September 12, 2012; New York, NY, USA; NHLPA executive director Don Fehr during a press conference at the 2012 NHLPA summer player meetings at the Marriott Marquis. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-US PRESSWIRE

The NHL took the next step of the lockout process started on the 19th of September. The NHL has cancelled the balance of the pre-season schedule.

NEW YORK – The National Hockey League announced today the cancellation of the remainder of the 2012 preseason schedule.

The cancellation of the preseason schedule was necessary because of the absence of a Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL Players’ Association and the NHL

The owners lose some home dates, the players won’t have a normal training camp. This also means that unless an agreement can be reached with the next two weeks the NHL will lose regular season games.

How does the NHL labour dispute compare with the other recent North American league’s labour stoppages?

The NBA’s season was scheduled to start on November 1st, there was no agreement until November 26 after a final two-day meeting and negotiation which was finalized on December 8th. The regular season did not start until December 25 and the league lost about 20% of their season (16 games out of 82). The gap between the tentative agreement and its finalization was complicated by the player union’s decision to de-certify as a union.

For the NFL, negioations ended by July 25 and was made official on July 30. This was well ahead of preseason which began August 11.

Obviously the NBA is the more relevant comparable for NHL negotiations. We can see though that agreements can be made in a matter of a couple days if both sides are motivated to find an agreement. Then generally there needs to be about a week’s time to make things official.

The NHL season begins October 11th and the NHL appears to be cancelling games 4+ games ahead of their scheduled dates. If there is to be an agreement made so regular season games occur on schedule it seems an agreement in principle needs to be in place around the start of October, with a couple days to make the agreement official and for a truncated training camp to be run. Three days of talks have been announced for the September 28th.

If the regular season is to start on time an agreement in principle must be found over the next few days. Otherwise games are going to be missed.

Montreal Canadiens Team Celebrating Final Game Of 2011-2012 Season. Photo From US Presswire.

Now with a NHL lockout inevitable the only  factor going forward is how long? With many players still uncertain about their future this year many will be looking elsewhere within a couple of weeks. So a big question a lot of us Hab fans have is where will they be playing hockey? Many players may not be going anywhere as they feel optimistic that the season can get going by Christmas time. Below is a list of the current Hab players by position indicating where they played in 2004-2005 and where they could be playing this year.

Below in the ‘Possible 12-13 Team’ column there are teams/leagues that are coloured in green, yellow, red and none. Green indicates that the player has signed for that team, Yellow indicates there is a strong possibility, No colour indicates there is a neutral chance and Red indicates that there is no chance.

The list above is just an assumption of where the players might play.

For some of the players like Cole, Gionta, Markov, Kaberle and Gomez who are all getting into the later years of their career going overseas may not  be the best thing. It is very possible that these players stay in North America and wait out for the better of the lockout. PK Subban is another interesting story, where I can see him playing overseas in the KHL etc, but at the same token with him not signed up to a contract it may yield him from playing elsewhere. Also for guys like Eller, Emelin, Diaz, Pacioretty, Desharnais, Weber and White a small stint in Europe will most likely not hurt them but instead improve their skills. Once again this list of possible 2012-2013 teams is solely based off of the players track record and rumor interest.

Nevertheless lets stay optimistic and hope that most of these players don’t have to spend a year in another league.

Here is the most current depth chart for the Hamilton Bulldogs by position. Also some projected lines for the upcoming 2012-2013 season.

Well as we all know the both sides met today to continue the CBA negotiations. Most of us feel like this is the first of many to come, but many others believe it’s an opportunity that we may save the NHL season. There was a good turn out of over 275 players at the meeting today to discuss their future. Since the last lockout in 2004, it seems like more players are getting involved in the business side of things to greater their knowledge of why certain things are happening.

Here are some key details from various hockey personnel,

According to numerous sources the NHLPA indeed made a revised proposal and the NHL did make a rather quick counter proposal.The reasoning behind this can possible be that the NHL wants the NHLPA to work more off of their views.

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Also from this meeting today the players are still opposing the firm case of salary reduction, but are willing to take a hit over the growth of the hockey related revenue.

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According to Gary Bettman the NHLPA’s proposal was not much different then the last one, just some minor changes here and there. This could also be the reason to a quick response in form of a counter proposal from the NHL.

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And the suspected proposed offer by the NHL supposedly gives the players $250-$300 million more.

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Michael Grange states here what the Hockey Related Revnue (HRR) is going to look like and what the players want next year.

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Another source said the offer from the NHLPA regarding the player’s revenue sharing was 53.3% in 2012-2013 and will decrease over time. Again the NHL wanted the player’s revenue sharing at about 46-47%, big difference still shown. Another note is what Fehr said, and here it is in a nutshell ‘..Before the cap player’s hockey related revenue was at 74%…’.

The bottom line here is that if the NHLPA does not accept the counter proposal given by Bettman & Co., then their is a 99.9% chance that their will be a lockout. Like I stated before this quick response to the NHLPA by NHL is a last stand type deal; ‘Take it or leave it’ pretty much sums up this day of negotiations.

The overall feeling that many of us get from today’s news it that there will be a lockout come this weekend September the 15th.

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