Canada

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

FILE - In this Dec. 6, 2012, file photo, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, right, and deputy commissioner Bill Daly speak to reporters in New York. Bettman has told the players union that a deal must be in place by Jan. 11 in order for a 48-game season to be played beginning eight days later.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File)

After six long months of negotiations, it took one extremely long night to get the NHL out of the boardroom and back on the ice.

A source close to the talks says a tentative deal to end the 113-day NHL lockout was reached Sunday morning at the end of a marathon 16-hour negotiating session, keeping the first North American sports league ever to cancel an entire season due to a labour dispute from doing it a second time.

The agreement was signed in a midtown Manhattan hotel after federal mediator Scot L. Beckenbaugh got the parties to return to the bargaining table.

Before the new CBA officially comes into effect, it must be ratified by a majority of both the league's 30 owners and the union's membership of approximately 740 players.

The lockout has been the second-longest in league history, behind only the one that wiped out the entire 2004-05 season.