newjerseynewsroom.com

BY GINA G. SCALA

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

It’s that time of year when the nip in the air seems to beg for the smell of a wood-burning fireplace; when night falls faster and darker than even the week before; and when some dejected baseball fans turn to the National Hockey League to fill their now free time with game after game.

Except this year, the NHL has cancelled its season through Nov. 1, leading some to believe the league’s Winter Classic is in jeopardy of going by the wayside. On Oct. 19, the league said a deal with the players must be reached by Oct. 25 in order to save the full 82-game season.

On Saturday, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and Steve Fehr, special counsel for the players’ union, spoke; though no details of the discussion were released. There are no new developments in the lockout, which is now in its 35th day and there are no plans for the two sides to meet face-to-face prior to the Oct. 25 deadline to save the full season from being iced.

The latest talks were held Oct. 18 and quickly deteriorated after the league rejected three counterproposals from the National Hockey League’s Players’ Association. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman called the proposals “a step backward;” saying the two sides are “nowhere close” to coming to terms.

“Today is not a good day,” Donald Fehr, NHLPA executive director, said Thursday after negotiations fell apart. “It should have been, but it wasn’t.”

In the meantime, hockey fans are becoming more disenfranchised with the league and the lockout, according to USA Today.

"Regardless of the details of how the NHLPA proposals would get to a 50/50 split, the fact that they are willing to go along with the concept of a 50/50 split -- which the owners have wanted all along, it seems -- should have been enough to keep negotiations going," Jesse Spector said in an article for AOL Sporting News.