NHL and players finally understand each other

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Published time: January 13, 2013 09:54
Edited time: January 13, 2013 13:54

The NHL and the Players’ Association have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, reflecting the terms of a 10-year Collective Bargaining Agreement, which puts an end to the lockout in the world’s biggest hockey league.

­According to the new Agreement, which will be the longest in history, the hockey related revenues (HRR) will be shared 50-50 between the club owners and the players.

The document also limits the length of individual player contracts to seven years, which may be prolonged for another season when a team are re-signing their own man.

The NHL teams are to open their training camps on Sunday, January 13, with the shortened regular season scheduled for face-off on January 19.

It will consist of 720 games, with each side holding 48 meetings before the playoffs begin.

It was originally planned that the 2012/13 NHL season would start on October 11, but the players and the owners failed to come to terms on the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Many of the league’s stars – including Evgeny Malkin, Alex Ovechkin, and Ilya Kovalchuk – waited out the nearly four-month-long lockout in the KHL clubs, but are returning to North America to fulfill their contracts.