New date rumored for the start of the NHL season.

The National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players Association have done a great job of angering their fans in recent weeks with yet another dispute over money, at a time when many fans are struggling to get by. Thankfully for the first time in a little while I am happy to report that there is some good news to share, and in fact it sounds very much like the season will soon be getting underway.

On Friday Sportsnet NHL insider Elliotte Friedman began to share the early details of what the league and the players' plan for next season would look like.

"The NHL and the NHLPA went into some significant nuts and bolts about what the next season could look like," said Friedman this week. "And basically what was proposed were two schedules starting on January 15th, one 52 games and the other 56. I think the preference on both sides is 56."

Now of course this will still represent a two week delay compared to what we were led to believe would be the start date initially, with that date long rumored to be January 1st, but given how bad things reportedly got between the players and the owners over the last few weeks this is a huge step forward in the right direction.

There were also a few additional details shared by Friedman in regards to how training camp would play out, with some significant differences from the norm. For starters, for the 7 teams that were left out of the NHL's return to play bubble there will be a few additional days of training camp with theirs beginning on the 28th of December, while the rest of the league will begin on January 1st. Additionally there is talk that there will be no exhibition games in the preseason this time around, so we could be in for some pretty whacky games early on in the regular season.

Friedman updated his comments earlier today and mentioned the possibility of a 60 game schedule at the time, although he admits this is unlikely, and perhaps more interestingly the possibility of starting the regular season two days earlier on January 13th.