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TOM JONESThe Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at midnight.
The two sides remain miles apart. No negotiations are scheduled. The day everyone in hockey warned could come has come.
At midnight tonight, the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL and its players expires and the owners are expected to lock out the players.
Most NHL camps are scheduled to open Thursday, but, barring something unforeseen, the camps will be locked shut.
The NHL owners will meet today and then hold a news conference, but a last-minute agreement is not expected. Just how far apart are the two sides?
When they concluded their most recent meeting Thursday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman ended it by telling the union, "(We're) not even speaking the same language."
The NHL owners, claiming to have lost $273-million last season, are looking for "cost certainty" from the players. The players, willing to accept a luxury tax, say "cost certainty" is a dressed-up phrase for "salary cap," something they said they would not accept.
If there is a lockout, it will be the second in 10 years. The owners locked out the players for the first half of the 1994-95 season. Some predict this lockout to last at least as long and could wipe out the season.
"It's a sad situation, but there's nothing you can do right now," free-agent forward Teemu Selanne told the Associated Press. "Everybody is expecting a long lockout which is not good for hockey, but it's going to happen no matter what."