Arenas around the NHL will remain dark for at least another three weeks.
Ninety-six more regular-season games were wiped off the schedule Friday along with the Jan. 27 all-star game at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, as the ongoing lockout continued to carve a hole in the 2012-13 season.
"The reality of losing more regular-season games as well as the 2013 NHL all-star weekend in Columbus is extremely disappointing," deputy commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.
With everything now cancelled through Dec. 14, the best-case scenario for the NHL is a shortened schedule of approximately 60 games per team. All of those games would be played within a team's own conference, according to a source.
Of course, that will only happen if the NHL and NHL Players' Association can sign off on a new collective bargaining agreement - and soon.
The sides last sat at the bargaining table on Wednesday, when the NHLPA presented a new proposal, and they have no current plans to meet again. The union believes the remaining gap in negotiations could have been bridged had the league accepted that offer rather than cancelling more games.
"The gap that remains on the core economic issues is $182 million," said NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr. "On Wednesday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said that the league is losing $18 million to $20 million per day during the lockout. Therefore, two more weeks of cancelled games far exceeds the current economic gap.
It makes the NHL's announcement of further game cancellations, including the 2013 all-star weekend, all the more unnecessary, and disappointing for all hockey fans - especially those in Columbus.
"The players remain ready to negotiate, but we require a willing negotiating partner," Fehr said.
The current lockout has forced the NHL to cancel 422 regular-season games in total, plus the Winter Classic and all-star game, which amounts to more than 34 per cent of the season.
This is familiar territory for a league in its third lockout in the last 18 years - each with Bettman as commissioner. The combined losses from those labour disputes now sits at 2,120 regular-season games, three all-star games, one Winter Classic and the entire 2005 playoffs.
On Friday, Blue Jackets president Mike Priest said his team was "very disappointed" that it would miss out on the chance of hosting its first-ever all-star game.
The NHL remains committed to bringing the event to the city eventually.
Progress has been hard to find during recent negotiations, with Bettman saying Wednesday that the sides remained "far apart."
