Could it really be that we have an NHL season at last?

If all is to be believed from NHL.com, The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players’ Association have apparently reached an agreement to a framework of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement just a few hours ago.

According to the official site, over 16 hours of negotiating, that began Saturday afternoon, saw agreement in principle shortly after 6am Sunday.

There has been no announcement of a start date or the number of games that will be played, but that is believed to be announced in due course.

The deal was announced jointly by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr.

“Don Fehr and I are here to tell you that we have reached an agreement on the framework of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the details of which need to be put to paper,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said.

“We have to dot a lot of I’s and cross a lot of T’s. There is still a lot of work to be done, but the basic framework has been agreed upon. We have to go through a ratification process and the Board of Governors has to approve it from the League side and, obviously, the players have to approve it as well. We are not in a position to give you information right now about schedule, when we are starting. It’s early in the morning and we have been at this all day and all night, obviously. But, we will be back to you very shortly, hopefully, later today with more information in that regard.”

“Any process like this in the system we have is difficult; it can be long,” Fehr said. “I’ve said repeatedly throughout this process, somebody would say, ‘What do you see ahead?’ And, the answer was, ‘You get up tomorrow and you try to find a way to do it and you keep doing that until you find a way to succeed.

“As Gary just indicated, we have the framework of a deal. We have to do the legal work and we have to do the constituent-communication work. At least, from my [standpoint], and I’m sure Gary’s too, we need to let them know the details before we tell all of you. Having said that, hopefully, we’re at a place where all those things will proceed fairly rapidly and with some dispatch and we’ll get back to what we used to call business as usual as fast as we can.”

Scot Beckenbaugh, Deputy Director for Mediation Services for the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, worked with both sides from this past Wednesday until Sunday morning’s deal. Bettman praised the work of Beckenbaugh and thanked him for the role he played.

“I want to recognise the extraordinary contribution that my colleague, Scot Beckenbaugh, Deputy Director for Mediation Services, made in providing herculean assistance of the highest caliber to the parties throughout the most critical periods in the negotiations,” FMCS Director George Cohen said as part of a statement.

The new CBA, which still must be drafted and formerly approved by both parties, but it seems as though things are looking up, and looking up incredibly quickly.