NHL’s labour woes raise prospect of a broadcasting vacuum this fall

The sports TV networks will likely be dusting off their catalogue of canned programming until at least U.S. Thanksgiving. That’s after the release of the reported details of the league’s pitch to its players for the next collective agreement.
The NHL wants five-year limits on player contracts, a 46-per-cent share of hockey-related revenues for players, a 20-per-cent rollback on salaries, a 10-year waiting period for free agency and presumably, a return to tube skates. The rollback theme underscored the pessimism we’d been hearing from NHL teams about the prospect of seeing Hockey Night In Canada the first week of October.
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