Tentative deal for NHL, NHLPA to end lockout

It’s done. Drop the puck.

After a 16-hour overnight negotiating session with federal mediator Scot Beckenbaugh in Manhattan and months of often rancorous, on and off negotiations, the NHL and NHLPA hammered out a tentative new collective bargaining agreement aimed at ending the 112-day lockout.

The word on the deal in principle came down shortlly after 5 a.m. from an official in the talks who requested anonymity. The framework is for a 10-year deal, with an opt-out after eight years. Player contracts are limited to seven years, but eight for teams to re-sign their own free agents. The cap in 2013-14 is $64.3 million.

The season will apparently be at least 48 games, although the start date has not been set. Training camps could begin this week.

"Hopefully, in a few days, people can start watching people who are skating and not us," NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said. "Absolutely," said Commissioner Gary Bettman, who called the pact a "framework for an agreement.. We'll get back to you hopefully later today."

The language has yet to be approved and sent to the players and Board of Governors for a vote.

"It was a battle," said Winnipeg defenseman Ron Hainsey, who played a key role in the talks. "Gary said a month ago it was a tough negotiation, and that's what it was.Our focus is to give the fans 48 or 50 games, whatever it is. You want to be playing, you want to be done with this, but I think you could tell we were making progress throughout the day."

A 48 game intraconference schedule likely would mean that each team would play seven games against teams in its division and two games against each team in the conference.

The announcement came after months of stops and starts in the negotiations, which began in late June and resulted in the cancellation of 625 regular season games---more than 40 percent of the regular season---as well as the Winter Classic between Detroit and Toronto on Jan. 1 in Ann Arbor and All-Star Weekend in Columbus on Jan. 26-27.

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Services chief George Cohen praised Beckenbaugh, saying he provided "herculean assistance of the highest caliber to the parties."

Beckenbaugh began his latest session with the two sides three days ago, shuttling back and forth between their headquarters, meeting with them separately to find areas where there could be common ground. But the first sign that things were progressing came on Dec. 27, when the league offer an olive branch and softened some stances in a 288-proposal that offered a Jan. 19th start of the season. The parties swapped several offers in the ensuing days, and the urgency increased.

It wasn't easy before that.

After a heated, public breakdown of the talks in a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 6, following three days of meetings in Manhattan between 18 players, including Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby, and six owners, negotiations resumed on Dec. 12. Federal mediators Scott Beckenbaugh and John Sweeney, who had met with both sides on Nov. 28 and 29 with no success, rejoined the talks at an undisclosed location. Two days before that, the league cancelled games through Dec. 30.

So, it was widely accepted that this round of talks was a last-ditch attempt to salvage a season. Bettman said the league would not play anything less than a 48-game season, which was the case after the 1994-95 lockout.

The stakes were high. By December, the damage from the third lockout in Bettman’s 20-year reign was extensive. The league estimated a loss of about $550 million in revenues, including the cancellation of preseason games. Players missed six of 13 paychecks. Clubs laid off employees or trimmed hours. League executives tried to reassure sponsors and broadcast partners, and no one involved could predict how many fans would return whenever the season resumed.

Unlike the 2004-05 lockout, the rancor exploded on social media, with sharp criticism of Bettman, Fehr, owners and players, accusing them of being stubborn, short-sighted and greedy for allowing a $3.3 billion business to erode. Players at charity events and self-organized skates swore that the union was united behind Fehr, a tough negotiator for decades with the Major League Baseball Players Association, who had been hired by the union in 2010.

Through the talks, the league negotiators seemed to be following the script that the NBA, where Bettman once worked as an executive, used to craft a deal last season: A lockout to force a 50-50 split of revenues and a long, team-friendly CBA. However, the NBA filed a disclaimer of interest to change the union to an association, as a tactic to force negotiations; the NHLPA considered decertification, but did not employ it. .