NHL: Loss of 2004-2005 season worth it financially

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After over $300 million was spent on the opening day of NHL freeagency on July 1, some people wondered what the lockoutaccomplished. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly took to theairwaves in Vancouver to defend the league. Daly told the Team 1040in Vancouver that losing the entire 2004-05 season was worth it— financially.
"It achieved, for us, a rational relationship in the amount ofdollars we pay out on a yearly basis to players and the amount ofrevenues we take in as a league." Daly told the Team 1040."That was the goal from the start, and now we have anenforceable relationship between our salaries and our revenues atthis point, and that's what we were trying to achieve."
Since the lockout, the NHL salary cap has risen from $39 million in2005 to a maximum of $56.7 million for the upcoming 2008-09 season.
The Vancouver Canucks ' two-year, $20 million offer to Mats Sundin and some of the other big money deals this offseason still don'tworry Daly, who said that individual salaries have not gotten outof control.