Bitter disagreements on the collective bargaining agreement compelled the National Hockey League and players' association (NHLPA) to seek mediation. However, even the U.S. Federal mediators failed to help bring the two parties to come to an agreement over a common formula for sharing hockey related revenue, after the latest two-day long talks came to an end Thursday in New Jersey.
Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service's two representatives joined the negotiation talks between the owners and the locked-out players Wednesday and Thursday without any success.
"After spending several hours with both sides over two days, the presiding mediators concluded that the parties remained far apart, and that no progress toward a resolution could be made through further mediation at this point in time," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement. "We are disappointed that the mediation process was not successful."
NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr was also disappointed, while saying a new date for another round of talks had not yet been earmarked.
"This afternoon, the mediators informed the parties that they did not think it was productive to continue the discussions further today," Fehr's statement read. "The mediators indicated that they would stay in contact with the league and the NHLPA, and would call the parties back together when they thought the time was right."
The league has already scraped all games through Dec. 14 and two marquee events - the Winter Classic on New Year's Day and January's All-Star Weekend. The 75-day old lockout has also wiped out 34 percent of the regular season games. The NHL claim it's losing $18-$20 million every day.
Neither parties are close to agreeing on how to share the $3.3 billion hockey related revenue. They had agreed to a 50-50 split of revenue, but both the sides had their own formula to reach there, with neither accepting the other's proposal. It was hoped the mediators would help in coming to an agreement, which would have seen the end of the lockout and the players coming back on the ice; unfortunately it did not materialize.
This is not the first time the NHL is heading towards the cancellation of a complete season. The 2004-05 hockey season was completely scrapped because of a similar labor dispute.
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