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This note is being sent to the 27,737 Members of the NHL Fans' Association.
Finally, after 301 days, the NHL and NHL Players' Association have an
agreement in principle on a new collective bargaining agreement (details
below). The sides must still ratify the tentative agreement with their
counterparts, but that will likely be done in short order.
The question of the day is "What will the NHL do to win back fans?"
The NHLFA, representing both our community and fans at large, will be
communicating with the NHL in the coming weeks to seek an answer to this
question. We'll also offer to lead fan-related initiatives that we deem
worthwhile. Stay tuned...
Here are the highlights of the new CBA (source: TSN.ca):
- a hard team-by-team salary cap with a payroll of range of $21 million to
$39 million (in the first year), which includes all player costs (benefits,
insurance etc).
- the league's total expenditure on player costs (salaries, bonuses,
benefits and insurance) is not permitted to exceed 54 per cent of defined
hockey-related revenue and the salary cap and payroll range will move up or
down as revenues increase or decrease each year of the deal.
- a 24 per-cent salary rollback for any NHL player who has time remaining on
an existing contract, keeping in mind that the players will receive none of
the monies they were slated to earn in the lost season of 2004-05.
- liberalized free agency: age eligibility for unrestricted free agency at
age 31 in 2005, 29 in 2006, 28 in 2007. In 2008, it's 27 or seven years of
NHL tenure.
- a more restrictive entry level system, totally revamped salary
arbitration, improved pension benefits and a revenue-sharing plan.
- a percentage of salaries put into escrow until the new salary cap can be
calculated at the end of each season.
- no player can earn more than 20 per cent of the team cap, which for
2005-06 means no player can earn more than $7.4 million.
- revenue-sharing where the top 10 money-making clubs donate to a fund
shared by the bottom 10 teams.
- the entry-level system will limit those players to $850,000 a year in
salary (which it was 10 years ago) with bonuses not as easily reachable as
the previous deal.
- two-way salary arbitration. Both players and owners can select to go to
arbitration, whereas only players had those rights in the previous deal.
This will allow owners to downgrade underperforming players.
- the ability for teams to buy players out of their contracts at two thirds
of their value. This is meant to help teams fit under the cap but the clubs
won't be able to re-sign those players.
- participation in the February 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy.
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