Instead of filling the seats in The Big House for the Winter Classic, Commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners have stuck to their negotiating guns, which usually shoot down any NHLPA counter-proposals in a matter of minutes.
(Paul Sancya/AP)

By Stu Hackel

Weary and wary, the hockey world awaits as negotiators for the NHL and the NHLPA resume CBA talks for the first time since Dec. 13.

UPDATE: The sides adjourned for Monday after meeting a few hours with little substantial comment from either side. The league reviewed the union’s counter-proposal and they will get back together on Tuesday. You can watch Don Fehr’s remarks here and Gary Bettman’s here. TSN’s Aaron Ward and Darren Dreger had a bit more — but not much — here.

What will the owners’ latest offer mean to this paralyzed professional league, which has locked out its players for 107 days, inflicted hardship on those whose incomes are dependent on games being played, and incurred justifiable ridicule and scorn from all corners?

You expect some sports commentators who never have anything good to say about hockey to jump all over this fiasco, but when Devils President Lou Lamoriello says he’s “embarrassed” by this predicament, he echoes the sentiments of those who love the game as well.

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Really, what else could Bill Daly say? No one knows if a deal will be struck in time. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Will there be an NHL season?

The league cancelled its schedule through Jan. 14 on Thursday so the fact that this question still torments us after 96 days of the lockout is hardly surprising. But the hockey community did raise its collective bruised eyebrow on Wednesday when CBC’s Elliotte Friedman asked that very question of NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly — and only wanted to hear a “yes” or a “no” answer. No qualifications of equivocating allowed.

“Do we have a season?”

You can listen to Daly’s response here or continue reading for it.

“Yes.”

It was the most encouraging word we’ve heard in a couple of weeks, since Daly stood shoulder to shoulder with the NHLPA’s special counsel Steve Fehr (video) and talked about how real progress was being made for the first time in the marathon collective bargaining meetings that were held earlier this month.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr reacted quite positively when he was informed of Daly’s answer (at around 1:45 of the video below).

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One year after a tragic plane crash decimated the KHL team, Lokomotiv Yaroslavl returned to the ice. Colorado’s Semyon Varlamov (left, greeting former Capitals teammate Alex Ovechkin after a game) has been tending goal. (Photo by Yury Kuzmin/KHL Photo Agency via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

A big dark storm cloud lingers over any celebration of hockey in 2012. It’s the NHL lockout and it has been showering grief on the game and its fans for over three months. Now, it also makes my job here a bit easier compared to my colleagues who are covering other sports because so little has happened between June and December that the range of choices for my favorite stories of the year has been sliced dramatically. Still, I’d rather be burdened by having to choose from a full plate.

That said, here are my 10 highlights. (You can read other SI.com writers’ picks here and view a gallery of the 112 most amazing sports moments of 2012 here.)

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Hall of Fame defenseman Scott Stevens knew full well the motivational value of a big hit — in games or practice — while serving as the captain of the Devils’ three Stanley Cup championship teams. (Photo by Lou Capozzola/SI)

By Stu Hackel

Unless the owners and players restart negotiations, the closest that NHL fans may come to their favorite sport this season is by reading a book. If you are still stumped about what to give the fans in your life this holiday season, you might select one of these, or from our earlier list of gift books.

Wearing The C: Hockey’s Highest Honor, by Ross Bernstein. Triumph Books, 272 pages. $22.95 — The question of leadership among players has always been an essential part of hockey, often discussed and cited as a key reason why teams win or lose. “Putting a C on natural leaders,” Scotty Bowman says in this book, “is what sets average teams apart from the great ones.” There are different reasons why a player is selected to be a captain — some inspire and instill confidence with words in the dressing room and on the bench, some lead by example on the ice, some get the C on their sweater by virtue of their playing talent, some by virtue of their physical play — and this book explores all of that and more. Here’s SI.com’s photo gallery of its top 10 NHL captains of all time.

