Leiweke Expects Yearlong Lockout

King President Tim Leiweke, in an interview Friday on radio station KROQ, painted a gloomy picture for his team regarding the NHL lockout.

“I think it will go a whole year,” Leiweke said, “and a year from now, we are going to have to make tough decisions as to where we need to go.”

Leiweke made his comments on the day the Kings canceled four home exhibition games, two at Staples Center, one in Las Vegas and one in Bakersfield, and the first two regular-season home games. During the 1994 lockout, teams didn’t cancel games this early.

In the interview, Leiweke expressed some league-wide concerns, giving his view about the financial health of teams under the last collective bargaining agreement.

“At the time [the agreement was reached], there were 24 teams,” he said. “One-third of those teams have either filed for bankruptcy or have moved. Of the remaining teams, two-thirds have been sold. Look at our television deals. We have gone from Fox to ABC to NBC and our new deal is revenue sharing with no up-front money. The TV money [from ESPN] has been cut in half.”

Leiweke also ripped NHL Players’ Assn. chief executive Bob Goodenow, who has questioned the losses claimed by the NHL. Leiweke called Goodenow “a bald-face liar.”

Leiweke said Goodenow had lied to the players by not communicating the Kings’ losses to the players.

“They asked whether our numbers are accurate,” Leiweke said about the radio interview. “I said we have opened our books to the union, we opened our books to a season-ticket holder, we opened our books to the L.A. Times. Anyone who said at the end of the day that our financial model is not losing money is lying.”

Union leaders were unavailable for comment.