The NHL's collective bargaining talks stretched well into the evening for the second straight day.
Top negotiators from the league and NHL Players' Association held another long session Wednesday while snow fell on Manhattan, making it feel like hockey season. Talks wrapped up just before 9 p.m. ET and the two sides agreed to pick up the discussion again today.
The sides discussed revenue sharing early in Wednesday's five-hour session before moving on to the "make whole" provision, which is viewed as an important hurdle to cross before reaching a new deal.
It came after a seven-hour meeting Tuesday and saw them focus on contract issues that will also have to be worked out before the 53-day lockout comes to an end.
Bargaining has taken on a new level of urgency this week. Privately, the sides acknowledged that these are the first meaningful back-and-forth negotiations they've had, something that is evidenced by the decision to keep the meetings underground and the public comments to a minimum.
When talks ended on Tuesday night, the NHLPA declined to comment while deputy commissioner Bill Daly issued a short statement saying that he would "not characterize the substance or detail of the discussions until their conclusion."
The lengthy meetings seemed to suggest a push was on to save as much of the disrupted season as possible. Once a CBA is eventually ratified, a source indicated it would likely be 10 days before the puck could be dropped on meaningful games - a span that would see players given three days to report to their teams and seven days for training camp.
With the NHL locked in its fourth work stoppage over the past two decades, tension seems to be rising from all corners of the sport. Pockets of owners and players are believed to be exerting pressure on their leadership to get a new deal, while Molson Coors CEO Peter Swinburn, whose company is a major league sponsor, told The Canadian Press in an interview that the brewer would seek compensation from the NHL when the lockout ends.
"There will be some redress for us as a result of this," said Swinburn. "I can't quantify that and I don't know because I don't know the scale of how long the lockout is going to last."
