NHL owners vote to lock out players
Canadian Press
9/15/2004
The puck stops here.
The NHL board of governors, at a meeting in New York, unanimously voted Wednesday to ``not play again until there is a new economic system.''
With the current collective bargaining agreement expiring at midnight Wednesday, the decision means the NHL season is officially on ice.
A lockout has begun.
``Twenty of our clubs are losing money,'' commissioner Gary Bettman said at a New York news conference. ``There have been too many bankruptcies and too many other close calls. I have had too many owners tell me they will get out of this game if the economics are not repaired.''
``This game's future depends upon getting the right economic system,'' he added. ``In the absence of such a system, there is no future for our game.''
Bettman delivered a strong address, repeatedly saying the union was ``in denial.''
The NHL Players' Association responded by calling it ``a disappointing day'' for players and fans.
``An honest partnership can never be achieved under the league's `my way or the highway' approach,'' NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow said in a statement. ``Partnerships are built on respect, trust and willingness to compromise. Partnerships are not built through confrontation.
``Nonetheless, Gary and the owners have chosen, through a lockout, to try to force players to accept a system they know players would never agree to.''
Bettman said the league had ``done everything possible to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement that works . . .
``Sadly, those efforts have not achieved their objective. And as the league stands at the threshold of the conclusion of the current CBA, which occurs at midnight tonight, it is my sombre duty to report that at today's meeting, the board of governors unanimously re-confirmed that NHL teams will not play at the expiration of the CBA until we have a new system which fixes the economic problems facing our game.''
The optimistic prediction is for an end to the labour impasse in January, seen as the cutoff point for an NHL season to be salvaged - just like 9 years ago during the last lockout.
Some believe the whole 2004-05 season could be cancelled. That means the Stanley Cup not being awarded for the first time since 1919 - when an influenza epidemic stopped the Montreal-Seattle final.
The NHL and Players' Association last met last Thursday in Toronto. The session lasted just four hours.
Bettman apologized ``to our millions of fans and the thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on our game.''
``It is truly unfortunate that we have to go through this. I assure you that no one is more unhappy about this situation than I am.''
No meetings between the two sides have been scheduled for the foreseeable future.
News of the lockout comes just hours after Canadians celebrated a victory over Finland in the World Cup of Hockey. It could be the last top-flight hockey to savour for a while.
Both sides have stockpiled money for this labour battle. The league says its owners will actually lose less money with the players out than if the season went ahead as scheduled.
Some players will opt to stay at home. Others will pack up and play in Europe or on several domestic stopgap circuits established in the event of a work stoppage.
At the heart of the dispute is the league's demand for a salary cap, although it prefers to talk of a system that guarantees ``cost certainty.''
``We need an enforceable, defined relationship between revenues and expenses,'' Bettman said.
The league says it lost $273 million US in 2002-03 and $224 million last season, and needs a framework that guarantees player costs won't eat up more than 50 per cent of league revenues.
The NHL also says player costs consumed 75 per cent of league revenues last season.
The current collective bargaining agreement, twice renewed over 10 years, has seen player salaries soar - from an average of $733,000 in 1994-95 to $1.83 million in 2003-04.
Bettman said during the current CBA a team in the top one-third in salaries has been three times more likely to make the playoffs than a team in the bottom third.
``That is a status quo with which we simply cannot continue to live. Our game and our fans deserve better.''
``We need a system that will eliminate the disparities in payrolls, so that a team's ability to compete depends on its team-building skills, not on its ability to pay,'' he added.
The NHLPA, however, has resisted any attempt at capping salaries.
Instead Goodenow, senior director Ted Saskin and the union have offered a package that includes a luxury tax, revenue sharing, five per cent rollback on current player contracts and changes to entry-level contracts - all of which the union says will save owners up to $150 million next season.
The league has rejected that approach, saying it needs more to get its house in order.
``The present system doesn't work for us,'' Carolina president Jim Rutherford said in New York.
As baseball has learned to its cost, a work stoppage can lead to a nasty fan hangover. That could be costly for hockey, a sport that has struggled to find - or keep - a foothold in some markets.
In Chicago, where the once mighty Blackhawks stumble near the bottom of the standings these days, the Chicago Tribune played the NHL labour story on page 8 of the sports section. The lead item was the Cubs' victory over Pirates.
The Chicago Sun-Times played the NHL story 15 pages into the sports section. Top billing was a full-page teaser to a column on the Athletics-Rangers dustup.
The Dallas Morning News also led with the baseball brawl. There was no mention of the NHL labour situation.
The Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel led Wednesday with the Marlins win in Chicago over the Expos. The Herald played the lockout on the front below the fold while the Sun-Sentinel had it on page 9.
Papers in St. Louis, Columbus and Atlanta had the story on the front of their sports sections.
So did the Tennessean in Nashville, although top spot on the sports front went to the NFL Titans signing kicker Gary Anderson.
Cheers,
Aquaman