Writing as one of hockey’s six remaining fans, I am excited about this season. Most team’s rosters currently retain only about half of the players they employed before the locked-out season. How about that new Markus Naslund you’ve had your eye on? A Scott Niedermayer would look pretty good at your blue line. How about a 2005 Khabibulin between the pipes? They could be yours, for cheap too. Everyone is a buyer with a Collective Bargaining Agreement that requires every team to have a minimum salary requirement. In the new CBA, no one player can account for more than 20% of a team’s salary. Thus, if a team signs a Peter Forsberg for the max $7.8 million, that team has to spend the maximum team salary so his contract does not account for more than 20% of the total. This should restrict teams from stockpiling all-stars, and trying to buy a Stanley Cup. Sorry, Rangers fans. GMs will have to be creative like NFL GMs were forced to do, and marquee players may have to *gasp* not go to a team solely for the money. I know, pure lunacy. Unlike NFL teams, though, they will not be able to cut a player and get the cap money back. GMs will have to sleep in the beds they made, whether it’s at a Red Roof Inn or a Ritz-Carlton. Maybe they can even instill some type of team loyalty back in professional sports and market their premier players to the public as more than just a stopgap until someone less expensive comes along and they trade or waive that player.
Fans become die-hard fans of a team because of the players, usually a player. How many Bulls fans are there because of Michael Jordan? And he’s been retired for seven years (note: Washington never happened). Notice I didn’t use a hockey player in that example. I think they are taking some of the best features from the NBA (max money contracts) and the NFL to come up with a deal that may lead to long-term stability for a league that desperately needs it. Now, if they realized they may have to reduce some of the most expensive ticket prices in professional sports to less than a mortgage payment for a family of four to go to a game, the casual fan may actually head down to the arena rather than change the channel on their way to more reality TV. More on the G-Spot’s take of the new NHL to come.
