Players Behind Bars
The National Hockey League (NHL) has a great history. Many think the ‘original six’ was the beginning. This is not so. In 1917 it consisted of five teams, namely the Montreal Canadians, Montreal Wanderers, Ottawa Senators, Quebec Bulldogs and the Toronto Arenas. Toronto was the only team with artificial ice. During the 1923-24 seasons a franchise was granted to the first American team, the Boston Bruins. As can be seen the first six team NHL occurred in 1924-5 but varied greatly from the six teams promoted today as the original six. In the 80 years since the original six teams were in place, the league has grown extremely rapidly, presently having 30 teams. [NHL History]
Hockey is the Canadian game, but has also turned into a profitable business. The current commissioner of the National Hockey League, Gary Bettman, may have ruined the league for years to come. Bettman and the rest of the NHL owners are locking out the players demanding what they are calling "cost certainty." Their method for this is a salary cap. The owners are clearly at fault for the crisis at hand, and are the cause for the cancellation of the 2004-05 seasons. The owners caused each and every one of the problems they now wish to solve; they were not very welcoming to negotiations, and were not willing to bend from their unreasonable proposition of a ‘hard cap’.
The owners have been the masters of their own demise. The New York Rangers, in the last few years have had an incredible pay role. Who is it that is trying to buy a winning team, by tripling salaries? Not the players – the Rangers owners. Consistently as the league grew from the original six to the thirty teams there are now, the salaries of the players grew with it. The owners did not buy franchises for the love of the game, but to make money. To make money the team must win. Owners have been constantly spending more money to buy their players. The players dedicate their lives to the sport, are constantly on the road, and sacrifice their bodies for the game. The player’s goals are to be the best that they can be. Did the players make the contracts? No – the only wrong they have committed was signing the dotted line on the bottom. The owners then take this action against the players to try to protect themselves from their own check books.
... milestone game in 1980, hockey in the United States has grown significantly at the professional and amateur levels. (USA Hockey, N.d.)
Fortunately for the NHL, they had/ have the Chicago Blackhawks, the Franchise to bring hockey back. The Chicago Blackhawks started the 2012-2013 series with a 24 point streak, meaning that they went 24 games with at least 1 point gained in each game. As many people don’t pay attention until the season has hit 20 or so games, the Hawks, had come to break the lockout of that particular attention span causing more attention towards not only the NHL , but for the Blackhawks themselves. As fans joined the progressing bandwagon, the NHL was gratefully coming out of the “drought” with numourus sponsorships with companies, and gaining profit from their
For the last 30 years, the New York Yankees have been a dominant force in Major League Baseball. Other teams do not make as much money as the New York Yankees therefore they have less capital to spend on big name players. In 1994, the Major Leagues put the luxury tax into place. The idea was to tax a club’s payroll if the total payroll exceeded a certain limit. However, the Yankees seem to exceed this limit every year. The Yankees are a notable team not only for their impressive history on the field, but also for their financial situation. The Yankees owner spends more on player salaries than any other franchise in baseball. “As of 2004, the team payroll is more than $182 million, which is $51 million more than the second-highest team, the Boston Red Sox, and more than the six lowest-payroll teams combined” (Wikipedia Encyclopedia”). The millions of people who are associated with baseball in this country, many of whom had only a vague idea of what was happening, are now asking themselves whether or not the game is being played fairly. Even though teams like the New York Yankees are able to assemble top-notch teams by ignoring the spending limit, a salary cap is necessary to maintain the equal competitive nature of major leag...
A salary cap gives all the teams an equal chance to sign players. It also keeps teams with a lot of money not able to acquire every all-star they want , or any player who is a free agent. Some Major League Baseball teams like the Anahiem Angels and the Atlanta Braves are owned by very wealthy people and companies. The Anaheim Angels are owned by Disney.(Worisnop, 128) So with no surprise the Angels can produce a team which can be very competitive, and have several all-star players. Just recently they exercised this advantage by signing Mo Vaughn for ninety million dollars over seven years.(Antonen, 2) There were at least four other teams that wanted to sign this all-star, but the Angels easily had the money, and outbid everyone who wanted to sign him. If there was a salary cap in Major League Baseball then the Angels would have thought twice about giving that much money to one player. With the its roster for one year. So giving one player 12.8 million dollars for one year does not really make sense if the salary cap is fifty million dollars a year. That would leave only 37.2 million dollars for the twenty-four other players, which equals each player getting on average a little less than one and a half million dollars a year.
An argument can be based on whether or not the NFL should be held liable when players know what a violent sport they participate in. The NFL is 10 Billion dollar a year business and the majority of their income are made through the exploitation of their players (Grove, J 760). The argument can be made that players should seek compensation for injuries because salaries for injured players are not guaranteed beyond the season in which the injury is sustained (Grove, J 760). It has been posed as whether or not the government should step in to help regulate owed compensation. One way the state or federal government can intervene and impose legislative act...
