The end is finally in sight, and in only a few more short steps, the NHL officially will be able to get back to business.
It is expected the NHL Board of Governors will meet in New York City tomorrow in order to ratify the basis of the new collective bargaining agreement, which was reached in principle with the NHL Players’ Association early Sunday morning.
What the group of owners will read and agree upon is not the actual, 200-plus-page CBA itself, but what is known legally as a Manuscript of Understanding. It is a shorter, condensed version used while the language in the larger document continues to be smoothed over by lawyers. Once the league gives it its blessing, it will go on to the union, which will hold a vote. That vote of approximately 740 players should take somewhere around two days.
If passed by both parties, teams can start training camps on or around Saturday. That would leave a week until the opening of a 48-game season, which the league does not want to start any later than Jan. 19.
The owners came close to becoming the first league in North American sports history to cancel two full seasons — and they would have done it in an eight-year span. The real sticking point between the two sides was the split on hockey-related revenue, which was solved with a 50-50 split in late December. But the process dragged on until Sunday because of differences between the sides in items such as a provision in players’ pensions, the length of contracts and the salary cap for the 2013-14 season.
Through marathon sessions with arbitrator Scot L. Beckenbaugh — including the final one that lasted 16 hours — the two sides finally compromised and settled.
The cap was set at $64.3 million (down from the effective number of $70.2 this season), while players are now allowed to sign contracts of only seven years (eight if re-signing with their original team).