NHL Lockout 2012- News Update: Should President Obama Get Involved? Sides to Meet Friday

The NHL and NHLPA decided to meet against Thursday with Federal Mediators in an attempt to salvage the 2012-13 season, but for the moment it seems there was no progress made.

According to the Miami Herald, the league was represented by legal counsel Bob Batterman at the office of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Iselin, NJ while the NHLPA was represented by its executive director Donald Fehr and special counsel Steve Fehr

"I think we're done with contact tonight; we're still working on a bunch of stuff as we always are," Steve Fehr said. "I expect there will be contact (with the League on Friday); not sure if it will be by telephone or in person, or if it is in person where it will be.

"It's good that we're talking. It's better than not talking and we'll see what happens," he added. Reports indicate that the two sides will communicate again on Friday.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly were absent from the meeting.

The league has been in a lockout since September and rumors indicate that the season would start in January. No only are fans anxious to see hockey back, but it seems that even President Obama wants the negotiations to be settled.

According to the Associated Press, the President told WCCO-TV in Minneapolis that the two sides "make a lot of money and you make a lot of money on the backs of the fans, so do right by your fans."He stated that there should be no need for him to get involved in negotiations. Yahoo Blogger Greg Wyshynski wrote a post on a petition going around to get the White House involved in mediating the lockout. The petition states that ""someone in the White House will know who to call, who can solve this thing, who can moderate and get the NHL and NHLPA to concede the greed and get the game we all love back on national TV...As fans we are mostly helpless at this point, it's nice to have one means of productivity." The petition is closing in on 600 signatures, but it needs 25,000 to get attention from the President.

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