Union rejects NHL owners' last offer

NEW YORK Only a miracle can revive this spring's Stanley Cupplayoffs now.

Given a deadline of 3 p.m. tomorrow, the NHL Players Associationsaw no need to wait. It took just a couple of hours Tuesday toreject the owners' final offer.

"Unless the players reverse this tragic decision, the NHL's 75thanniversary season is over," NHL president John Ziegler said.

Judging from union executive director Bob Goodenow's assessmentof the owners' proposal, the chances of that happening are akin to asnowball's chance of surviving in a warm environment.

"It confirmed," Goodenow said, "what we have believed for manyweeks - that the owners do not have an intention to reach a fair andreasonable agreement with the players."

Where do they go from here?

"That's a good question," Goodenow said. "I said we'd probablybe in touch."

"It's a sad day, my friends, a sad day," said Ziegler, who hadpaused earlier to wipe a tear from his eye while saying he hoped theplayers would make "the right decision."

New York Rangers star Mark Messier thinks the players have.Indicating the players will look into organizing their own all-stargames, Messier said, "The owners want to have their league and do ittheir way. They think the players should feel privileged to play init."

Six or seven issues divided the sides at the end, Goodenow said.They included trading-card licensing, length of contract, the rightto match some free-agent offers, arbitration and pension benefits.

Asked why the full membership hadn't been asked to vote on theowners' last offer, Goodenow said, "The proposal today was, in manyways, worse than the proposal we received on March 29. We submitteda proposal a week ago."

The players voted 560-4 to reject that offer.

The players also received a potentially important legal toolTuesday when a U.S. District Court in Minnesota denied the NHL'sattempt to bar the players from using antitrust law to challengefree-agency restrictions and the draft. The suit was filed lastAugust by the NHL to clarify the league's vulnerability after theplayers' collective-bargaining agreement expired last Sept. 15.

"All of our options are open," Goodenow said.

"This was all premeditated. I think their lawyers are tellingthem to stay out," said Hawks owner Bill Wirtz, who claimed theplayers think antitrust law will enable them to make larger gains.

Still, players such as Messier, Wayne Gretzky and Doug Wilsoninsisted it was the owners' hard-line negotiating that has broughthockey to a standstill.

In their last offer, the owners said they would give the playersthe rights to trading cards. That's not so, the players said.

"We surrender," Ziegler said.

"A public-relations gesture," Goodenow said in explaining theowners merely had offered to sub-license the players' faces back tothem, a benefit they have enjoyed for the last 21 years.

"All they've said is they'll lend me back my face," Gretzkysaid. "I think I should own my own face."

How sports fans will react to having no Stanley Cup championshipis a troubling question for both sides. The last time the StanleyCup went uncontested was 1919, the result of an influenza epidemic.

"In Canada, the game's appeal is so powerful that it will comeback," Gretzky said. "In the United States, I don't know."

"It's hard to understand why this deal isn't done," Wilson said.

And it's difficult to say when - and how - the NHL will return.