Labor Negotiations: Putting a Season on Ice

Hockey players can be brutal on the rink, but at the bargaining table they have been the softies of the sports world. No longer: last week the N.H.L. Players Association voted 560 to 4 to stage the first major strike in the league's 75-year history. The skate-out occurred a week before the Stanley Cup playoffs -- the most lucrative games of the year -- were to begin.

Salaries, which average $350,000 in the league, are not the chief issue. What players mainly want is fewer restrictions on free agency so they will have more mobility to move from team to team when their contracts expire. They also want, among other things, to retain the estimated $10 million a year they receive from trading cards; team owners have been arguing for contract language that could give them a bigger piece of that business. Unfortunately, both sides in the dispute see little chance of salvaging the play-offs.