The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The problems with the deal between NHL players and the league may finally be starting to iron themselves out. Trouble is, it's about a decade too late. This summer has seen more than a few top performers settle for significant pay cuts, apparently in recognition of the fact that if salaries continue to escalate, the league would implode. Among them is legendary netminder Dominik Hasek. The six-time Vezina Trophy winner took a massive $4 million cut when he inked a deal with Ottawa for the once-paltry sum of $2 million. True, Hasek is getting on in years, and his contract has substantial bonuses, but the signing was nevertheless monumental in a league where Radek Bonk can make nine times more than the president of the United States. Brett Hull is another example. Still an offensive force at 40, the Golden Brett cut his salary in half by agreeing to a two-year, $5 million contract with Phoenix. Three or four years ago, one can only speculate what sort of parallel-universe deal the winger would have been offered by the New York Rangers. Then there's Brendan Shanahan, Mark Recchi and Vincent Damphousse, who each took $2 million less that they probably never thought they'd have to. Lower calibre players have been feeling the pinch, too. Between them, Eric Weinrich ($1.25 million), Boyd Devereaux ($950,000), Sean O'Donnell ($700,000), Grant Marshall ($600,000), Mike Sillinger ($450,000) and Richard Matvichuk ($400,000) will take home over $4 million less this season, assuming there is a season. None of this is to say there aren't still some players still cashing in. An arbitrator awarded raises of $3 million and nearly $2 million to New Jersey's Scott Niedermayer and Calgary's Mikka Kiprusoff respectively. Los Angeles' Craig Conroy and St. Louis' Patrick Lalime will each get pay hikes in the neighbourhood of $1 million. And let's not forget St. Louis' Chris Pronger accepting that $9.5 million qualifying offer, plus a $500,000 signing bonus. Yet the tide seems to be shifting toward a smaller dose of ridiculousness in pro hockey contracts. Despite their pro-union rhetoric and insistence that the owners are hiding the truth ? that there are in fact gobs of money ? the players may finally be starting to get it. Trouble is, it's about a decade too late.
