NHL Lockout seems almost certain

The contract with the players' association expires on Wednesday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
After failing to make any progress toward a new collective bargaining agreement, the NHL owners and players agreed on one point: A lockout seems inevitable.
The players' association made its first proposal to the owners in nearly a year Thursday, but it only seemed to seal the fate that a lockout will be imposed on Wednesday when the current deal expires.
Ted Saskin, the NHLPA's senior director, said commissioner Gary Bettman concluded the meeting Thursday by saying, "We weren't even talking the same language."
The NHLPA presented a modified plan during the negotiating session Thursday that it first floated last summer and formally offered on Oct. 1, 2003.
It included a luxury-tax system, a change in the entry-level structure, a plan for revenue sharing, and a 5-percent rollback on current player contracts.
It all fell on deaf ears.
Step backwards
"We spent four hours, and after waiting 15 months, not only didn't we get a proposal that was not really different, but it was a step backward," said Bill Daly, the NHL's chief legal officer.
A step that can't be afforded if the NHL season is going to start on time. No new talks were scheduled.
The point of contention between the sides seems simple. The players claim that Bettman will not agree to a deal that doesn't include a salary cap.
The players are steadfast that they will discuss any structure other than a salary cap to cut the percentage of revenues that are paid out in salaries.
"At some point the owners need to understand the players will never accept a salary cap or any system arbitrarily linking payroll to league revenues," said Vancouver center Trevor Linden, the president of the players' executive committee. "Our proposal was the best chance we saw to save the hockey season."
Union's proposal
Saskin said the contract rollbacks will create $100 million in savings. The luxury tax framework would target the spending of specific teams, and the proposed revenue-sharing system -- that differed from the players' association initial proposal -- was more closely aligned to recent NHL offers, the union said.
Players said the offered changes to the entry level system would generate $60 million in savings to clubs. But Daly countered that the proposal was merely "window dressing" and didn't address problems facing all 30 teams.
Saskin said owners want the lockout because that is the only way they have a chance of getting a salary cap.