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Malhotra: “If you just want to bury your head,” you’re missing out

Vancouver Canucks Manny Malhotra talks with media after being cleared to play in the NHL Stanley Cup Final in Vancouver

Vancouver Canucks Manny Malhotra talks with the media following practice in Vancouver, British Columbia May 28, 2011. Malhotra has been cleared to play by doctors after suffering a severe eye injury earlier this year. The Canucks will meet the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of their NHL Stanley Cup Final hockey playoffs June 1. REUTERS/Andy Clark (CANADA - Tags: SPORT ICE HOCKEY HEADSHOT)

REUTERS

While many NHLers have decided to spend the lockout playing hockey elsewhere, Canucks forward Manny Malhotra has been intimately involved in the CBA talks between the NHLPA and owners.

Wednesday and Thursday, for example, he was in New York as part of the union’s negotiating team.

The 32-year-old calls his participation in the meetings “an incredible learning experience” and believes those players who aren’t partaking are missing out.

“If you just want to bury your head and just go to the rink and play hockey and do nothing else, you’re missing a world of the behind the scenes of what really goes into a CBA, what goes into the makeup of the league, how the league operates,” he tells the Associated Press.

Was that a “veiled shot” at some of the less involved players? Maybe, maybe not.

However, with the NHLPA bragging it’s never been more unified, it’s going to raise eyebrows when a player suggests others are simply burying their heads during CBA negotiations.

At any rate, Malhotra spent the 2004-05 lockout overseas, so if he’s indeed frustrated at some of his union brethren, it’s not like he can get too haughty about it.

Related: Bobby Ryan won’t “run” from CBA problems by signing in Europe