NHL lockout is over!

One of the entities most hurting during the lockout was the NBC Sports Network, which saw its programming limited to low-rated studio programming and extra MLS games to go along with regularly-scheduled college sports. Now, the network is getting it’s crown jewel -- the National Hockey League -- back, and two of it’s principal figures spoke out on the end of the work stoppage today.

Mike “Doc” Emrick, Emmy-winning play-by-play man for The NHL on NBC, had more of a brief preview of what to expect from the players:

The NHL and NHL Players Association have come to terms on the framework of a new collective bargaining agreement, which will tentatively end the lockout and allow the league to resume regular operations.

The lockout began on Sept. 15 when the previous collective bargaining agreement expired. In total, the labor dispute has lasted for a total of 113 days. It ended under the cover of darkness in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

The NHL lockout rolled on to Day 112 on Sunday morning, with the NHL and NHLPA still meeting in a hotel in New York City as a deal finally seems within reach. Several outstanding issues still remain, however, and while the marathon talks continue, a deal is still likely at least a day or so away.

The two sides met for more than 12 straight hours on Saturday, when the first face-to-face meetings since Thursday brought renewed optimism that a deal was close. Reports of movement on several key issues had many thinking a deal was nearly imminent. The truth, meanwhile, was that while there was progress being made, there were still major hurdles to get past in order for a deal to be reached.

The NHL and NHLPA continue to meet at the union’s hotel in New York City on Saturday night, nearly eight hours after the first face-to-face meeting in two days began. Cautious optimism remains that a deal is within reach although there are are still some fine print issues that must be hammered out for a deal to be concluded, even in principle.

Federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh has been given hero status after managing to pull negotiations from the brink of another breakdown, after the NHLPA felt insulted by a “sneaky” change in one of the proposals by the league. After lengthy meetings had appeared to have a deal within sight, talks nearly completely broke down until Beckenbaugh was able to find enough movement on key issues to get the two sides back into the same room once more.

Scot Beckenbaugh, savior?

Might just be the case. The United States federal mediator assigned to the NHL lockout has spent the better part of the last 24 hours shuttling back and forth between the league offices and an NHLPA hotel suite in Manhattan.

Federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh might just become an NHL lockout folk hero if this goes on much longer. The U.S. government middle man assigned by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to help broker a deal between the NHL and NHLPA shuttled between league headquarters and the NHLPA’s hotel suite for some 12 hours Friday.

Mediation wrapped around 10:45 p.m. ET Friday evening but will continue Saturday morning. All reports indicate that at least some progress was made as the mediator looked for common ground between the two sides.

Much progress has has been made in NHL lockout talks over the last seven days or so, but with over another week to go until the league-implied Jan. 11 drop-dead date to save the 2012-13 season, nobody expected things to go smoothly all the way through an ultimate deal. As such, it appears talks have hit a snag this Thursday afternoon.

The NHL and NHLPA had planned on meeting face-to-face for another day of negotiations in New York City, but as of this writing have yet to do so in more than small groups. The players, meanwhile, have decided to vote again on whether or not to give their executive board the authority to file a disclaimer of interest. It’s expected the vote will take place over the next 48 hours.

Bob Goodenow never would have predicted this. Neither would John Ziegler -- the league president during the 1992 players strike -- nor his ultimate successor Gary Bettman, nor the money-losing owners who saw their franchises relocate after the league lost its first to major labor battles.

But 20 years after the NHL labor wars began, 17 years after the NHL first locked out its players only to cry uncle in an embarrassing loss, the league found itself in the odd position of turning to the courts to ensure the NHLPA’s survival.

Both Don Fehr and Gary Bettman agreed early Thursday morning: CBA talks are progressing, but there are still considerable issues that need to be worked out before the sides are able to complete a deal that will save what’s left of the 2012-13 NHL season.

The sides met for another five hours on Wednesday evening into Thursday morning, working straight through a 12 a.m. union deadline to file a disclaimer of interest that could potentially lead to the dissolution of the NHLPA, antitrust lawsuits against the NHL and the cancellation of the entire season. Fehr refused to discuss the disclaimer possibility when speaking to the media after meetings adjourned, but he implied that the option is still on the table.

Don Fehr and the rest of the NHLPA’s leadership are still representing NHL players in CBA talks following a midnight deadline for the union to file a disclaimer of interest. The move would have dissolved the union as a bargaining entity and would have opened up the doors for players to file antitrust lawsuits against the league.

The NHLPA has yet to announce officially whether or not they have disclaimed interest, but news that the sides are still talking past the deadline is a strong indication that the union has not filed the disclaimer.

The NHL Players Association tabled a counter-proposal to the NHL’s most recent collective bargaining proposal on Wednesday afternoon.

NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr stated that the union’s counter-proposal directly responded to the NHL’s proposal, which was tabled late on Tuesday night. The NHL is now reviewing the proposal and there is a chance that the two sides will meet again later on Wednesday, potentially around 8 p.m. ET.

