'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
All is quiet between the NHL and the players' association, and there is no sign the sides will talk even by phone before Christmas.
The NHL and its locked-out players might turn up in a courtroom before they find their way back onto the ice.
Negotiators from the NHL and the players' association made it into the same room to talk this time. They just didn't carry any meaningful progress out of it.
Anticipating a possible antitrust suit, the NHL has brought its labor fight against hockey players to federal court.
Federal mediators are still involved in hockey's labor talks, and the NHL and the players' association might soon be getting together again.
Two days of talks between the NHL, the players' association, and federal mediators still haven't provided any answers how to end the lockout.
Minutes after NHL Players' Association executive director Donald Fehr said the sides were in "complete agreement" on many issues in negotiations with the league toward a new collective bargaining agreement, he went back to reporters in New York City on Thursday night and told them: "There has been a development. It's not a positive one."
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Friday that he is out of ideas how to get negotiations back on track to save the hockey season.
Donald Fehr thought he and the hockey players he leads were close to a deal to save the season. The NHL said not so fast, and then took away everything that created all the optimism in the first place.
It took several hours on Thursday, but negotiators from the NHL and the players' association found their way back to the bargaining table for the third consecutive day of talks aimed at ending the long lockout.
The NHL has rejected the players' latest offer for a labor deal, and negotiations have broken off at least until the weekend.
NHL owners and players were back in contact with each other Wednesday morning, but didn't hold a bargaining session because they didn't want to rush through a meeting before the league's board of governors got together.
Negotiations between hockey owners and players are going so well that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says he's "pleased with the process" _ even if he has been left outside the latest rounds of discussions.
Negotiations between hockey owners and players are going so well that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says he's "pleased with the process" _ even if he has been left outside the latest rounds of discussions.
The best news on the 80th day of the NHL lockout was that hockey owners and players did most of their talking in front of each other instead of making public statements.
Fehr, who took part in the conference call earlier Friday, said the league didn't make its legal plans known during its discussions.
"I expect the mediators will continue to be involved," Steve Fehr wrote in an email to the AP. "(I) do not want to characterize the discussion."
