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The National Hockey League
There have been three work stoppages in NHL history. The first was a strike by the National Hockey League Players Association NHLPA in April 1992, which lasted for 10 days. Though the strike began to the season's end, it was settled quickly enough for overstated games to be rescheduled. A lockout at the start of the 1994-95 season proved far more troublesome, lasting three months and forcing the league to reduce the schedule from 84 to 48 games. Teams played completely intra-conference games throughout the lockout-shortened season.
The resulting collective bargaining accord was set for renegotiation in 1998, and the agreement was eventually comprehensive to last until September 15, 2004.
Negotiations for a new agreement, launched in 2004 to restore the expiring 1995 deal, turned into one of the mainly contentious collective bargaining sessions in the history of professional sports.
The association vowed to install what it dubbed "cost certainty" for its teams. The NHLPA countered that the move was little more than a euphemism for a income cap, which the union originally said it would not accept. With no new union in hand when the existing contract expired on September 15, 2004, league commissioner Gary Bettman announced a lockout of the players union and termination of operations by the NHL head office.
On February 16, 2005, with discussions still stalled, the 2004-2005 season was cancelled, and the NHL became the first major North American sports league in history to lose an whole season because of labor disputes. (See also: 2005 in sports). On July 13, 2005, the NHL and NHLPA jointly announced that they had tentatively settled to a new collective bargaining agreement which would allow the continuation of hockey for the 2005-06 season.
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