deny new any offer is pending. How's it look down at the bottom of that chasm?

Seems like the NHLPA is now posturing that they've gone about as far as they're going to go. Oh really?
In this LA Times piece (reg. required), Steve Rucchin, who is the Ducks' rep, says the NHL Players Aren't Preparing An Offer. This is the key quote:

Rucchin said that the players went as far as they were willing to go in a proposal Dec. 9, which included a 24% salary cut, a luxury tax and significant changes in entry-level contracts. League representatives rejected that plan and countered with an offer that set player salaries at 54% of the league revenue. The players rejected that proposal, calling it a salary cap.

Buddy, if that's as far as you're willing to go, maybe we ARE at impasse and the NHL can bring in the replacements. If not, shut up and negotiate in good faith. The NHL has been clear about what must underpin any proposal: cost certainty of any form. The NHLPA needs to get that figured out and then make a great deal for themselves within that framework: a high percentage of the pool, make the pool very inclusive, improve free-agency, etc.

Good thinking, Rene...IIHF will be patient. You need the best in the world a lot more than they need you!

Different perspective from Damien Cox who asks Do we want New Year's resolution to NHL mess? His point might be worth considering - whether total destruction, and then reconstruction, will actually accomplish more in the long run.

This is getting more interesting by the day. It appears that the lies of the NHLPA don't stop at just Roy Ray and that he has company on the union pay issue. Andreas Dackell, Adam Oates, and others aren't getting paid either. The best tidbit is that to qualify for lockout pay a player must have been on a roster at the end of last season and have 400 games of NHL experience. That's 5 full seasons, boys, and is another example of how this whole mess is not about protecting the majority of the rank and file. What other lies is the PA telling?