PAIN IN THE ESCROW
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DETROIT – Just as during the lockout when Gary Bettman pledged repeatedly that a salary cap – uh, "cost certainty," – would make ticket prices more affordable, it is always more instructive to watch what the NHL does rather than what its commissioner says.
So it is now. For if the NHL is as confident as Bettman claims that the global economic crisis will not have an impact on the league's business, then why, as Slap Shots has learned, is the league inflicting 13.5-percent escrow deductions from its players' paychecks during the first quarter of the season?
This is the highest rate of escrow withholding since the CBA went into effect in 2005-06. Even coming out of the canceled 2004-05 season, escrow deductions never exceeded 10 percent. Last year's deduction equaled 9.5 percent over the course of the season, with players ultimately receiving a 1.4-percent profit when their money was returned.
Perhaps the league is hedging against the prospect of consumers spending whatever leisure money they have on different activities, as the fans in Atlanta obviously did on Thursday, for example. Perhaps the league is hedging against a continued dip in the Canadian dollar, which has bounced between 82 and 85 cents compared to U.S. currency.
We're in no position to suggest the league is acting improperly, imprudently or unethically in claiming this initial amount of escrow withholding from the player payroll pool, which cannot exceed 57 percent of the NHL's hockey-related revenue. Indeed, if early-season revenues tank, the rate will increase next quarter.
We are, however, in position to suggest that Bettman's claims are not necessarily supported by the NHL's actions. But then, those fans who have been faced with dramatically escalating ticket prices since the league got its cap – nearly every cent of the NHL's increased revenue since the lockout can be attributed to higher ticket prices and to the favorable currency exchange rate – already know that, don't they?
Andrew Ference, now in his third season with the Bruins, is apparently interested in applying for honorary membership in club owner (and unparalleled management militant) Jeremy Jacobs' family.
How else to explain the defenseman's astonishingly ignorant comments this week to the Boston Globe in which, citing the prospect of escrow losses due in part to huge contracts given to potential Group II free agents, he said, ". . . As much as anyone, we want to see fair contracts . . . we don't want to see guys who don't deserve them get inflated, massive contracts. That takes a little bit out of our pie."
Just who would Ference, the Bruins' player rep for goodness sakes, appoint to decide which young players are getting contracts they don't deserve, and what would he propose to do about it?
What if the Contract Review Board reasonably decided that Ference himself is being overpaid at $1.4M, and should give a percentage of his money to, say, Marc Staal, playing at an Entry Level $826,667 for the Rangers?
This is the deal. This is the CBA that Ference presumably voted to ratify. Players compete against one another for their slice of the overall percentage of the gross. Players pay portions of one another's salary via revenue sharing. They stand to lose escrow.
You can be sure the league will be ready to come to the rescue. Sensing vulnerability from those like Ference-Jacobs, the NHL no doubt will be willing to propose restructuring the cap as it did two years ago so that both the ceiling and floor are lowered in relation to the midpoint; instead of $8M over and under the midpoint, to say, $5M over and $11M under.
It is up to executive director Paul Kelly to explain why this is such an insidious idea, why it is so destructive, why it is so unwise. But there's no telling where this might go if even player reps are already on the window ledge, ready to jump.
larry.brooks@nypost.com
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