Should We Be Worried for Potential NHL Lockout?

The NHL labor negotiations have been ongoing for quite a while now, with both sides trying to find a middle ground on their major differences that they are in the midst of.  It seems that we have some bad news though, as the negotiations have apparently hit quite a stand still with talks breaking off on Friday.  This is obviously a massive concern because this means that we are two weeks away from having another labor dispute.  This labor dispute would turn into the fourth in 20 years, something that is some obvious cause for concern for the NHL as a whole.

The game plan moving forward was for the two sides to meet in New York next week to continue talking, but the executive director of the NHL Players' Association has stated that the league has apparently asked for the talks between the two sides to be recessed.  This situation came up after the union offered up their latest proposal in New York, and the league apparently ended up threatening to lock out the players when the collective bargaining agreement that is in place right now expires in the middle of September.

This is the first time since the talks began that NHL officials openly expressed some concerns about the potential for a deal to be reached so that training camps do not get affected.  With the regular season set to begin on the 11th of October, this obviously means that things need to get moving quickly, because if they don't think we could see a lockout potentially coming.  This especially stands true if the two sides delay meetings for another week or two at least, because then we will definitely be affecting the upcoming season.

As you know, since back in 1992 ther ehave already been three labor disputes.  The original one was in 1992 when there was a 10-day strike that ended up forcing the league to reschedule 30 games.  The largest labor dispute came in 2004-2005 when the entire season had to be wiped out because of the inability for the two sides to reach a deal.

This is obviously massive news, and the NHL had originally asked the players to cut their share of the hockey revenues from 57 percent to 43 percent.  Then from here, the NHL upped their originaly proposal to give players a 46 percent share of the revenues, which would be over a six year deal.  Time will really answer the bulk of things here, but all of our NHL fans and hockey bettors out there are definitely a bit on edge with the news that we may be looking at a lockout.