There is hope that the ongoing NHL lockout won't be a long work stoppage. Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writer Rob Rossi argues that this lockout shouldn't be anything like the one that wiped out the 2004-05 NHL season, because that dispute was about economic structure and this one is simply about economics. Rossi spoke with former Pittsburgh Pirates legal counsel Larry Silverman:
"This is a battle for hockey revenue, and if it’s just about that, there shouldn’t be a long stoppage," said Larry Silverman, the Pirates’ baseball legal counsel from 2002-11. "Long stoppages occur when there are fundamental structural differences between parties."
Silverman said the issues in the NHL lockout more closely mirror those of the 2011 NFL lockout than they do those of the 04-05 NHL lockout or the 2011 NBA lockout. The main issue in the ongoing NHL lockout is the distribution of hockey related revenue, a figure that was roughly $3.1 billion last season. In the past collective bargaining agreement the players collected 57 percent of that revenue, a number the owners would like greatly reduced. The most recent NHL proposal had owners collecting from 51-53 percent of revenue.
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