from Elliotte Friedman of CBC,

If you have any doubt what a stalemate the NHL lockout has become, consider this: talks took a step backward last weekend because the league and the NHL Players' Association could not agree on who should pay for a) an extra trainer on the road and b) for each player to have his own hotel room.

Players felt teams should pay for both, especially since an extra trainer is a safety issue. Apparently, some teams only travel with one. As for single rooms, well, they've been fighting for that since Matt Stajan made Joe Nieuwendyk watch The Fifth Wheel. Right now, you can be solitary if you've played 600 NHL games.

The league, of course, feels otherwise, that these are added costs and should come out of hockey related revenue. There's no consensus and everybody leaves grumbling.

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