Friedman: Players don’t want to sign in Canada?

[beowulf]

Depends on what you consider "winter". Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, even Ottawa certainly don't 6 months of winter. Plus, I am sure most hockey players aren't too concerned about politics, otherwise there would have been an exodus from US teams up until last year.

Taxes maybe...... fishbowl atmosphere in a few of the markets (TOR/MTL) is probably big factor in the social media aspect. Social media makes wannabe heroes out of idiots. I bet local media is a big factor. Pandemic restrictions...... what can you do about that. Things are much better in Canada now, and restrictions are being scaled back, the border is even re-opening to vaccinated Americans.

And the border for Canadians, even vaccinated, is not opening up to the US yet.

 

[Damifino]

But I was told by so many Tampa fans that taxes don't matter?

No, Taxes matter - ya'll just need to vote better for a cup!

 

[roflstomper]

More like the American superiority complex....think they are the best at everything and the best country in the world but really no, the US isn't and has not been close to the best in a LONG time. The US just has far too many issues for most people who are not US citizens born there or refugees running from worst countries.

If I were to move away from Canada, I'd head to most European counties or places like Australia or New Zealand way before the US. And in the US I'd only consider certain places and a lot of people feel the same way.

Does the US have far too many issues other countries don't have or are you TOLD the US has far too many issues other countries don't have?

 

[Laus723]

So you're just gunna ignore the fact that its coming straight from players' mouths that taxes play a role? Okay...

Obviously there are several factors that play into it, but to straight up dismiss taxes being a factor is silly.

I admittedly didn’t read the article, where was that quote seen?

I’m saying it hasn’t helped Florida it’s whole existence. Not totally sure it’s even helped Tampa, they’re mostly full of draft picks and guys gotten by trade.
So even if they are saying it, the evidence on my end isn’t there right now.

 

[beowulf]

Does the US have far too many issues other countries don't have or are you TOLD the US has far too many issues other countries don't have?

They do.

Firearms resulting in mass shootings become just a normal daily thing.
No universal healthcare leading to all kinds of other issues.
Huge issue with far-right extremism that dwarfs similar issues in other countries.
A growing hatred and distrust of science.
The money/capitalism/me me me attitude
Far worst polarization in politics
Ever increasing income gap, the US has the worst income gap of advanced/western countries and it is growing.
I could go on and on.

No country is perfect and many share similar problems but everything is amplified in the US.

 

[Pantokrator]

More like the American superiority complex....think they are the best at everything and the best country in the world but really no, the US isn't and has not been close to the best in a LONG time. The US just has far too many issues for most people who are not US citizens born there or refugees running from worst countries.

If I were to move away from Canada, I'd head to most European counties or places like Australia or New Zealand way before the US. And in the US I'd only consider certain places and a lot of people feel the same way.

The issue for many Canadians (and Yankees in the US) though is the weather. Florida is a nice place to retire. 10 degrees F in January can't compete with 70 degrees F in Tampa. It is not very often a person moves from Florida to Winnipeg because of the heat.

 

[ffh]

Simple fix. You don't want to play in canada you no longer can play for canada.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

If you’re a young rich athlete, your quality of life and quality of bank account is considerably better in the US vs in Canada. This shouldn’t really be a surprise.

It seems most NHLers that want to come to Canada is more for family than anything else which you really can’t put a price tag on. If it’s a situation where you’re looking at equal offers from Calgary or Vegas and you don’t have ties to either place I don’t know why you’d pick Calgary.

 

[ItWasJustified]

Crazy people going on players Instagram or other social media to tell them they suck

If you're making millions of $ to play a game, you really shouldn't cry over a couple of people who tell you that you suck.

or make death threats, etc,

How many death threats have NHL players received the past 50 years?

whenever they aren't perfect or from opposing team fans if they do something shitty.

Boohoo. Would they prefer that they took a paycut every time they stunk on the ice instead of getting a message they can choose to not read or getting a shout on the street the can just ignore?

Saying that you don't want to play in Canada because of social media should be a capital offense.

 

[viper0220]

As for the cities, my sister and her husband traveled to Singapore before the whole pandemic(my sister lives in Seattle, they travel alot, unlike me).

They said Singapore is miles ahead of any US city(they also went to Seoul in South Korea, Tokyo, and Macau, they said the same thing.)

Why are these cities better than US cities.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

They do.

Firearms resulting in mass shootings become just a normal daily thing.
No universal healthcare leading to all kinds of other issues.
Huge issue with far-right extremism that dwarfs similar issues in other countries.
A growing hatred and distrust of science.
The money/capitalism/me me me attitude
Far worst polarization in politics
Ever increasing income gap, the US has the worst income gap of advanced/western countries and it is growing.
I could go on and on.

