NEW YORK -- No shots, no saves, no goals. The National
Hockey League locked out its players, threatening to keep the sport
off the ice for the entire 2004-05 season and perhaps beyond in an
effort by management to gain massive economic change.
The long-expected decision to lock out players beginning
Thursday was approved unanimously Wednesday by NHL owners.
Commissioner Gary Bettman has repeatedly belittled the union's
bargaining position, talked about the possibility the confrontation
could extend into the 2005-06 season and said the conflict has
jeopardized the NHL's participation in the 2006 Winter Olympics.
"When we ultimately make the deal that has to be made, we will
then see whether or not there is time for a season or some
semblance of a season," he said. "If there is, great, and if
there isn't, then we'll deal with the next season when it comes
along."
Bettman said teams had combined to lose more than $1.8 billion
over 10 years, and that management will not agree to a labor deal
without a defined relationship between revenue and salaries.
"Until he gets off the salary-cap issue, there's not a chance
for us to get an agreement," union head Bob Goodenow said in
Toronto, adding that players "are not prepared to entertain a
salary cap in any way, shape, measure or form."
Far apart on both philosophy and finances, the sides haven't
bargained since last Thursday and say they are entrenched for the
long run, echoing words of baseball players and owners at the start
of their disastrous 7½-month labor war of 1994-95.
There is almost no chance the season will start as scheduled on
Oct. 13, and Bettman told teams to release their arenas for other
events for the next 30 days. Bettman said the season can't extend
past June, and the lockout threatens to wipe out the Stanley Cup
final for the first time since 1919, when the series between
Montreal and Seattle was stopped after five games due to a flu
epidemic.
"The union is trying to win a fight, hoping that the owners
will give up. That will turn out to be a terrible error in
judgment," Bettman said. "They are apparently convinced that come
some point in the season, the owners' resolve will waver, and I'm
telling you that is wrong, wrong, wrong."
NHL management says teams combined to lose $273 million in
2002-03 and $224 million last season. Bettman said the union's
proposals would do little for owners, and said the six offers
rejected by the union would lower the average player salary from
$1.8 million to $1.3 million.
Goodenow said players had offered more than $100 million in
annual concessions.
"The notion that we don't have competitive balance is absurd,"
said Vancouver center Trevor Linden, the union's president.
Bettman made clear that declaring an impasse under U.S. labor
law and imposing new work rules unilaterally was an option, but
said it had not yet been considered.
"I think it's pretty fair to say that we're at an impasse right
now, and my guess is that we've probably been at an impasse for
months, if not a year," he said. "At some point when we're at
impasse, we could simply say, 'We're going to open, and here are
the terms and conditions. Let's go.' It's that simple."
Goodenow said attempting to impose terms would be a "very, very
ill-advised strategy" and predicted "the results of it could be
catastrophic." Bettman said the use of replacement players is not
contemplated.
The 30 teams -- 24 in the United States and six in Canada -- had
been set to start opening training camps on Thursday, the day after
the expiration of the current labor contract. The deal was first
agreed to in 1995 and extended two years later through Sept. 15,
2004. Bettman termed the extension "a mistake, in hindsight."
"It of kind stinks, packing up and moving out of here,"
Philadelphia right wing Tony Amonte said at his team's practice
rink. "I can't say they weren't preparing us for it."
Some players are expected to sign with European leagues, and
others could join a six-team, four-on-four circuit called the
Original Stars Hockey League, which is set to start play Friday in
Barrie, Ontario. Others could go to a revived World Hockey
Association, which plans to open Oct. 29 with eight teams playing
76 games apiece.
Bettman said more than 100 employees from the NHL's central
staff of about 225 will be terminated, most on Monday.
The stoppage is the first for a North American major sports
league since the 1998-99 NBA lockout canceled 464 games, cutting
each club's regular-season schedule from 82 games to 50.
It is the third stoppage for the NHL following a 10-day strike
in 1992 that caused the postponement of 30 games and a 103-day
lockout in 1994-95 that eliminated 468 games, cutting each team's
regular-season schedule from 84 games to 48. That lockout ended on
Jan. 11, five days before the deadline set by Bettman to scuttle
the season.