Thomas Raddall, a Canadian historical analyst, once said, “When the soldiers were transferred to military posts along the Saint Lawrence and Great Lakes, they took the game with them; and for some time afterwards continued to send to Dartmouth Indians for the necessary sticks.” This quote goes to show that the game’s reputation took off, even during undesirable times such as during a war. Up to this point in time, the sport was primarily played by masculine males and not women. Skip ahead 75 years from the birth of the sport, in 1875 James Creighton, a native Canadian, devised the modern rules of the game. He strategically thought of all possibilities the game could ensue, and devised a set of rules in Montreal. A group of nine players, including Creighton, tried out his guidelines at the Victoria Skating Rink located at McGill University. They all agreed upon the fairness and rationality of the principles he set forth for the game. Instead of using a ball like they formerly did, they switched the ball out for a wooden puck; similar to today’s rubber puck. As the game’s organization progressed, seven years later, the first club ice hockey team was formed: McGill University Hockey Club. By 1880, there were enough club teams to start a tournament division that each team played against one
Business deals happen every day; Contracts expire, renew, and are negotiated without the public knowing for many large corporations and even sporting leagues. However, some contract changes cannot escape the media’s attention. The National Football League (NFL) is facing an expiration of its Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) (NFL Lockout Now One Month Old). Currently, the agreement has expired and NFL team owners have selfishly chosen to “lock” the players out. The term lockout means that the players are essentially not allowed to participate in any team activities or duties until the owner’s rescind this lockout. While many believe this is simply a battle between team owners and a player union, it can only appear to most as a selfish act of the NFL owners trying to rich, greedy men in expensive suits, and the only people they are hurting, are the fans of football.
If there’s one thing we dread in the summer more than the heat, it’s the afflicting sentiment that surrounds oneself when one is inhibited from experiencing the thrills of football for six long and gruesome months. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football is a part of many Americans’ Saturdays, but to fewer does it mean their lives. Recently coming under debate, many sporting fans and college athletes believe that players should be paid more than just tuition, room, board, and books. Two articles on this issue that bring up valid points worth discussing are Paul Marx’ “Athlete’s New Day” and Warren Hartenstine’s “College Athletes Should Not Be Paid.” From these articles I have found on the basis of logical,
It’s Saturday Night, the crowd gone wild with an epic hit on the opposing team. The occasional drunk sitting next to you, as your kids enjoy delicious Dipping Dots. Right as the momentum is swinging towards the home team, a penalty is called. A powerplay opportunity is awarded to the defending team. With the home team fighting with all their might to defend from a goal, down 4 on 5, they run around like chickens with their heads chopped off, trying to get the puck out of their zone. Then when everything seems to simmer down, a fight breaks between the bulkiest guys on each team, punches being thrown, blood spattering across the ice. In hockey today, there are two main leagues in the United states: the NHL, and USA Hockey. Just like in any game, there are basic rules that must be followed. In these two leagues there are similarities and differences in basic “golden” rules, benefits from playing, and the official’s code of conduct.
The problem with this is the inflation of players' salaries. When players are drafted young, they demand to be paid what they want; teams pay them millions right out of college.
the impact it had on places such as Winnipeg and Quebec, where the Winnipeg Jets and
This research will jump forward in time to the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Starting from youth hockey where the interest in the sport is developed, was a great way to see why there has been an increase in the popularity of the sport across the nation, especially in regions not normally known as hockey areas. According to USA Hockey and the NHL, youth hockey has been on the rise for the last decade in almost every state. This research is aimed at finding out where and why this increase is happening.
Abstract: Collegiate athletes participating in the two revenue sports (football, men's basketball) sacrifice their time, education, and risk physical harm for their respected programs. The players are controlled by a governing body (NCAA) that dictates when they can show up to work, and when they cannot show up for work. They are restricted from making any substantial financial gains outside of their sports arena. These athletes receive no compensation for their efforts, while others prosper from their abilities. The athletes participating in the two revenue sports of college athletics, football and men's basketball should be compensated for their time, dedication, and work put forth in their respected sports.
The Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment company (MLSE) was founded in 1998 when the Toronto Maple Leafs merged with the newest NBA team at the time, the Toronto Raptors. This amounted to one of the best motivators for Toronto pride and was one of the most beneficial merges for the city. Since their start in 1927, the Maple Leafs have been able to fill arena seats and hold onto their fans’ loyalty. They clinched five Stanley Cups in the 1940s and were able to win 4 more cups throughout the 50s and 60s. Despite a three decade drought that followed, their loyal fan base kept supporting them. However, the Maple Leaf Sports company is much more than players on the ice, the Stanley Cup wins and losses, and the fan base; the team has
Almost every time the topic of professional athletes salaries is brought up the phrase “Those greedy football players are earning in a year more than what teachers and nurses will make in their entire lives,” makes an appearance. The mathematics behind this are correct; however the point is invalid. People think that the athletes are taking money away from the nurses, teachers and firefighters that, in their opinion, the nurses and firefighters work harder than the athletes that are getting paid such immense sums of cash. “The fact is, Steven Gerrard could take a 90% pay cut tomorrow and no nurse anywhere is going to benefit from it.” (Ator 5). On the contrary, the Liverpool star would would be paying the Government much less in income taxes. In any sport, if the player wages go down the owners are the only ones that are going to benefit. The only thing that will happen is that the the billionaire owners will have more money to spend on their yachts, while the average fan will see no change in prices (5). Fans are the ones who are willing to pay all of their money to see their favorite team play, buy over-priced beer, food, and jerseys (Mueller 21). All of the fans money is not going to was...