Moments after Monday's midnight deadline passed without a new collective bargaining agreement with its players union, the National Lacrosse League made good on a week-long threat and cancelled the entire 2008 season.

The decision erases a 112-game regular season, slated to begin in late December, as well as the 2008 NLL All Star Game in Edmonton and the seven-game Champion's Cup Playoffs, although league officials vow that there will be a 2009 season.

The cancellation also puts on hold the return of the Boston Blazers, back in the league after a previous incarnation of the team suspended operations a decade ago.

"I would like to apologize to our fans, first and foremost," NLL commissioner Jim Jennings said. "We are deeply disappointed that the PLPA's executive committee rejected our proposal without permitting all of the players to vote on the league's final offer."

This would have been the league's fourth collective bargaining agreement in seven years, indicative of the short-term deals the league and union have settled on recently.

"Professional sports leagues cannot do business without the stability of a long-term collective bargaining agreement," Jennings said. "We will use this year to improve not only our relationship with our players but to improve our overall business model."

Officials from around the league have prominently -- and predictably -- pointed the finger of blame squarely upon the Professional Lacrosse Players Association.

In announcing the season's cancellation, Jennings emphasized that the league's final offer included raises for all players in every year of the contract, and that the union did not put the offer to a vote of the players.

Philadelphia Wings co-owner Russ Cline, speaking in a podcast on his team's web site, stated that negotiations were delayed from December to this past weekend because of a dispute over a union request to examine the financial records of NHL teams which own NLL clubs.

Toronto Rock president Brad Watters took the hardest line of all: "You cannot come to an agreement with a group that doesn’t want to negotiate."

By comparison, there has been little public comment from the union camp, although PLPA vice president Dave Succamore made the rounds today.

"[The owners] had no intention to get an agreement," Succamore said. "I really think they're trying to test the mettle of the players and break the union."

"We felt if we were to accept [the league's offer] that the players would be going backwards from here on in," Succamore told Inside Lacrosse. "So, we just couldn’t accept it."

What Succamore told Inside Lacrosse next, though, is more interesting and far more telling of how the negotiations proceeded.

"Prior to our conference call last night," Succamore said, "I reached out to Jim Jennings and [NLL deputy commissioner] George Daniel as an olive branch to say, ‘Let’s keep the lines of communications open; what are the hot spots in the proposal and let’s see if we can get some movement going.’ They both indicated to me that there was no movement on their part whatsoever. They weren’t authorized to make any moves."

While the union indicates that it is willing to continue negotiations, the league claims it can not reverse course and "uncancel" the season.

Teams, for instance, have been instructed by the league to release all scheduled home dates back to their respective arenas, and rebuilding a 2008 schedule after that happens would be extremely difficult.

In Jennings' eyes, it would be more than just difficult.

"There's no hope [of saving the season]" he said. "We've released our dates ... To try to start this thing up again on a moment's notice is an impossibility."

The commissioner also shot down the idea of using replacement players, noting, "We want to play with the players we have."

Instead, they won't play at all.