from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

On that issue, the league feels its relationship with the players continues to grow stronger.

“There’s no doubt our ongoing relationship with the players' association is more regular and uniform that it has been in my memory,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Tuesday after the board meeting wrapped up. "We deal with them on all the issues associated with the game. We work through issues. Sometimes we don’t always agree, surprise, surprise. I think we have a strong working foundation and hopefully that will continue [to] improve in time.”

Then Bettman, standing next to Daly, said:

“I’d like to add to that that if you think that we went through a period where we had five different executive directors of the union in a relatively brief period of time. There is stability now in the union and that is a positive, not just for the players and the union; that’s a positive for us because you can’t build a strong working relationship based on trust when the cast of characters is changing every few months. So the strength and stability of the union, I think, is important as we try to accomplish the things we want to do moving forward.”

more BOG topics...

Stepehn Whyno of the CP at Yahoo writes about the small-market teams...