Haggerty On Toucher & Rich: Bruins Vs. Habs To Open Season?
The NHL lockout started back on September 16th when the owners and players were not able to get a new deal done before the prior CBA expired. After marathon negotiating session that lasted more than 16 hours the weekend of January 5th the two sides produced a 10-year deal.
The new collective bargaining agreement must be ratified by a majority of the league's 30 owners and the union's membership of approximately 740 players.
Read: NHL, Union Reach Tentative Agreement To End Lockout
Joe Haggerty of Comcast SportsNet joined 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher & Rich about the return of hockey.
When will camp open for players?
"I assume that Friday may be the earliest training camp would start, I thought and now they're saying Saturday. So I would mark it down for Saturday camp is going to start and 19th the season is going to start."
What is Haggerty hearing about the start of the Bruins season? Will the Bruins open up the season on the road or at home?
"From everything that I've been told the opener will be as it was on the old schedule; it will be the Bruins up in Montreal playing the Habs at the Bell Centre, as it should be."
What will this shorter season look like? How long will the season be and when could the playoffs start?
"The playoffs I don't think are going to start until May and they'll go until the end of June."
"As far as the schedule goes, they're going to play everybody in their division seven times... and it's two games against everyone else in the conference. They won't play anybody in the West at all, and then you go through a long full playoffs after that."
Plus, what quality of hockey are we going to get from players at least early on in the season with most players not getting the chance to go play overseas?
