High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The NHL collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is the basic contract between the National Hockey League (NHL) team owners and the NHL Players Association (NHLPA), designed to be arrived at through the typical labour-management negotiations of collective bargaining. The most recent agreement, tentatively reached on July 13, 2005 after a labor dispute which caused the cancellation of the 2004 05 season, was ratified by the NHLPA membership on July 21 and by the league's Board of Governors the following day on July 22. The previous agreement was signed in 1995 following a lockout which shortened the 1994 95 NHL season to 48 games, a loss of 36 games from what had originally been an 84-game schedule. None of the games scheduled for the 1994 segment of the season were ever played, the lockout lasting until after the beginning of 1995. The collective bargaining agreement was initially to last for six seasons and be open to re-negotiation in 1998, but was eventually extended to last until September 15, 2004 (one day after the World Cup of Hockey final in Toronto).