NHLPA assistant Matthew Schneider (left, with Winnipeg Jets defenseman Ron Hainsey and special counsel Steve Fehr) reported some hopeful progress in the first of the weekend sessions at NHL headquarters. (Louis Lanzano/AP)

By Stu Hackel

With the entire NHL preseason schedule now officially cancelled, the owners and players returned to the bargaining table on Friday in New York City, their first face-to-face negotiations since Sept. 12, which was three days before the CBA expired and the lockout began. They won’t be talking about the core economic issues, at least at first. Those sticking points have prevented collective bargaining discussions from proceeding. The agenda for now is to discuss items like travel, pension, player health and safety measures, and supplemental discipline. Those talks have actually been productive. The league had halted them, however, as the gulf between the sides on the economic issues didn’t appreciably narrow, but wisely moved earlier this week to restart those “secondary” talks, the hope being that perhaps any momentum generated by them — and from just getting the parties back together in a room — could influence movement in the other main area. We’ll see.

Informal and back-channel discussions have reportedly been going on during the lull in formal talks and the good news is that what was originally thought to be a one-day formal discussion was expanded so that the sides have reserved negotiating space in New York through Sunday. “I think the fact that they’re meeting is a good thing,” Canadiens captain Brian Gionta said Thursday at an NHL players charity game in Châteauguay, Quebec. “I’m not quite sure if anything will come of it, but I think it’s a good start. At least they’re speaking and they’re willing to try to get a resolution to this.”

We’ll be following the events on this blog as they develop all weekend, so check back through the weekend as we update what transpires.

SUN. 5 PM [UPDATED, with video]  – After five hours of discussion and some progress reported on health and safety issues, drug testing and some legal matters, the CBA talks were  halted and won’t pick up on Monday, although they have not broken off. Steve Fehr said the players were willing to meet Monday but Bill Daly told him the league preferred to have internal discussions to review some of the subjects that came up over the past three days. Daly stressed that the hiatus didn’t signal anything more than the need to do some homework and prepare documents for further negotiations.

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Paul Henderson’s winning goal is still celebrated in Canada, but the Summit Series helped change the world of hockey. (Denis Brodeur/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Friday, Sept. 28 marks the 40th Anniversary of Game 8, the final contest of the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviet National team, the culmination of a monumental event of historic proportions not just for one sport, or all sports, but the world.

In the midst of the Cold War,  it was hockey, among the team sports, that first broke down the barriers between the world’s two dominant socioeconomic systems and allowed the very best professional athletes on either side to compete against each other. The Summit Series was seen by many people as something much larger than a test of supremacy between two contrasting styles of play — the Russians’ fluid skating and intricate, weaving, puck possession vs. Canada’s basic, hard-charging up-and-down-the ice approach. The tournament was expected to help reveal which way of life was better. In retrospect, this may seem like a screwy perspective, but that’s how almost everyone thought 40 years ago. Many certainly felt that way eight years later when a bunch of American college students defeated an even stronger Soviet team at the Lake Placid Olympics.

But unlike that Miracle on Ice, the ’72 Summit Series gets little recognition in the United States. Friday will pass without much notice as sports fans focus on the referees returning to the NFL, the wind-down of baseball’s regular season and the weekend’s college football schedule. Not so in Canada, where people who lived through the series often draw parallels to Americans who still recall exactly where they were when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Those Canadians remember where they were when Paul Henderson scored in Game 8, his third consecutive game-winner.

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Fans in Edmonton have every right to be outraged by the threat of losing Ryan-Nugent Hopkins, Taylor Hall, Jordan Eberle and company to another city just as the Oilers begin to blossom. (Andy Devlin/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

In some ways, it’s very difficult to know what to make of the Oilers’ ownership. There are probably 20 NHL teams — and maybe more — that would love to have the fan base that Edmonton enjoys and a group of civic leaders who’ve been willing to shell out some big bucks to keep the club happy. But that may not be good enough. The team’s owner seem to be in the process of backing away from the deal he reached with the city on a new arena and is ostensibly looking elsewhere, perhaps Seattle, for something he thinks is better.

