Following two days of back and forth taunts between the league and union in the media, the NHL has announced that they are cancelling more regular season games.
The two sides met earlier this week to exchange a new proposal, with the NHL offering the players a 50-50 split of revenue for the first time. There was some optimism on both sides when the deal was proposed, but once the players responded with a counteroffer, things became contentious.
Both the union and the league expressed disappointment with the other sides offer, with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman saying he was "Thoroughly disappointed."
On Friday the league dashed any optimism that came from the newest negotiations, announcing that all regular season games through Nov. 1 would be cancelled.
According to ESPN.com:
"The NHL is expected to make much more significant cancellations by the end of next week if a deal is not reached, a source with knowledge of the league's thinking told ESPNNewYork.com."
The newest proposal by the NHL included a 50-50 revenue split and a plan to keep the 82-game regular season. The league gave the proposal to the union, who spent two days reviewing it before they made a counteroffer.
The union presented three different proposals, which included a fixed amount of revenue for the players and a deal that allowed all existing contracts to remain as they are.
"The so-called 50-50 deal, plus honoring current contracts proposed by the NHL Players' Association earlier today is being misrepresented," said Deputy commissioner Bill Daly. "It is not a 50-50 deal. It is, most likely a 56- to 57-percent deal in Year One and never gets to 50 percent during the proposed five-year term of the agreement."
The two sides have no new sessions scheduled and are entering a phase where if too much time goes by, an 82-game season will not be able to be salvaged.
"I am concerned based on the proposal that was made today that things are not progressing," Bettman said. "To the contrary, I view the proposal made by the players' association in many ways a step backward."
According to ESPN.com:
"The latest league proposal also includes:
-A listed salary cap of $59.9 million for the 2012-13 season, with a provision each team could spend up to $70.2 million during a transition season.
-Changing eligibility for unrestricted free agency from age 27 or seven years of service to age 28 or eight years of service, down from 10 years of service in the league's earlier proposal.
-Increasing eligibility for salary arbitration from four years to five years.
-Including all years of existing contracts beyond five years against a team's cap, regardless of where a player is playing. If a player is traded and retires or stops playing, the applicable cap charge would be applied against the team that originally signed the contact."
The NHL is the third professional sport in the past two years to deal with labor issues. The NFL lockout lasted from March until July of 2011, and the NBA lockout forced the league to play a 66 game season.
The lockout began on Sept.16 and is the third lockout since 1993 under Bettman.
Economic issues have kept the two sides apart for the entire lockout and so far neither side has budged when it comes to figuring out how to split the $3.3 billion the league makes in revenue.
Other issues that are part of the negotiations but were not discussed on Thursday include "realignment, drug testing and the NHL's participation in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia," according to ESPN.com.
The NHL recovered greatly from the 2004 lockout that wiped out the entire season, but the longer this current one drags on, the more likely the league will alienate fans that were already reluctant to come back to arenas around the country.
In 1992-93 the players missed 30 days, while the 1994-95 lockout had 468 games lost. The lockout in the 2004-05 lost the entire NHL season and resulted in 1,230 games lost. During the last stoppage, the two sides did not meet to start bargaining until three months into the lockout.
Major League Baseball lost millions of fans after the strike they had in 1994 and some argue that the sport never recovered from that. Once considered the biggest draw in professional sports, the strike left a bad taste in many fans mouths and allowed the NFL and football to become America's number one sport.
Many players have signed contracts overseas and will continue playing there until the lockout ends.
There were a large group of players at the latest bargaining session, including Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, Calgary Flames winger Jerome Iginla and Carolina Hurricanes star Eric Staal.
