G O D

                           

GAME ON DUDE!  

It's a done deal.  Notification came out from both sides today that an agreement has been reached, pending ratification for a six year deal.  The CBS document is said to number more than 600 pages.  Apparently very complex.    Among the most significant features are:

- a hard team-by-team salary cap with a payroll of range of $21 million to $39 million (in the first year), which excludes 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 $7.8 million.

- Revenue-sharing where the top 10 money-making clubs donate to a fund shared by the bottom 10 teams.

- Theentry-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.

The players will meet next Wed & Thurs in Toronto, while the owners will meet next Thurs in NYC and hopefully this long lock out will be over completely!