This post has been edited since it was first put up on the blog.
First things first.
It's official. The Winter Classic will be played January 2, 2012 in Philadelphia between the Flyers and Rangers.
I'll try to get to more of that in the future. But really nothing of exciting note, especially given the leak of the logo early in the week.
There was some good jabs back and forth during the announcement.
But let's get to some more news. The suspensions of Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman James Wisniewski and Minnesota Wild forward Brad Staubitz for seperate incidents during the same game on September 23. Both had hearings concerning their cases before the suspensions were dealt, unlike the other three this pre-season.
Wisniewski is suspended for the remainder of preseason and eight regular season games.
Wisniewski, who was suspended last season, is classified as a repeat offender under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Accordingly, he forfeits his salary based on the number of games in the season (82), rather than the number of days (185). $536,585.36. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
Following the horn that ended the third period, Wisniewski delivered a blow that targeted Clutterbuck’s head and made it the principal point of contact. Wisniewski was assessed a minor penalty for illegal check to the head.
Staubitz is suspended for remainder of preseason and three regular-season games.
Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and based on his average annual salary, Staubitz will forfeit $9,324.33. The money goes to the Players' Emergency Assistance Fund.
At 4:24 of the third period, Staubitz hit Bass from behind and into the glass. Bass was injured on the play. Staubitz was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct for checking from behind.
Did you get all that with the Collective Barganing Agreement?
That's something I didn't know, but the price is different depending on if you are a repeat or first time offender. It is all layed out there in Article 18 of the CBA (which is 475 pages long, so feel free to just trust me on this unless you want to go through all that yourself). How is the fine determined for suspensions?
See, the season is 82 games which lasts over 185 calendar days (in 2010-11 season). It will not be less than 184 by the agreement by the way. Your average salary is divided by one of those numbers depending on which type of offender you are. I'm not going to get into how one determines average salary, but basically your average salary. This doesn't include signing bonuses and stuff like that. Oh, and the offender status is on a rolling basis meaning that if it has been 18 months since a player's last offense, the new offense will be treated as his "first". Last note: suspension days are only counted towards the fines for regular season games, not preseason games. All moneys go towards the NHL Players Emergency Assistance Fund.
Still with me?
Wisniewski was suspended last season, so he is in the 18 month range making his offense a repeat one. Staubitz was last suspended in 2009, so he is outside the range making him a "first" offender.
Okay, so what's the coin one has to pony up? Well, the repeat offender has his salary divided by 82 (the number of games in a season) and then multiplied by how many games he was suspended. The first time offender has his salary divided by 185 (the number of calendar days in a season).
Repeat: (Salary/82) x #GamesSuspended
First Time: (Salary/185) x #GamesSuspended
Or, with real numbers. Let's say two players both make 1 million dollars and are both suspended 5 regular season games (we'll keep things simple). What will they pay?
Repeat: ($1,000,000.00 / 82) x 5 = $60,975.61.
First Time: ($1,000,000.00 / 185) x 5 = $27,027.03.
You pay roughly 56% more per suspension if you are a repeat offender.
Based on the formula and the money figures presented above, Wisniewski made about $5.5 million while Staubitz made $575 thousand. Those figures don't include any signing bonus or personal promotions or anything of that sort.
But what are you paying into? The money goes to the Players' Emergency Assistance Fund. What is that?
Out of roughly 700 current NHL players and 3,000 living NHL alumni, 60 to 70 people (including several widows) currently receive financial help from the fund. A lot of players back in the day didn't have big contracts either and most oldtimers have very little schooling because they quit to play hockey, there were also some that ran into bad agents. Like Alan Eagleson.
But let's get to the reasonings behind the most recent suspensions. Thank you Brendan Shanahan for the videos and look into your reasoning. I don't have to type out what happened. It's right there. First, the Staubitz video.
This is the video for the Wisniewski.
Applause Shanahan. Keep it up. Don't go soft on me once the regular season rolls around. I don't think that will happen. It looks like Shanahan's a tough guy. Have you seen his face? Yeah. That's an old-soul hockey face. Like it was hit with a puck a few times. He was picked in the first round (second overall) in the 1987 and played a total of 1,524 regular season games with an additional 184 post season games. He started his career with 4 years in New Jersey, but also played a few seasons with the Rangers, Whalers, Blues, and a long time in Detroit (9 seasons total) before returning to the Devils for his final season in 08-09.
But keep it up with the suspensions that violate the rules. Injuries will go down as players stop committing the penalties once they are reconditioned. And negative reinforcement is just about the only way to go. You can't give out lollipops to players if they do good. But you apparently can do that in the NBA.
On a side note, Wisniewski is just not a nice guy. He made an obsence gesture towards NHL villian Sean Avery last season. You can view the video here, but I'm not posting it here.
And I hate Sean Avery, but the video is pretty inappropriate for this blog.
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