The NHL is waiting for the NHL Players’ Association to respond to the league’s most recent proposal on a new collective bargaining agreement, which was presented on Tuesday night.

The two sides met in New York City for a half hour and the league presented its latest offer. After the meeting, the NHLPA spent the rest of the night reviewing the proposal.

The NHL Players Association is expected to table a counterproposal to the NHL Board of Governors during a face-to-face negotiation meeting on Monday afternoon.

Monday’s meeting is expected to begin around 2 p.m., ET in New York City.

The NHL and the Players Association are set to convene over conference call on Saturday, according to a report from Gary Lawless of the Winnipeg Free Press, and may meet in person in New York on Sunday.

The plan to resume talks comes after the NHL sent a new offer to the players Friday morning, a move that may indicate progress toward the return of games.

The NHL and NHL Players Association need to come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement by Jan. 11 or the entire 2012-13 season will be canceled, according to a report by Renaud Lavoie of RDS on Friday afternoon.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had previously stated that the league would need to play no less than 48 games this season. With all contests currently canceled through Jan. 14, many have assumed that the next set of cancelations would carry out through the remainder of the schedule, wiping out the year.

After several weeks of silence in NHL lockout talks, the league made movement Friday morning in a new offer sent to the NHLPA, according to several reports. The league offer comes five days before a union deadline that could bring the dissolution of the NHLPA and throw the ongoing labor dispute over a cliff.

Despite Gary Bettman’s insistence weeks ago that the owners had moved as far as they could, details of the offer reported by ESPN.com show that the league again moved toward the players.

The NHL Players Association overwhelmingly agreed to allow its board of executives to file a disclaimer of interest, according to a report by Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press on Friday afternoon. The vote was 97 percent in favor, according to SportsNet’s Nick Kypreos.

The players participated in a vote that began on Dec. 16 and concluded on Friday, which would determine whether the union’s executive board would be given the power to step away as the union’s representation. In order for the vote to pass, two-thirds of the players would need to vote in the affirmative.

We now have our drop-dead date. The NHL announced on Thursday afternoon that they’ve canceled the regular season schedule through Jan. 14, assuring us that if there’s an NHL season, it will be the 2013 season, not the 2012-13 season.

More importantly, the cancellations back up the long-held assumption that a season will not begin after mid-January. The next round of cancellations will not just be another two week period -- it will certainly be the entire season. By canceling games through the middle of January, the league has outlined its drop dead date to save the season.

Will there be a 2012-13 NHL season (or just a 2013 NHL season), Bill Daly? That was the question asked by CBC’s Elliotte Friedman of the NHL’s deputy commissioner on Wednesday afternoon on SiriusXM’s NHL Network Radio, and Daly responded with a shockingly blunt, candid answer.

More candid, perhaps, than we’ve seen throughout the entire lockout.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly stated in a radio interview on Sportsnet 590’s “Hockey Central at Noon” that the league has a drop-dead date for canceling the entirety of the 2012-13 season, sometime around mid-January.

While Daly stated that a specific date has not been chosen as of this time, he did acknowledge that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is unwilling to play a season shorter than 48 regular-season games. With all regular season games canceled through Dec. 30, Daly mentioned that additional cancellations could come before Christmas if no further progress is made in negotiations.

Stating that he is waiting out the NHL lockout, Crosby believes that the chances of a resolution being formed by the NHL and NHL Players’ Association on a new collective bargaining agreement will become more clear in the coming weeks:

Crosby plans to return to his offseason home in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, on Wednesday for the holiday season. He is expecting to spend about a week there and will either return to Western Pennsylvania to continue participation in player organized workouts at the Iceoplex at Southpointe or find a professional team in Europe to play with.

The NHL and the NHLPA continue to squabble over a new collective bargaining agreement, and fans are becoming restless. One study finds the league will have some major public relations issues on their hands once the game does return, according to The Globe and Mail.

In fact, public opinion of the league could be worse than it was for BP after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

A lot of NHL teams provide nice team-themed desktop wallpapers via their official websites. You can download and show all your friends that you’re a fan! They’re great. A lot of these wallpapers also have game calendars on them, so they double as a fine utility.

h/t Reddit

The NHLPA doesn’t think the NHL’s lawsuit has merit.

The union announced Friday evening in a statement that they had received a copy of the league’s NLRB filing, but had yet to be served with the lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in New York on Friday afternoon. The lawsuit claims that the union has been negotiating in bad faith and has disrupted the collective bargaining process by threatening to dissolve via a disclaimer of interest.

The NHL announced late Friday that they’ve filed a lawsuit in United States Federal Court with hopes that the court will “confirm the ongoing legality” of the 2012 league lockout.

The lawsuit is a direct result of news earlier Friday that the NHLPA is moving forward with plans that could lead to a “disclaimer of interest,” or, in other words, the dissolving of the union. The NHL claimed that the NHLPA has “threatened” to disclaim interest.