Dazed and Concussed said:
I stand corrected on the Blue Fin meetings. Having said that I still do not believe the meetings in 2003 were a serious attempt to come to an agreement or further meetings would have been scheduled. I suspect that the meetings a year ago were nothing more than the union feeling out the owners and were used to plot strategy for these negotiations. I have belonged to a union for the last 10 years and have seen these tactics before. The statement of what the owners would have done being irrelevant is accurate as it is pure speculation on DR's behalf
Nine days of meetings seems a pretty serious attempt to me.
Also there were several months of in depth review of team finances for four teams(Boston, Montreal, Buffalo and LA) by the NHLPA previous to that in preparation for negotiations.
Besides what you said previously was that "It was the players who choose not to negotiate until just a few months ago." I saw nothing about your current gloss on the statement that negotiations had to be aserious attempt to come to an agreement - leaving aside the fact you have no way to judge that.