Marathon Meetings Continue, No Deal Yet

After more than 34 hours of meetings this week, the National Hockey League and the NHL Players’ Association still have not reached an agreement on a new CBA.

After ten-hour sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, the two sides met from 8:00 AM to almost 10:00 PM on Friday.

Both sides confirm that a deal is not in place but that one could be coming in the next month unless talks hit a snag.

“We continued our discussions on financial and accounting issues, and while we are making progress, we still have a lot of work to do,” said NHL executive vice-president Bill Daly. “The parties have agreed to continue the process with a series of meetings next week, at which time we hope to begin discussing a myriad of other CBA issues.”

“Earlier this evening we concluded three days of small group meetings,” said NHLPA senior director Ted Saskin. “Once again a wide range of economic and systemic concepts were discussed. The parties have agreed to continue meeting next week.”

The Friday meeting was not originally scheduled but was added when small-group talks that were meant to conclude on Wednesday extended into Thursday.