Joe Starkey: NHL Players Will Still Have it Pretty Good

By Joe Starkey
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, July 8, 2005

It's over. Has been for awhile.

One by one, NHL players are conceding defeat and publicly chastising union boss Bob Goodenow for waging the worst campaign since Michael Dukakis in 1988.

"We sat out for nothing," Detroit Red Wings goaltender Manny Legace told the Booth Newspapers Group.
"We've hurt the integrity of our league," Philadelphia Flyers star Jeremy Roenick told reporters at Mario Lemieux's charity golf tournament.
"We were brainwashed," Los Angeles Kings forward Sean Avery told the L.A. Times.

Yeah, all that and more. I'm still trying to get over a December conversation with Penguins defenseman Brooks Orpik, who said he and many of his peers found out through the media that the union was offering a 24-percent rollback on salaries.

Soon, we'll be hearing about how the players not only got a hard salary cap shoved down their throats, but also the 24-percent rollback.

Not that they'll be scrounging for meals.

Remember, the players crushed the owners for about a decade. Agents found every conceivable loophole in a CBA that many had deemed favorable to owners when it was written. The lopsided loss in this labor dispute does not obliterate the players' sweeping advances during that time, and one shouldn't discount the chance that agents will find new loopholes in which to strangle old-school management.

Penguins winger Mark Recchi put it well when asked if it would be hard to continue to follow Goodenow.
"Well, obviously he's made some mistakes," Recchi said. "But we can't forget what he's done for us in the past."

Recchi should know. He earned $20 million between 2000 and 2004. Even after losing a year of salary and accepting the 24-percent rollback, he stands to make about $4.5 million over the next two years.
That's $24.5 million between 2000 and 2007. Not bad for a player - a good one -- who has yet to reach the 30-goal mark this millennium.

Meanwhile, the most ridiculous part Roenick's recent tirade went like this: "If people are going to chastise professional athletes who are making a lot of money, they need to look at the deal we are probably going to end up signing in the next three weeks."

OK, let's look at it.

The deal will call for a salary cap of about $37 million with a floor of about $22 million, which tells me that NHL players will, at worst, make a better living than what the nation's interest (or lack thereof) in hockey merits.

Many of the richest players will benefit from lucrative buyouts. The age for unrestricted free agency will gradually drop, and several teams will spend up to the cap.

A look at 2003-04 payrolls tells us that $37 million can go a long way. The Phoenix Coyotes were around that number going into the season and still managed to employ a $4.5 million player (Sean Burke), eight players who made at least $2 million and 15 millionaires in all.

Even the teams at the cap floor won't be too bad off. The Nashville Predators were at about $23 million and had two players at $2 million and 11 millionaires overall.

Don't feel bad for the big-market owners, either. After enduring the pain of buyouts and revenue-sharing, they will settle into the pleasant realization that all the money they used to lavish on overpaid players can now be pocketed.

Joe Starkey is a sports writer for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. He can be reached at jstarkey@tribweb.com