In case you haven't seen it yet, THN has revamped its website and has added several new features and writers. Rand Simon is a certified NHLPA agent from Newport Sports Management Inc., who will contribute weekly articles on subjects that might be of interest to the Business of Hockey readers. He finally explains what happens to an NHL's players paycheck and who else gets a piece of the pie. Players are paid every two weeks during the regular season, but here's how the rest of it breaks down and how player agents track it.
Rand Simon blog at THN.com:
This won't be news to many here, but it's nice to have it all in one place for future reference and searches.
Rand Simon blog at THN.com:
The first paycheck typically arrives in mid-October and the last one in mid-April, making for 13 pay periods throughout the season.
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The first step is to calculate the player's daily rate of pay. This season there are 187 days for NHL players and 194 for those in the AHL. So, a player with a salary of $1 million in the NHL earns $5,347.59 per day before escrow while an AHL player with a salary of $50,000 will receive $257.73 per day.
Players in the minors are not subject to escrow even if they are on a one-way contract. Therefore, a player such as Denis Gauthier is actually making more money by being in the AHL than he would if he were in the NHL and subject to an escrow withholding of 9.5 percent.
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In fact, players are responsible for paying tax in every state (and some cities) in which they play and earn above a certain income threshold. One player whose file I was working on recently and is currently with the St. Louis Blues had to file all the following returns in 2006: United States and Canadian Federal, States of Arizona, North Carolina, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, California, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania and the City of St. Louis.
This won't be news to many here, but it's nice to have it all in one place for future reference and searches.