NHL cancels more regular-season games

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TORONTO, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The National Hockey League said Friday it is canceling another week of regular-season games in the absence of a deal with locked-out players on a new contract.

The league said all games through Nov. 1 have been canceled, bringing the number of canceled regular-season games to 135. Games scheduled for Oct. 11-24 had already been canceled due to the lockout that began Sept. 16.

Friday's announcement came one day after NHL team owners rejected three union offers on a new collective bargaining agreement and Commissioner Gary Bettman said owners and the NHL Players Association are "not speaking the same language."

The players offered the proposals after Bettman had proposed a six-year contract Tuesday calling for a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue, entry-level contracts of two years' duration, a five-year maximum for all other contracts, and unrestricted free agency after eight accrued seasons in the league or at 28 years of age.

Bettman said the three proposals submitted by the NHLPA on the players' share of revenue were "all variations, to some degree, of the one proposal that they made over the summer and really haven't deviated from since."

"And none of the three variations of players' share that they gave us even began to approach 50-50 (revenue split) either at all or for some long period of time and it's clear that we're not speaking the same language in terms of what they came back to us with," he said.

He called the NHLPA proposal "a step backward."