Sunday was Day 1 of the N.H.L.'s latest lockout, but its aftershocks already reverberated through professional hockey.
"The collective bargaining agreement expired tonight as of 12 midnight," Bill Daly, the N.H.L. deputy commissioner, wrote in an e-mail message at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. "In the absence of a new agreement, a lockout was formally implemented."
Around the time Daly was sending that message to confirm the lockout — the league had made no official announcement at midnight that it locked out its players — Evgeni Malkin was signing with his hometown club in the Russian-based Kontinental Hockey League, Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
Malkin, the 26-year-old Pittsburgh Penguins star who has won every major individual N.H.L. award, including last season's most valuable player trophy, was joined on Magnitogorsk by another prominent N.H.L. player: Ottawa defenseman Sergei Gonchar, a 17-year veteran and former all-star.
The signings were announced by the club. Both players can terminate their K.H.L. contracts and return to the N.H.L. if the lockout ends.
The K.H.L. has restricted each of its 26 clubs to signing a maximum of three locked-out N.H.L. players, who are to be paid no more than 65 percent of what they would have earned in the N.H.L. this season. But Malkin and Gonchar are the first of what is expected to be an exodus of N.H.L. players to leagues in Europe and Russia should the lockout drag on.
During the season-long lockout of 2004-5, close to 400 N.H.L. players skated in leagues overseas — more than half the N.H.L.'s roster of players.
No new bargaining sessions were held or scheduled as of Sunday night, further eroding hope that the season can start as scheduled on Oct. 11. That is the same day that N.H.L. players are to receive escrow checks containing 8 percent of their 2011-12 salaries — a timely tranche of income ($80,000 for a player who made $1 million last season) that may help strengthen their resolve into November and December.
The owners' primary demand is to reduce the players' share of league revenues from 57 percent last season to 47 percent in the last four years of a proposed six-year deal. The players have offered to eventually reduce their share to about 53 percent.
A potentially significant reduction in player payroll is a powerful incentive for the owners to hold out.
But by December, the owners will feel pressure to settle in time for the Winter Classic on Jan. 1, in which the Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs will meet at 115,000-seat Michigan Stadium. That Winter Classic, which has become the N.H.L.'s biggest regular-season event, carries important obligations to NBC, HBO and various corporate sponsors.
Also Sunday, the league and the players released dueling statements meant to demonstrate concern for the fans.
The N.H.L. posted a message on its Web site, citing the competitive balance in the league since the installation of the salary cap after the 2004-5 lockout (seven different Stanley Cup winners in seven years) and called for "necessary adjustments" in the next collective bargaining agreement.
"Those adjustments are attainable through sensible, focused negotiation — not through rhetoric," the message said. "The league, the clubs and the players all have a stake in resolving our bargaining issues appropriately and getting the puck dropped as soon as possible. We owe it to each other, to the game and, most of all, to the fans."
The N.H.L. Players' Association released a three-and-a-half-minute video featuring Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews and several other players talking about their love of the game and touching on some of the union's key bargaining points.
"Like any partnership, we want both sides to benefit," Crosby said in the video. "We want to play, but we also know what's right and what's fair."
"You don't need to have a lockout — we could keep playing and bargain at the same time, but that's not what the owners want to do," Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer said in the video. "They want to lock out and use it as a tactic, and the fans, they lose the game they love."
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE 17 Sep, 2012
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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/sports/hockey/nhl-lockout-comes-as-some-players-go-to-skate-in-european-leagues.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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