Many believe it is a bluff, designed to get more concessions from Edmonton thrown into the pot for the arena. It sure seems that way, although you can’t really be sure.

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Until last season’s playoff run, their first berth since 2000, the Panthers were a mediocre to poor club and tough box office sell, factors that have nothing to do with the NHL’s expired CBA. (Eliot J. Schechter/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

On Monday, we looked at Jimmy Devellano’s strange remarks about NHL players, who he suggested are viewed by ownership as “cattle.” How many owners actually feel that way might be in question, but another of his remarks might be a more accurate representation of this group’s sentiment as the lockout continues. “The owners simply aren’t going to let a union push them around,” Jimmy D. said. “It’s not going to happen.”

And, apparently, they are going to assert themselves even if it means losing another entire season — or maybe even two, or however long it takes until they can get the players to yield. When former Florida Panthers executive Stu Siegel writes in this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated that he’s “depressed” to see another work stoppage and notes “there’s plenty of blame to go around,” you have to take into consideration that the owners’ intransigence is a big component.

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Red Wings VP Jimmy Devellano has been around the NHL for 45 years and has a reputation for speaking openly but not always wisely. (Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Without negotiations toward a new CBA to mull over, it’s starting to get nasty out there. The clock is ticking and the ill will is rising.

Apart from the chance that informal talks might take place on Monday evening — and they seem to contain little more than each side asking the other if they’ve budged and neither doing so — the NHL lockout entered its second week with little real movement; unless, that is, you count as “movement” more players signing to skate in Europe and the fine that the league levied against the Red Wings. We feared this would happen a month ago and predictions by some that the league could resume in time for the Winter Classic took a hit when Kevin McGran of The Toronto Star revealed last Friday that the NHL plans to cancel the game come November if no deal is in sight. The Wings’ Dan Cleary said Monday that he believes the impasse could surpass the last lockout.

So hockey fans must be content with the public relations battle between the NHL and the NHLPA. On that front, Red Wings executive Jim Devellano did the owners no favors with his rather malevolent characterization of the players  — and all employees of the owners, himself included — as cattle, among other strange remarks he made in an interview.

The league whacked the Red Wings, reported by some to be $250,000, for Jimmy D.’s remarks (although David Shoalts of The Globe and Mail doubts the NHL will bother to collect the money). Regardless, what Devellano said shows the wisdom of Gary Bettman’s prohibition on anyone among the owners or their minions speaking about anything concerning labor relations.

The larger questions in this little brouhaha remain, however: how accurate is the picture that Devellano painted of the owners’ regard for players and others in their employ? And was that the worst of what Jimmy D. said?

In case you haven’t read it yet elsewhere, here’s what Devellano told Scott Harrigan on the British Columbia website Island Sports News while discussing the explosion of contracts at big salary levels the owners doled out just prior to the lockout: “It’s very complicated and way too much for the average Joe to understand, but having said that, I will tell you this: The owners can basically be viewed as the Ranch, and the players, and me included, are the cattle. The owners own the Ranch and allow the players to eat there. That’s the way it’s always been and that’s the way it will be forever. And the owners simply aren’t going to let a union push them around. It’s not going to happen.”

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The NHL is keeping an eye on the OHL’s new system that hands suspensions to players who have more than 10 fights. (Len Redkoles/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

David Branch, the president of the major junior Ontario Hockey League, has once again shown himself to be one of this sport’s real visionaries — and there are not enough of them in decision-making positions. By advocating and championing the OHL’s new rule designed to punish one-dimensional players whose main function is to fight, he’s continuing to chart a new course for hockey, one that’s leading to a better product.

