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NHL Hypocrisy? Nah couldn't be…

Taking Note, Gregg Drinnan, Sunday, July 8, 2012

Put down your morning coffee so you don't choke on some of what follows in this paragraph and the next one. . . . In April, Michael Russo, who follows the Minnesota Wild for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, sat down for a chat with Wild owner Craig Leipold. In that interview, Leipold told Russo: "We're not making money, and that's one reason we need to fix our system. We need to fix how much we're spending right now. . . . The revenue that we're generating is not the issue as much as our expenses. And (the Wild's) biggest expense by far is player salaries." . . . On Wednesday, Leipold coughed up US$196 million for defenceman Ryan Suter and forward Zach Parise. . . . You figure it out! . . .

Zach's father, J.P. Parise, played for the Minnesota North Stars in 1971-72, a season for which he was paid $29,000. . . . If you average out Zach's 13-year contract over its life, he will earn $91,932.46 per game. And, based on an average of 27 shifts per game, he will make $2,965.56 per shift. . . . Included in Zach's contract is a $25-million signing bonus. Break that down over the life of the contract and you get $23,452.16 per game. . . . But the signing bonus is payable over three years. Broken down on that basis it comes out to $101,626.02 per game over three seasons. . . . Thanks to Terry Massey for the breakdown. . . . Now back to our regularly scheduled programming for the poorer people like you and me. . . .