I refuse to give up hope that I will be able to step into one of these this season. Don’t let me down boys! (Photo: Mathieu Plourde/flickr)

This evening I bring good news and bad news regarding CBA negotiations.

First the good news. Word came out earlier in the week that the two sides are planning to meet tomorrow. Today it was confirmed that the meeting is actually a THREE DAY MEETING as the two sides are scheduled to meet Friday, Saturday AND Sunday.

So what’s the bad news, you ask? These meetings are expected to discuss only non-core economic issues, a.k.a. they probably won’t solve much. We can’t expect everything, can we?

Jonathan Toews said it best when he stated:

“It seems like the past week or so, when both sides don’t meet, it almost feels like there’s a sense we’re starting over from scratch”

To me, that’s exactly what it feels like. Plus as much as the non-core economic issues are important, agreeing on them won’t mean anything if they can’t agree on the money side. (That said, if they can agree on anything at this point we should consider it an accomplishment.)

Guess all we can do is keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best. Come on boys, surprise us with positive news coming out of this weekend. Otherwise I expect the list of players playing in Europe to get much longer very quickly.