Gary Bettman

Many NHL fans were clamoring for both Donald Fehr and Gary Bettman to be locked in a room without the option of leaving until a new CBA deal was agreed upon. That is basically what took place last night.

Several months later, a 16-hour negotiating process that ended around 5 AM Sunday morning resulted in a new CBA that is in the process of being ironed out on paper. The deal is a 10-year agreement with an opt-out clause that is available at eight years (Photo credit: shot7photos/Flickr).

At this very moment, the ice of the outdoor rink is glimmering in the sunlight in anticipation of its annual Winter Classic that will take place this evening. Gary Bettman and the National Hockey League may have canceled the NHL Winter Classic that was to be played between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings, but that's not stopping a talented group of hockey players from getting together for the annual Danglers Winter Classic.

The Danglers are a men's league hockey team that I started years ago in order to keep my friends and I together on the ice. High school was over, and many of us were going away to college or starting to work full-time. Every summer, the Danglers were put together through the Midnight Hockey League on Long Island and have continued to go strong for five years.

As the old song goes, "it's the most wonderful time of the year," right? For the NHL and the NHL Players Association, it isn't even close to the most wonderful time of the year.

The soggy, foggy, dreary conditions in New York City on this day lend to the atmosphere of what just transpired at the latest round of meetings between the two feuding parties. The holiday cheer is gone. Good luck reviving it.

Last week, commissioner Gary Bettman advised that a group of players and a group of owners should come together in one spot and hash everything out without both Bettman and NHLPA boss Donald Fehr in the room. It was the duo's inability to sort anything out t...

Let’s clear something up before considering the above question. TCL does not condone the NHL lockout, nor do the great fans of the Minnesota Wild. But in times like these we must find the glimmers of light in the dark corners of the hockey abyss; we must find the few positives that may yet come from Bettman’s systematic destruction of the 2012-13 season.

On the surface, the Wild and their fans appear to lose more than most teams with the absent season. The summer of Parise and Suter brought interest in the franchise to an all-time high. Minnesotans who have only lifted the silver of a Lake Trout dreamt of holding the glistening Stanley Cup on a sun-drenched lake in ...