Report: NHL Likely To Cancel More Games This Week
SUNRISE (CBSMiami) – Fans of the Florida Panthers hoping to see the team take the ice are likely out of luck until possibly through Thanksgiving, according to the Sporting News, thanks to the ongoing NHL lockout.
The Sporting News report said the NHL is set to cancel more games as early as this week, but that these cancellations will be much larger. The report quoted the SportsBusiness Journal saying the "League will go big this week."
The league cancelled all games scheduled from October 11 through October 24. If the league were to cancel games through November, it would mean players had missed at least three paychecks, according to the Sporting News. That would play into the owners belief that the players will cave eventually.
According to the report, scheduled talks between the NHL and the NHL Players Association are scheduled for Tuesday and the next round of cancellations will likely be dictated by what, if any, progress is made during those sessions.
Money, or specifically hockey-related revenue, is at the heart of the dispute.
The players earned 57 percent of hockey-related revenue in the recently completed collective bargaining agreement. The owners don't want to keep that number and have sent proposals for as little as 43 percent and in the most recent proposal, 49 percent in year one, 48 in year two, and 47 over the rest of the deal, according to NBCSports.com.
However, the players have countered that they will refuse to accept any deal that pays them less money in year one of the agreement.
Overall, hockey-related revenue totaled more than $3 billion last season.
The NHL has lost more than 1,700 games to work stoppages since the 1992 season.
