between the two sides to negotiate a new deal. Three days later, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman officially cancelled the season. There was some hope that a season could have been salvaged, as hockey legends Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux, both now part-owners of NHL teams, brought the owners and players together for talks on February 19. However, the two sides failed to reach an agreement. Once the possibility of losing a second season to the dispute became real and the two sides realized that the dispute had alienated a large portion of the league's fan base, the league and the NHLPA resumed negotiations again in June 2005. Many pundits thought that the two sides wished to come to an agreement in early July, to coincide with the Canada Day (July 1) and United States Independence Day (July 4) holiday season. While July 4 passed without an agreement, momentum for a settlement was clearly building, with the two sides meeting daily between July 5 and July 13. Reportedly, the July 12 session lasted until 6 a.m. local time (1000 UTC) on July 13, at which time talks recessed for five hours. The sides announced a tentative agreement at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time (1630 UTC) on the 13th. It was said that they announced it on that day since it was the day before that year's Major League Baseball All-Star Game and no other sporting event in North America was taking place. The most important provision of the new collective bargaining agreement was an overall salary cap for all NHL teams, tied to league revenues. The agreement also phased in a reduced age for free agency, which would eventually give players unrestricted rights to negotiate with any team at age 27 or after 7 years of play in the NHL, whichever came first. On September 4, 2010, the NHL and NHLPA ratified an agreement to alter how the salary cap hit of long-term contracts would be calculated. The new salary cap accounting system would see two distinct changes. First, long-term contracts remain valid, but contracts that include years when a player aged 40 or older will only have the portion of their salaries before they turn 40 included in cap hit calculation. Second, if the average value of the three highest seasons is $5.75 million or more, then the value of years 36 through 39 will have a minimum cap "charge" of