Is Today Dooms Day For the NHL?

With the NHL officially cancelling the remaining preseason games yesterday, hockey fans now hold their breath in hopes that the season can somehow be saved.  But most are losing hope given the two sides (NHL and NHLPA) are meeting on Friday to discuss secondary items of importance which all but signals they are so far apart on the money side they don’t even acknowledge it anymore.  Today could really be looked as the NHL’s dooms day.  Either the two selfish parties will agree to make progress and negotiate all weekend with more talks later next week being the result or they’ll be so far apart they won’t make it to Sunday.  If that happens, it’s likely bye-bye season.

It’s hard to imagine that unless there is mutual understanding that everyone involved is serious about saving the 2012-13 season much progress will be made.  We know it’s all about money and the owners want the players to give up more and the players think the owners make too much as it is.  Blah, blah, blah, blah.

The silver lining in this cloud of contempt is that it only two weeks before both parties agreed to address the work stoppage and try and resolve this messy issue before regular season games are cancelled.  In 2004 it took three months before either side reached out and made an attempt to talk so we should at least be hopeful that both sides learnt from their previous mistakes.

Is it dooms day for the NHL today if they can’t agree on minuscule items let alone the big rock topics?  It very well could be.  On the flip side, if progress is made and they ride that momentum into the weekend, we might look back on this day and say it was the day the season was saved.  Keep your fingers crossed and we’ll keep you posted.