NEW YORK, 16 February 2005 — National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman has scheduled a news conference here today at which he is expected to announce the final cancellation of the 2004-2005 season.
That would make the NHL the first league in North American sport history, if not all of sports, to lose an entire season due to a labor dispute. After failed talks on Sunday in Washington involving a federal mediator, it was all but certain this would mark the first time since a 1919 flu epidemic that the Stanley Cup has not been awarded.
“Unfortunately this is going to be uncharted territory for us,” said Detroit star Brendan Shanahan. “If they cancel the season, we’ll be the first league to do that in the history of professional sports. “This could go well into a third season. It’s possible and I think the players are preparing for that because we just don’t know what to expect at this point.”
Owners of the 30 NHL clubs began the shutdown in September saying they could not remain in business without a limit on player salaries. Players have refused to consider a salary cap and about 375 of them have gone to play in Europe as a result. Many others have taken jobs with minor-league United States clubs in what has become a lost season.
A 48-game season was salvaged after a 105-day lockout stretched into January of 1995. An NHL plan would have hurried into a reduced 28-game season into a full 16-team playoff.
The news conference announcement in the wake of months of failed talks made for an unhappy Valentine’s Day for NHL fans, with “Black Wednesday” set to ice the season on what would be the 154th day of the lockout.
