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Olympic meeting proves ‘constructive,’ but no deal to send NHL players yet

Gary Bettman, Donald Fehr

Many believed that the NHL, NHLPA and IIHF would officially come to a deal to send NHL players to the 2014 Olympics on Monday, but that agreement will have to wait.

On the bright side, all three representatives seem positive about today’s talks, NHL.com’s Dan Rosen reports.

“We’re on a compact schedule and everybody is working very hard,” Gary Bettman said. “We seem to be pulling the oars in the same direction.”

NHLPA head Donald Fehr evoked this Wayne’s World II line in discussing how it all went.

“While we have made a lot of progress on a lot of issues, there are a few I dots and T crosses to do yet,” Fehr said.

IIHF president Rene Fasel echoed those thoughts, calling the talks “constructive” and stating that he’s pleased with the progress.

As far as future milestones go, Sportsnet’s John Shannon points out that there’s an IIHF meeting on Tuesday and the NHLPA is scheduled to meet July 8-10.

While it seems like there’s plenty of time to go, there’s motivation to get things done because the NHL needs to determine the 2013-14 schedule. (Clarifying the Phoenix Coyotes situation is key, too.)

In the mean time, at least we could bring out the old lockout photos from storage, eh?