Since like half the AHL players are signed to dual contracts, I think that effectively shoots enough holes in your theory Cross.

Since this discussion revolves around a different league I don't think it does.
For a player to be eligible for the NHL pension they have to play at least 400 games (read multiple seasons) at big boy wages.

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Hold my beer and watch this...

Well, you said all players are in the 1%. First of all, even if they all made 500k that wouldn't be true anyway. Plus, loads of players never crack the NHL for more than a few games. Making it to the NHL does not mean you're on the gravy train for the rest of your life.

edit: I just assumed the income for the top 1% would be higher, but according to what I'm seeing, $380k puts you in the top 1%.

Our discussion involves NHL players(hence the term NHLPA). These poor chaps in the AHL are only making $70 or 80k for PLAYING FUCKING HOCKEY. Is it easy, no. Is it fun as hell, yes. Would they do it even if they weren't getting paid, absolutely. As for your concern about ruining their bodies? Well, there's a thing known as insurance if I'm not mistaken? you suppose Tiger Woods took out insurance for his wife throwing him down the stairs. I'll betg he was smart enough for that. I guess I should feel bad for the crab fisherman who "dedicated his whole life to crabbing" when he falls overboard, too. Maybe we can shut down the super bowl until we get his widow a big settlement.

I guess you should be an advocate of ALL hockey players having to go through the college system then. Just in case they can't make it. I have no clue why anyone would want the fans money to subsidize shitty players who never made it. Hell, suppose I go to school to be a lawyer, and I suck at it. Should I get a paycheck anyways? No, I should try a new career or get whatever job I can. It's called life.

Well, you bring up crabbing, it's a high-paid profession right? Why? Because it's dangerous. Well, it's dangerous to player hockey too, so that is reflected in the pay.

You have no idea what I'm talking about. Society doesn't subsidize players' educations. The CHL (junior teams) do for former players who don't make the NHL since they get paid basically nothing to play and the teams make money off their work. CHL players have to give up NCAA eligibility to play in the CHL, so they can't go to school on hockey scholarships.

Fans(owners) money is going to subsidize players who can't make the cut in the NHL. That's my point.

You can't have top-quality hockey without building up an infrastructure to create players, and ultimately that's a price that fans pay part of when they buy a ticket or a jersey. That's just the truth of the matter.

Try having an NHL without the AHL and CHL for a while, and I think you'll see there all too closely connected for the NHL to just exist on its own. To put it another way, how could you know who can cut it in the NHL without spending money researching players?

Ok, let's simplify the conversation. We're talking about the CBA between NHL players and owners(I didn't see any 35 yr old AHL guys at the meetings). Suppose a guy only plays one year and makes $750k. Good on him. That's a lot of money, and a good story to tell the gk. As far as I'm concerned that's the end of it. He can get a different career(like any other human being would be expected to do). I'm sure every player is smart enough to know that only a few make it before they get balls deep in it. That's a risk they KNOWINGLY took.

Haha, I just read your comment about fans paying to research players. lol. The lesser leagues exist, yes. Do they make a lot of money, sometimes. Do they have to choose that path in life, no. Just like everything else, if your good at it, you may get rewarded, if your not good enough, you don't.

I can get behind that. But again, I don't think we have a huge right to talk about that guy being overpaid, especially if we're watching NHL hockey. He's making far than us, but he took a lot bigger risk than we did to get that $ if you ask me.

Researching players is part of the team's expenses. My point is you have to know who's bad to know who's good right? I know that's a little abstract. But you have to have failures to have successes. It can't be that all players make the NHL, or else it wouldn't be as good hockey.

I think they're overpaid, but I don't gripe on it either. Not until they start complaining about it first. Capitalism is a whole nother ball of wax for another day. It's funny how the crab guy gets 10k/month, but also has a 10% chance of being slowly eaten by his prey(plus his season is 2 months). I could TOTALLY get behind them in a lockout.

OK, how do you end up getting slowly eaten by crabs? Is that on the ship? Because if we're talking the guys falling in the water, then wouldn't they be dead from the cold before getting eaten?

Right, but it's similar to college, which is your OWN expense. A few companies pay their employees to go to college, but it's a much better system to let them pay their own college, then hire the best one.

But I don't think that's a realistic way to develop hockey talent. You can't just have an open tryout at the beginning of the season or put up a help wanted sign and look at everyone's resume. You have to know a ton about your players.

Hockey is a tough game to get into, but at least having all these leagues gives them an opportunity. Football players would dream about a system like that. The only guy I know who ever came from anything similar to make it is Freddy Jackson(unfortunately it looks like he shouldn't have got paid either).


Haha, no they die from drowning, but suffer the same fate as the hunk of fish they put in the trap. It can't be easy crabbing knowing if you fall in(decent probability) that these nasty things will cover and devour you.

BTW, if I didn't live in a town with a junior team (Winterhawks), and there hadn't been two lockouts in the last decade, I wouldn't know half this stuff about the development leagues. Shit is super complicated.

Oh ya, I'm sure a lot of Sabre fans who consider themselves hardcore aren't even familiar with who the Shreveport Mudbugs are.