No country is perfect and many share similar problems but everything is amplified in the US.

...and yet NHL players still don't want to play in Canada which has been lost in almost 20 pages of drivel.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

As for the cities, my sister and her husband traveled to Singapore before the whole pandemic(my sister lives in Seattle, they travel alot, unlike me).

They said Singapore is miles ahead of any US city(they also went to Seoul in South Korea, Tokyo, and Macau, they said the same thing.)

Why are these cities better than US cities.

Anecdotal and their opinion. Singapore is an authoritarian state smack on the equator. Seoul and Tokyo are of course world class cities but have their own warts.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

cold weather and ridiculous restrictions, yeah i wouldn't wanna be there either.

 

[viper0220]

Who would want to live in liberal, freezing cold Canada. Can’t blame them one bit! Glorious and free my ass.

They would rather live in "cancel Democrat country"?

I live in Canada, I don't know anything about Republican or Democrat parties, I am just saying this as a self observation.

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Simple fix. You don't want to play in canada you no longer can play for canada.

Easy there Stalin

 

[beowulf]

...and yet NHL players still don't want to play in Canada which has been lost in almost 20 pages of drivel.

Yet nobody has actually shown that some majority of players don't want to play in Canada all things being equal. And don't forget the NHL player or pro athlete is not the average citizen. They are rich coddled kids basically that live in gated communities or similar areas that don't have to worry about what the average Canadian or American has to worry about each day.

 

[Be a Hab]

Honestly players tend to play better when they’re where they want to be. So to each their own and I respect their choices.

 

[Fatass]

Way fewer fans in most US cities, so players can wander around like regular folk and no one knows who they are. They leave their job at the office, so to speak.

 

[Richard]

See above tweet from Allan Walsh....

Thats total bullshit. So you have to pay an agent, a financial service, you have to set up an account and you MAY, MAY MAY pay the same tax as an american state.

A better argument would have been that you don't pay canadian taxes for games in the states or you can still write off (last I checked) your entire home (states now limited to 500K because Donny wanted to f*** his NY enemies lol).

A marginal player making 550K gets totally f***ED in canada. So go set up your retirement account and play three years in the league and make 1.6M but have taxes fees and money you cannot touch for 30 years be 1M of that.

Or lets go to the states where you keep 1M of that money and then can do what you want.

Walshs tweet was disingenuous at best, bullshit at worst. We already know the really rich (John Tavares) can take advantage of some loopholes because he can certainly live off of the 3M in salary. A guy making 2M on a 3 year deal aint gonna sign in Canada. Period.

 

[Sam of Montreal]

I didn't say that. But the Canadian government is much more involved in your life than in the US.

And speaking of Trump level stupidity, you might want to work on your reading comprehension. And not jumping to conclusions.

It's pretty baseless to say our government is more involved in our life. You would need to be more precise to really make it true. Fiscally, yes: we have more social programs. We take better care of the sick and poor than US, so there's costs to that. The degree to which this is true varies because social programs are very different from province to province.

USA resident's idea that they are more free as been the perfect excuse for your government to slash programs and encourage businesses over the resident's wellbeing. If you like to get that short-end of the stick continually, then good for the richest people of your country. It's great for your politicians that your population is generally not well-educated (very good top-end, terrible average): It makes it much more easy to manipulate.

 

[Primary Assist]

Lots of negativity in here. As a boring old Jersey Boy, I gotta say that I love Canada. Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec are all absolutely beautiful cities and the people up north tend to skew friendlier than average. You Canuckleheads got a good thing going on

 

[Hemty]

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

It's pretty baseless to say our government is more involved in our life. You would need to be more precise to really make it true. Fiscally, yes: we have more social programs. We take better care of the sick and poor than US, so there's costs to that. The degree to which this is true varies because social programs are very different from province to province.

USA resident's idea that they are more free as been the perfect excuse for your government to slash programs and encourage businesses over the resident's wellbeing. If you like to get that short-end of the stick continually, then good for the richest people of your country. It's great for your politicians that your population is generally not well-educated (very good top-end, terrible average): It makes it much more easy to manipulate.

No, it's actually true. You just outlined some of the reasons why. I'd prefer to be responsible for my own well being if that means I get more freedoms. And I'm sure many young wealthy hockey players feel the same.

I mean they would hardly even let fans in the building in Montreal. Thanks daddy government.

 

[pld459666]

There has always been an issue with players signing north of the border. It's ususally a Tax issue.

Less of an issue for most Canadian born/raised players, but still an issue.

I would hope that the miserable twats on social media platforms would not have an impact.