The NHL’s deputy commissioner, Bill Daly, took to the airwaves today on TSN 1050 in Toronto to discuss the NHLPA’s unwillingness to consent to the league’s realignment plan.
Click here to listen to the interview.
A few of the key points Daly made:
----The union said in “early October” that it wanted input on the alignment issue. The NHL welcomed the input, but the union never followed up.
----Three days prior to December’s board of governors meetings in Pebble Beach, the union requested that realignment be deferred to collective bargaining and that any changes decided at the meetings be “minimal.”
----NHL went ahead with the realignment vote because it didn’t know if it would pass, regardless of what was said in the media about it being a slam dunk.
----Believes that “neither side wants a work stoppage” and that “most players are overall happy with the system.”