February 03, 2005
NHL Lockout Digest
Greetings from Times Square in Manhattan. I had some time to kill in between meetings and heading back to Long Island for dinner with the family, so I dropped into an Internet cafe on 42nd Street. Pretty cool.
The NHL and NHLPA are locked in negotiations somewhere in Newark, New Jersey, outcome unknown, but one anonymous owner says the league will announce an official cancellation of the season sometime in the next 24 hours.
Here are some NHL Lockout quick facts for your perusal:
1) If the NHL season is wiped out, this would be the 1st North American major pro sports league to have an entire season cancelled (labor or other factors).
2) The NHL season was slated to begin on Oct. 13 with seven games scheduled. The entire schedule consisted of 1,230 games (82 per team) and was supposed to run through Apr. 10.
3) The stoppage is hockey's third and the first for a North American major league since the 1998-99 NBA lockout canceled 464 games, cutting each club's regular-season schedule from 82 games to 50.
4) The longer the NHL lockout lasts, the more likely it is that some players will never return. A staggering total of 154 played their final NHL season in 1993-94 before the previous lockout.
5) As of January, six of the NHL's top eight point leaders and seven of its eight leading goal-scorers from the 2003-04 season had joined European teams during the work stoppage. More than 300 NHL players had fled to Europe.
6) The key issue is cost certainty (or a salary cap). The league says it needs it. The players say they will never agree to one.
7) The only year the Stanley Cup was not awarded was 1919; series was started but not completed (influenza outbreak). Coincidentally, the Red Sox were fresh off winning the World Series that year as well.
An amazing coincidence? I think not.
More later tonight, if and when they announce an agreement (LOL) or the long expected cancellation of the season.
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04:10 PM