We wanted openers. Now we want closure. And that's why Thursday's announcement – the ninth cancellation of this lockout – was actually welcome news to those of us who still care about the NHL.

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At least we'll know soon.

The NHL canceled the schedule through Jan. 14, and that means the NHL and the NHL Players' Association now face a soft deadline for the cancellation of the 2012-13 – oops, the 2013 – season.

Commissioner Gary Bettman has said he "can't imagine wanting to play fewer" than 48 games, as the NHL did during the 1994-95 – oops, the 1995 – season when it dropped the puck in January. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly has said this needs to end around mid-January.

So there you go. If you believe Bettman and Daly, we're not at the brink yet, but we can see it from here.

The legal maneuvering has begun – the preemptive strike by the NHL last week, the threat of a disclaimer of interest by the NHLPA looming. But the only hope for the season lies at the bargaining table. The only hope is that they have been waiting for the last moment to make their last moves.

You can't fake that last moment. It has to be real. And now, finally, it looks like it's coming.

Either they will figure this out, or they won't. Either we'll have an every-game-matters, sprint-from-start-to-finish season, or we'll move on. Either the league will have a chance to recover relatively quickly, or it will fall into the abyss.

Their choice.

Now, to be clear, this is not a "drop-dead date." This is not a hard deadline. The NHL does not necessarily have to open on Jan. 15 to play this season. At this point, canceling the schedule is largely symbolic, because the schedule will have to be redone anyway.

The NHL would be unwise to give a drop-dead date for a couple of reasons:

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One, it would confirm the NHLPA's suspicion that the NHL has had a date in mind all along – something the NHL has denied repeatedly – and give union boss Donald Fehr something to negotiate toward.

Two, it would leave the NHL no flexibility. If Fehr felt the deadline were artificial, he might go past it. What then? The NHL would be forced to follow through or lose whatever credibility it has left. And even if the sides reached a deal in principle, it wouldn't be that simple.

The sides would have to tie up the loose ends while recalling players from all over the world and staging quick training camps, and the NHL would want to tie up any and all loose ends tightly.

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