N-L-L Rejects Players Contract Proposal, First Two Weeks of Season Cancelled

The 2018-2019 National Lacrosse League season won’t start until December 15 at the earliest.

The N-L-L has rejected a counter-proposal from the Professional Lacrosse Players Association on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, after extending the deadline from 5 o’clock Wednesday for the P-L-P-A to respond to the league’s latest proposal. As a result, the first two weekends of games have been scrubbed. That includes a pair of Saskatchewan Rush games…December 1 in Georgia and December 8 at home against Colorado. A Rush pre-season game for this Friday against Colorado had already been scrubbed because of the labour impasse. Following is a news release from the Saskatchewan Rush…

NLL OPENING WEEKENDS CANCELLED

The League suspended it’s 5:00pm deadline yesterday to allow the PLPA to provide a new counterproposal. After a thorough review of the PLPA’s counterproposal, it is clear we cannot accept the terms the PLPA has put forward, and therefore, have made a decision to reject it. We believe those terms would have both short and long term negative consequences on our member clubs and the League which we are not willing to accept. Therefore, there is not yet an agreement on a new collective bargaining agreement.

With respect to the upcoming season, the PLPA has instructed its players not to attend training camps or submit to physicals, making the formation of rosters and operation of the opening of the season impossible.

Therefore, and regrettably, because of the PLPA’s current position, the first two weekends of the 2018-19 season, which includes games on December 1 and December 8, 2018, are cancelled.

We will provide further communications on the 2018-19 schedule as updates become available.

Saskatchewan Rush Media Contact:

Brandon Urban

Brandon@SaskRush.com

(403)-966-7445

National Lacrosse League Media Contact:

Ashley Dabb

ADabb@nll.com

(862)-268-5977