It took the CHL over 24 hours to respond publicly to the strike declaration issued by the Professional Hockey Players' Association yesterday, but they did exactly that with a press release issued this afternoon.
Brian Sandalow has a story updating the situation, which begins with this interesting bit of information:
About six weeks ago, Rio Grande Valley's Ryan Shmyr was working at his restaurant with his brother in Fairview, Ab. Shmyr, who rejoined the Bees in early August, said he received an e-mail from the Professional Hockey Players Association telling him, in his words, "don't quit your summer jobs, because we might have to go on strike."
So, I guess the players were warned, but it still seems they had no say in the matter. The earliest documentation of contact between the PHPA and the players on the PHPA site took place Sept. 17, as seen in this letter. That contact came three days after another letter had been sent from CHL owners to their players informing them of the current state of negotiations.
If you'd like to read all the other correspondence, here is the memo sent to players when the strike decision was released, here is the letter sent to CHL commissioner Duane Lewis about the strike and here is the news release issued by the PHPA yesterday.
Not much new information was released or discovered today, but I'd like to clarify a something from yesterday.
As far as the P-1 visas, it seems anyone who applies for one (they are visas specifically for athletes and entertainers) has to get approval from their union in order to use it. Basically, everyone already in the U.S. is good to go, but everyone still in Canada is going to have some issues.
In the letter the sent to Duane Lewis, PHPA executive director Larry Landon says, "Notification will be made forthwith to both the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S.C.I.S. requesting appropriate action be taken with request to P-1 non-immigrant status." So, clearly, the PHPA is on top of that.
Sorry for the lack of updates earlier today, but I wasn't sure how much needed to be said. I'll be sure to post as soon as I hear any new news. I believe Bucks head coach/general manager Terry Ruskowski will be getting back to Laredo tomorrow from visiting his wife in Houston, so I will be giving him a call to see if he has a better idea of what is going on with the situation.
The Bucks had planned to announce the last of their signings for the 2008-09 season by the end of the week, but I guess we'll see if they stick with that plan.
1 comment:
This stinks..hockey fans have been anxiously waiting for the start of the season and here we are laden with a stike.
If it's going to take 15 months to settle the differences between managment and labor, we likely won't see hockey in Laredo for about two years. Yikes that sucks.
Obviously the strike won't be settled anytime soon, so now what? Are we (the fans, season ticket holders) going to see scab players or reject players from other leagues? I hope not because the fan base doesn't deserve that. I'm reminded of the last NHL strike season, both sides lost. NHL has not recovered it's fan base ever since.
I think we need answers or at the very least updates from both labor and management as to where we all stand with respect to the start of the season. Most importantly we need both sides to come together quickly and settle their differences. It can be done so long as both sides understand the meaning of compromise.
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