Collective Bargaining Agreement

CHICAGO-- FOR BALTIMORE and all the other aspiring expansion cities around the country, there are new reasons today to wonder if the NFL ever will add more teams.Like the rising cost of gas.Like the crisis in the Middle East.Like the ever-cautious attitudes of the bottom-line owners.There were red flags galore at the two-day fall owners meeting this week. At least a few owners openly questioned the wisdom of expanding in today's economy, with today's unique problems. One privately hinted expansion was not close.

After a five-month hiatus, negotiations are set to resume next week on a new collective bargaining agreement for the National Hockey League, but only after the league adopted a tough new labor stance.The leverage to force the union back to the negotiating table was apparently a 16-point list of policy changes the league threatened to impose if it has not concluded a new collective bargaining agreement with the players association by the start of camp next month.The previous agreement expired last September, and the two sides have not met for negotiations since March.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Yesterday was Groundhog Day in the NHL, and in a facsimile of Wednesday, there was no progress to report and the 2004-05 season remained ... canceled. Proving untrue the old adage, "Any PR is good PR," the NHL and its players association looked foolish yesterday when one day after it appeared there would be an unexpected "un-canceling" of the season, even the Great One and Super Mario weren't enough to bridge the gap toward a new collective bargaining agreement.

If battle lines were drawn in the NFL's latest scuffle with its players union, those lines would look more like a triangle than trench warfare. You've got high-rolling landlords in one corner, small-market owners in another and a group of anxious players pondering the complexity of it all. It's not quite a free-for-all, but negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement may require a roster and a road map. Here's why: The players, under the...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Moving with glacial speed, NFL expansion picked up some much-needed momentum yesterday when league owners formally passed a resolution to add two teams by the 1994 season.Fifteen months after commissioner Paul Tagliabue appointed a realignment and expansion committee in Orlando, Fla., the league finally slipped into an expansion stance during its spring meetings here.And it will be at least another 17 months before Baltimore knows if it will finally replace the Colts.Still, this was a day of gratification for representatives of potential expansion cities, and it signaled a personal victory for Tagliabue, the league's leading proponent of expansion.

So, the National Hockey League's moronic players and equally moronic owners really did it. The owners have locked out the players, claiming they can't operate under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement that expired yesterday. The collective bargaining agreement, by the way, was forged in 1995 after the owners locked out the players for 105 days and canceled more than half of the 1994-95 season. That agreement had been renewed twice. Now, the owners in a sport that is struggling mightily to keep its status as "major league" have threatened to shut the game down for as long as it takes - the over-under seems to be the whole 2004-05 season - to get a collective bargaining agreement that gives them "cost certainty" (standard sports owner code for salary cap)

Minutes before NHL players went on strike Wednesday, Philadelphia Flyers president Jay Snider walked into the team's practice site in Voorhees, N.J., forced a grin and said, "Guess it's like Armageddon."Financially, Snider may not have been overstating the matter.The players' first strike in the league's 75-year history moved into its third day today with little hope of a quick settlement.The players' union said it made two new proposals at a meeting yesterday in Toronto, both of which were rejected by the owners.

PHILADELPHIA - In a surprising turn of events, there is a growing feeling that Terrell Owens' trade to the Ravens will be rescinded if a settlement between the NFL and the players union can't be reached, a source close to the arbitration hearing said last night. The lawyers for the NFL Players Association presented an unexpectedly strong case yesterday to support the Pro Bowl receiver's claim that he voided his contract with the San Francisco 49ers in time and should become a free agent.

Wygod retires Sweet Catomine Sweet Catomine, last year's champion 2-year-old filly, has been retired less than two weeks after her fifth-place finish in the Santa Anita Derby triggered controversy about her physical condition. Owner Martin Wygod said yesterday he had Sweet Catomine evaluated by a veterinarian when he fired trainer Julio Canani and transferred her to the barn of John Shirreffs. Based on the vet's opinion, Wygod decided to retire the filly and breed her to A.P. Indy. Wygod declined to be specific about the vet's recommendation.

Under Paul Tagliabue, the National Football League experienced unparalleled growth and unimagined popularity. The commissioner with the dour expression and legal background built stadiums as well as labor peace over the past 16 seasons. But in Baltimore, he will be remembered as the Washington lawyer who rejected this city's expansion application in the early 1990s, smugly inviting it to build a museum instead of a football stadium. Tagliabue, 65, announced yesterday that he will step down in July as commissioner of the nation's most popular sport.