NHL Lockout: President Obama Urges Sides to Come Together

By Andrew Hirsh | Follow him on Twitter

With the fiscal cliff deadline looming, Barack Obama took a minute on Thursday to voice his opinion on some other high-profile negotiations.

The president spoke to WCCO-TV in Minneapolis regarding the National Hockey League lockout, stating that he shouldn’t have to intervene to get a new collective bargaining agreement signed.

From CBS Minnesota:

Frank: Minnesota’s known as the state of hockey, and we’re under the NHL lockout right now. Would you be willing to intervene in that lockout?

President Obama: You know, look. I’ve got to say, because we’ve had an NBA lockout, we’ve had an NFL lockout during the course of my presidency, the president of the United States shouldn’t have to get involved in a sports lockout. My message to owners and to players is, you guys make a lot of money and you make a lot of money on the backs of fans, so do right by your fans. You can figure out how to spread out a bunch of revenue that you’re bringing in, but do right by the people who support you. And I shouldn’t have to be involved in a dispute between really wealthy players and even wealthier owners. They should be able to settle this themselves. And remember who it is that’s putting all that money in their pockets.

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The NHL has roughly a month to reach an agreement before the 2012-13 season is lost. In 1995, a deal was made on a CBA on Jan. 11, and the league was able to squeeze in a 48-game schedule that year.

This isn’t the first time the Commander in Chief has spoken about the current NHL labor dispute. Obama touched on the topic while on The Jay Leno Show back in October, as seen above.

This article was originally published at: The Hockey Writers.