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Lightning sniper Steven Stamkos faces the challenge of trying to stay sharp during the endless lockout by playing in no-contact charity games like Operation Hat Trick and even his dad’s beer league. (Bill Streicher/Icon SMI)

By Stu Hackel

Things remain at a standstill as the owners lockout hits day 94. While the players say they are willing to talk, they have not gotten the call from the league to resume.

Away from the CBA fray, NHL players continue to grab their sticks and do what they can to stay in shape, or at least pass the time, sometimes in rather unorthodox ways. Take Sidney Crosby. The Penguins captain picked up the big stick last Friday, playing goal on a friend’s deck hockey team not far from downtown Pittsburgh. Now, deck hockey is the same as ice hockey, just without the ice; street hockey — or road hockey as Canadians sometimes call it — but with boards instead of sidewalk curbs. There’s a photo of the playing surface on the website of the place in which Crosby played.

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With a players’ vote likely to dissolve their union, the NHL is changing some of its tune about NHLPA boss Don Fehr. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

By Stu Hackel

And now things have changed. The fate of the season and perhaps the entire NHL could be decided by lawyers filing into courtrooms, not by negotiators in conference rooms,. And, because the existing case law on what will be argued is so uncertain, the outcome is anyone’s guess.

Somewhere in the past few months, I wrote something like, “This is no way to run a league unless you want to run it into the ground.” That has never been more true.

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Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly and NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr have spent quite a bit of time together, but neither side seems willing to budge again though the NHL is clearly in real jeopardy. (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

Another page is ripped off the calendar and we find ourselves at Day 90 of the NHL lockout. Chances are very good that this foolish interlude will hit triple digits, further damaging a league that was — long, long ago it seems — finally starting to gain momentum in the crowded sports landscape, and a greater degree of acceptance and interest among casual fans.

The biggest shots fired yet in this civil war — the possibility of the NHLPA filing a disclaimer of interest to disband, a legal move that could permit a judge to rule on the legality of the lockout and subsequently expose the NHL to anti-trust litigation — is now on the agenda with news Friday afternoon from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com that the union’s executive board unanimously approved a measure to authorize a vote among the players on the maneuver.

In response, the NHL filed a class action complaint in Federal Court in New York seeking a Declaration confirming the ongoing legality of the lockout. The league also filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board alleging that by threatening to “disclaim interest,” the NHLPA has engaged in an unlawful subversion of the collective bargaining process and conduct that constitutes bad faith bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your lawyers.

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Once again, CBA negotiators thought it best to try to shake the media hounds off their trail. (Mary Altaffer/AP)

By Stu Hackel

NHL and NHLPA negotiators went at it again as the lockout hit 88 fun-filled days. Federal mediators have returned to the process as well, and that can’t be a bad thing as long as both parties really want to reach a deal. If one does not, or insists there is no room for compromise, all the king’s men won’t be able to put a CBA together.

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To Red Light’s dismay, Gump Worsley only ranked 20th in the new edition of Without Fear: The Greatest Goalies of All Time, even though he won four Stanley Cups during his career. (Charles Hoff/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

By Stu Hackel

The holiday season is already upon us, which you no doubt noticed a couple of weeks ago. The question is: what do you buy a hockey fan during this sad December, this festival of darkness in NHL arenas with no peace on the CBA front and good will in short supply?

You can’t buy tickets to games that are not being played. If you are of the mind that you’re not going to pay a penny to the owners or players as long as there’s a lockout (or even longer if you’re part of the Just Drop It movement), you’re not buying any NHL merch, either.

How about a good book?

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Possible fallout from last week’s collapse in the CBA talks is that if they resume, Commissioner Gary Bettman and his deputy, Bill Daly, will go back to doing the bidding of the league’s most hardline team owners (Mary Altaffer/AP)

By Stu Hackel

In the early afternoon on Monday, Lockout Day 86, Gary Bettman opened his jar of vanishing cream, rubbed it on the schedule pages in The NHL Guide and Record Book and made another chunk of games disappear.

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