By Josh Yohe

Published: Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 5:00 p.m.
Updated: Friday, March 29, 2013

Hockey season usually is heating up this time of year.

Instead, lockouts, lawsuits, private votes and mediators are dominating the news as the NHL hit Day 94 today.

The game's biggest name admits feeling embarrassed by the situation.

“I think I shake my head and wonder why we're even at this point,” Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said following a Tuesday workout at Southpointe.

The NHL and its players' association have gone two weeks without negotiating. A meeting with mediators — the respective sides were never in the same room — is the only thing resembling progress in the past couple of weeks, and even that was relatively fruitless.

Crosby continues to marvel that the sides have had so little contact.

“There's no reason for it,” he said. “For some reason, even if there's no way we can make a deal at the moment, we should still be talking every day. I don't understand it.”

Members of the players' association have until Thursday to vote on a maneuver that essentially will disband the union. Two-thirds of the players must vote in favor of authorizing the executive board to disclaim interest for it to pass.

Still, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in an email Tuesday that he's open for discussion.

“We are not closing off the possibility of further discussion,” Daly said. “As far as we are concerned, the NHLPA is still the exclusive collective bargaining representative of all NHL players. They know where we are on the open issues, and they know what we are looking for to try to complete a deal. If they want to discuss those issues — or anything else — we are all ears.”

Crosby has remained mum on the idea of disbanding the union. But the silence between the league and union is something Crosby isn't so quiet about.

“I'm trying not to get too frustrated by it,” Crosby said. “But I think it's nonsense that we aren't talking every day.”

Josh Yohe is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at jyohe@tribweb.com

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