Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

What they’re saying about today’s labor developments

Gary Bettman

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman faces journalists following collective bargaining talks in Toronto, Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. Bettman received three counterproposals from the players’ association on Thursday and left the negotiating table “thoroughly disappointed,” further shrinking the possibility of a full hockey regular season. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Young)

AP

Today’s news out of Toronto with the NHL dismissing the NHLPA’s three separate proposals almost instantly has got some of your favorite columnists typing mad at both sides.

Yahoo! Sports’ Nick Cotsonika unloaded both barrels on the players and owners.

“By holding out, the players got the owners to make two straight proposals, to negotiate against themselves, to get about where we thought they were headed all along. Kudos. They created an opportunity.

They didn’t seize it. They blew it.”

Bruce Arthur of The National Post talks about how both sides can’t bridge the gap.

“The league has reached the point where it does not believe Fehr speaks for the players, and has hijacked the negotiations to suit his own ends. They believe they are dealing with the one person in this entire negotiation with nothing to lose, and since Fehr is the one guy in this mess who could walk away afterwards and never think about hockey again, they may even be right.”

CBC’s Elliotte Friedman says the NHL and NHLPA should follow the example of the Canadian auto workers.

“Now, someone’s going to say the North American auto industry is in worse shape than the NHL. Okay, but I would counter with this: we all know this league consists of haves and have-nots. The haves are in great shape. (Even Edmonton, Mr. Katz.)

The have-nots? There might not be enough places to move them all if this goes on much longer, and that’s not good for the players, either.”

Finally, Jesse Spector of The Sporting News says the NHL’s rapid dismissal of the players’ offer is a bad joke.

“If the NHL was serious about making a deal, or even serious about negotiating, Bettman and his crew would have left Toronto without fire and brimstone talk. They would have taken the three proposals back to NHL headquarters, spent more time running numbers to figure out how far apart they were, and then come back with a counter-proposal of their own, trying to bridge the gap further—perhaps backing away from some other demands in order to get closer to their desired deal.”