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Alex Ovechkin stands out in hockey’s culture because he does things his own way. (Dave Sandford/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

No one should be surprised that Alexander Ovechkin has, once again, commanded the spotlight — at least briefly — during the NHL lockout. Ovechkin has many talents and grabbing attention is one of them. He’s been as charismatic a personality as hockey has ever seen and he’s always relished standing apart, from his special on-ice abilities (which we hope are not on the wane), to his leaping, glass-crashing goal celebration, his yellow skate laces and his now-banned darkened visor. This is a one-of-a-kind specimen and we should accept no substitutes.

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Caught in the crossfire: The ongoing collective bargaining dispute between the NHL and NHLPA is not only angering fans, it’s starting to hurt everyone from players, officials to league and team staff to mascots. (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

By Stu Hackel

Now in Day 4, the lockout of NHL players by team owners has produced news on a number of fronts. Here’s a roundup of some noteworthy items:

• The biggest news occurred late Wednesday afternoon when the league announced the first cancellation of games, specifically the 60 preseason matches scheduled for September plus the annual small town “Hockeyville” game that this year celebrates Stirling-Rawdon, Ontario, to be played on Oct. 3 in Belleville, Ont., between the Maple Leafs and Blue Jackets.

As was the case in the lockout of 2004-05, we can expect the slow torture of regular cancellation announcements as long as there is no new CBA.

The two sides did speak briefly on Tuesday and it was thought they would have more informal discussions on Wednesday to see if they can restart formal talks. Nothing has been reported confirming any discussions did take place.

There is a sense in some quarters (as expressed by TSN and ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun, The Ottawa Sun‘s Chris Stevenson and TSN’s Bob McKenzie over Montreal’s TSN 690 radio) that we’re at a crucial moment, and a small window exists during the next week or two for the parties to start making progress. If regular season games start getting canceled, we should get set for a long stalemate. “If nothing happens,” McKenzie said Wednesday morning, “we’re going back to the dynamic of 2004″ when there was virtually no discussion between the sides for three months after the league declared the lockout.

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The insurance on Alex Ovechkin for this year’s World Championships came to $400,000 and he played in only three games. The price for a KHL season will be much higher. (Photo by Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/GettyImages)

By Stu Hackel

They’re packing up and getting ready to go: Locked out NHL players have begun their inevitable migration to Europe in search of work.

Evgeni Malkin and Sergei Gonchar are headed to Magnitogorsk to play for Metallurg of the KHL. Jaromir Jagr heads home to Kladno in the Czech Republic to play for his hometown team, which he owns with his father, and it seems that Tomas Plekanec will go with him. Joe Thornton, who met his wife while playing for Davos in the Swiss league during the last lockout, will go back there and could be joined by Rick Nash, his linemate in Davos that season. Ilya Kovalchuk, Ruslan Fedotenko, Lubomir Visnovsky, Jiri Tlusty, Mark Streit, Yannick Weber, Jiri Hudler, Jussi Jokinen and goalies Michal Neuvirth and Semyon Varlamov are also part of the first wave of signings across the Atlantic. There are indications that Alex Ovechkin, Logan Couture, Niklas Backstrom and Anze Kopitar could be right behind while Pavel Datsyuk, who had reportedly been signed actually remains undecided.   (You can follow the post-lockout transactions here.)

These signings occasionally get murky, confirmed then unconfirmed. The player and the team must agree on the money, the player has to be formally transferred by the IIHF (Nail Yakopov is having that problem) and there is also the matter of insurance and we’ll get into that below.

What’s not murky is that while players wait for negotiators to reach an agreement, staying in shape is a priority. That’s why some choose to play in Europe. They can rent ice in North America and scrimmage with each other all they want, or practice with established clubs in their areas on a daily basis, but nothing takes the place of real games. For some, especially those who have families in North America, it’s not always an easy decision to pick up and go, so they may delay a Euro decision in hope that the sides reach an agreement sooner rather than later. But the longer this CBA stalemate goes on, the more those who remain here will consider going over.

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By Stu Hackel

While neither side in the NHL’s lockout of the players had anything to say at midnight when the CBA expired, on Sunday the messaging war began.

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