Well let’s start with some small hint of good news. The AHL Providence Bruins put up their first win of the season tonight. The Boston Bruins finished out 4-3 ahead of the Manchester Monarchs. Part time Boston Bruin Jordan Caron racked up his first hat trick of the season as well. Meanwhile in Switzerland, full time Boston Bruin Tyler Seguin racked up a game winning goal for EHC Biel last night in their game against SCB. It’s good to see Tyler keeping his skill set sharp for when we finally start the season.
If we ever get to start the season.
The National Hockey League announced today the cancellation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through November 1st. This makes it a total of one hundred and thirty five regular-season games were scheduled for October 11th toNovember 1st. The cancellation was necessary because of the absence of a Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL Players’ Association and the NHL.
The cancellation was necessary due to a public relations stunt committed by the league. They gave us a glimmer of hope with this proposal. The players, the fans, even NHLPA head Fehr was willing to give it a look-see. The NHLPA drafter three counter proposals, the third being nearly identical to the owners. What happened? They were dismissed entirely out of hand. It took them all of ten minutes to do that.
This will very likely be the last series of game cancellations before the season becomes untenable. The next thing that will have to put on the chopping block is the Winter Classic. If the Winter Classic is cancelled, then you can all but assume that Fehr will put the salary cap back on the table as a major negotiation point. (Personally, throwing a flaming bag of excrement would achieve the same result with equal or more satisfaction.) Once that happens, both sides circle the wagons and the 2012-2013 season gets marked on the Cup as ‘Season Not Played’.