National Hockey League owners and players have spent years preparing for a labor shutdown that is set to begin Wednesday, putting stars, skates, sticks and pucks into a deep freeze indefinitely.
The NHL Board of Governors will meet Wednesday in New York to authorize the lockout, meaning training camps would not open and the league, which has annual revenues of two billion dollars, would be shut down.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says his 30-team league needs cost certainty with player salaries tied to revenues while NHL Players Association executive director Bob Goodenow rejects any form of salary cap on the NHL's 700 players.
The result is a showdown similar to those played out in North American basketball, where owners outlasted players in a 1998-99 dispute, and baseball, where the 1994 World Series was lost before a luxury tax plan was formulated.
"At some point, the owners have to realize the players will never accept a salary cap or a system linking payroll to league revenues," Vancouver's Trevor Linden, the NHLPA president, said in a statement.
Tuesday's World Cup of Hockey final here between Canada and Finland could be the last elite-level match for years if worst fears are realized - and that goes beyond shutting down the NHL's Stanley Cup championship quest.
International Ice Hockey Federation President Rene Fasel has said that if an NHL labor dispute drags beyond January, the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics would not feature NHL players even with a year in between to hammer out a solution.
NHL owners locked out players for 103 days in 1994 and 1995, wiping out nearly half a season. A prior deal was extended in 1995 to allow NHL talent into the Olympics and in 1997 to add four NHL expansion clubs.
Owners claim player salaries have jumped 252 percent, 90 percent more than revenues, in the last decade and some clubs will fold without a change. A plan with a cap of about 31 million dollars per club was pitched but rejected.
In 10 years the average NHL salary jumped from 733,000 dollars to 1.83 million dollars, but that followed decades of NHL owners holding down salaries before players formed an effective union.
The NHLPA claims salaries are up 170 percent, only 10 percent more than revenues, and that a luxury tax and revenue sharing system would solve the problems of owners who spent themselves into their own mess.
The NHL claims it lost almost 300 million dollars last season, about the same amount it has set aside as a "war chest" lockout fund, and wants salaries to be 50 percent of league revenues.
Owners have the money to pay expenses if a lockout lingers, even though most clubs have trimmed staff and the league is expected to do the same.
The union claims six NHL clubs account for 76 percent of its losses and wealthy owners should help the weak.
NHL Executive Vice-President Bill Daly said some teams "are underperforming because they're smaller markets and maybe those clubs either shouldn't be in existence or should be in other markets. That's a ridiculous position to be in.
"We should be sitting down jointly to solve that problem."
Bettman faces divisions among owners. Money-making clubs like Toronto, Detroit, Philadelphia, Colorado and the New York Rangers are against at least eight hard-line cap supporters with the rest of the league stuck in the middle.
Unlike other North American leagues, the NHL lacks huge television revenues because US viewership is more regional in nature. In Canada, where the game is beloved, clubs have struggled to stay competitive in the NHL's tight economy.
The NHL Board of Governors will meet Wednesday in New York to authorize the lockout, meaning training camps would not open and the league, which has annual revenues of two billion dollars, would be shut down.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman says his 30-team league needs cost certainty with player salaries tied to revenues while NHL Players Association executive director Bob Goodenow rejects any form of salary cap on the NHL's 700 players.
The result is a showdown similar to those played out in North American basketball, where owners outlasted players in a 1998-99 dispute, and baseball, where the 1994 World Series was lost before a luxury tax plan was formulated.
"At some point, the owners have to realize the players will never accept a salary cap or a system linking payroll to league revenues," Vancouver's Trevor Linden, the NHLPA president, said in a statement.
Tuesday's World Cup of Hockey final here between Canada and Finland could be the last elite-level match for years if worst fears are realized - and that goes beyond shutting down the NHL's Stanley Cup championship quest.
International Ice Hockey Federation President Rene Fasel has said that if an NHL labor dispute drags beyond January, the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics would not feature NHL players even with a year in between to hammer out a solution.
NHL owners locked out players for 103 days in 1994 and 1995, wiping out nearly half a season. A prior deal was extended in 1995 to allow NHL talent into the Olympics and in 1997 to add four NHL expansion clubs.
Owners claim player salaries have jumped 252 percent, 90 percent more than revenues, in the last decade and some clubs will fold without a change. A plan with a cap of about 31 million dollars per club was pitched but rejected.
In 10 years the average NHL salary jumped from 733,000 dollars to 1.83 million dollars, but that followed decades of NHL owners holding down salaries before players formed an effective union.
The NHLPA claims salaries are up 170 percent, only 10 percent more than revenues, and that a luxury tax and revenue sharing system would solve the problems of owners who spent themselves into their own mess.
The NHL claims it lost almost 300 million dollars last season, about the same amount it has set aside as a "war chest" lockout fund, and wants salaries to be 50 percent of league revenues.
Owners have the money to pay expenses if a lockout lingers, even though most clubs have trimmed staff and the league is expected to do the same.
The union claims six NHL clubs account for 76 percent of its losses and wealthy owners should help the weak.
NHL Executive Vice-President Bill Daly said some teams "are underperforming because they're smaller markets and maybe those clubs either shouldn't be in existence or should be in other markets. That's a ridiculous position to be in.
"We should be sitting down jointly to solve that problem."
Bettman faces divisions among owners. Money-making clubs like Toronto, Detroit, Philadelphia, Colorado and the New York Rangers are against at least eight hard-line cap supporters with the rest of the league stuck in the middle.
Unlike other North American leagues, the NHL lacks huge television revenues because US viewership is more regional in nature. In Canada, where the game is beloved, clubs have struggled to stay competitive in the NHL's tight economy.
There's going to be a lot of boring winter nights. 
