No progress made after week long negotiations

 

As of Monday morning, November 12, the NHL Lockout has reached 57 days. And it seems that despite what amounted to one whole week of negotiations, nothing was achieved. On Sunday, the two sides met for 90 minutes and discussed such topics as maximum contract length, variance on year-to-year salary within a contract, length of entry-level deals, salary arbitration and the timeline for restricted and unrestricted free agency. According to their October 18 offer, the NHL wants five year contract limits, two year limits on rookie contracts and andwants unrestricted free agency to start at age 28 or after eight seasons of NHL service.

"I think it is fair to say while there was a candid discussion on those issues and each side explained their position to the other, I don't think there was any progress on any of those issues," NHL Deputy Commissoner Bill Daly said. "I just don't, right now, give their opposition to addressing some of these issues, know where to go," Daly added.


NHLPA head Steve Fehr stated that the deals that NHL were asking for would only hurt the players. He stated that the two main points for his side are how big of a share of HRR the players would be getting and how would players be able to negotiate their own individual shares/contracts. Regarding the former he stated that there was no agreement but both sides have moved a bit on it. However, he stated that the latter point was not going well as the NHL's offer would give players "vastly fewer rights, vastly less leverage for a vastly longer portion of their career under the NHL proposal."


"The owners made it clear that there is no give with respect to any of their proposals. That unless players are prepared to take, and this is my phrase, not theirs, down to the comma, that there's nothing to do," Fehr added.


Both the players and the owners are losing money at the moment, but some of the players making less than the superstars will start to feel the lack of money sooner than later. At that point, the question regarding unity within the NHLPA will arise.