Nhl

Every day for weeks now, Washington Capitals players have been working out on their own at the Piney Orchard Ice Rink in Odenton.Yesterday, the word spread that league owners might lock them and their NHL brethren out of training camp, scheduled to open Sept. 4.League sources confirmed a report in the Toronto Sun yesterday that said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman had asked for and received an "unequivocal mandate" to lock out the players if movement has not been made in the collective bargaining negotiations.

For a man the Skipjacks called Moses for a while, John Byce's future in the organization is surprisingly bleak.Byce led the Skipjacks to the promised land of victory last month. After a bruised thigh sidelined him for six games, all of which the team lost, he returned Dec. 11 against the Hershey Bears.He scored a goal and two assists that night in a 5-4 victory, thereby triggering the Skipjacks' six-game unbeaten streak. Byce had seven goals and five assists during the period."Moses," assistant coach Paul Gardner said in jest.

The Washington Capitals should be in Toronto getting ready for tonight's game with the Maple Leafs. Instead, they and the rest of the NHL teams are home, making plans for unwanted free time.For the first time in 77 years, the NHL will not start on schedule.Yesterday, the NHL "deferred" acting on the NHL Players Association's no-strike, no-lockout proposal that would have allowed the season to open today and continue uninterrupted through the postseason while collective bargaining contract talks continued.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The National Hockey League wades deeper into the Sun Belt next season with teams in South Florida, Anaheim, Calif., and, now, Dallas. As those teams join the first-year Tampa Bay Lightning and longstanding Los Angeles Kings, the NHL sees an opportunity to improve more than the suntans of its players and the golf games of its executives."In the case of Anaheim and Miami, it's given the NHL the opportunity to have two of the great marketing people in the world in our ownership group," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said, referring to Walt Disney Co., which owns the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and Wayne Huizenga, founder and CEO of Blockbuster Entertainment Corp.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Over the weekend, during the break between games of the NBA Finals, the league and the players union interrupted their finger-pointing long enough to actually meet and seriously discuss a labor agreement to replace the one that expires at the end of this month. As tip-off for last night's Game 5 approached, there was optimism for the first time in months about avoiding a lockout. Congratulations, then, are in order for commissioner David Stern, for union chief Billy Hunter and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and his corresponding union boss, Bob Goodenow.

The National Hockey League is taking the negotiating process out from behind closed doors.On Monday, it sent out a 109-page report to player agents and general managers detailing ownership's position as the lockout entered its fourth week.But after reading the package -- which included clarifications of positions, the state of the league's finances, personal correspondence between NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players Association executive director Bob Goodenow and a copy of the questionnaire used to compile the report -- player agent Ron Salcer said he found nothing in it that he didn't know.

NEW YORK -- Washington Capitals defenseman Al Iafrate successfully defended his title in the NHL's Skills Competition for the fastest shot last night during NHL All-Star activities here.The Eastern Conference stars lost to the Western Conference stars in the overall competition, 18-11.Iafrate's shot was measured at 102.7 mph, the only one of eight competitors to break 100 mph.Harford Whaler Geoff Sanderson was second, with a 98.2 mph shot, and Calgary Flames defenseman Al Macinnis, who won the competition in 1991 and 1992, was at 97.1 mph."

TAMPA, Fla. -- Has anybody bothered to inform the Tampa Bay Lightning that they are an expansion team? Didn't think so.In its NHL debut last night, Tampa Bay scored five times -- that's right, five times -- in the first period en route to a 7-3 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks in front of a thunderous sellout crowd of 10,425 at Expo Hall.The Lightning, a far-fetched, climate-defying dream concocted by Phil Esposito more than two years ago, officially has arrived. It did so in grand style, too, welcoming the Ice Age to Florida by pounding and humiliating the venerable Blackhawks.

UNIONDALE, N.Y. --To his coach and teammates, Chris Simon isn't the stick-swinging, skate-stomping fiend outsiders view him as. To the NHL, he is an out-of-control enforcer who keeps pushing the league to never-before-seen heights of discipline. The New York Islanders forward, who spent seven seasons with the Capitals, was hit with a 30-game suspension yesterday, breaking the mark of 25 he set in March with a ban that stretched into this season. Simon, on a leave of absence from the team after the Saturday night dustup with the Pittsburgh Penguins' Jarkko Ruutu, will miss more than a third of the season and can't return until Feb. 21 against the Tampa Bay Lightning.