NHL salary cap going up – Montreal Gazette
Bill Daly, the deputy commissioner of the National Hockey League, addressed the annual conference of the Sports Lawyers Association on the weekend and revealed that the NHL salary cap will go up as it has each year since the current collective agreement went into effect for the 2005-06 season. The cap is based on hockey related revenue and Daly told the group, which included a number of salivating agents, that the NHL is expecting to post record revenue of close to $3 billion for the 2010-11 season. That’s an increase of more than $200 million from the previous season. Since the CBA was reached after the 2004-05 lockout, league-wide revenues have increased by $750-800 million and the cap has increased by more than $20 million a team. The salary cap last season was $59.4 million and Daly said that it could jump to between $60.5 million and $63.5 million for next season.
Interesting, but that’s quite a big range. $60.5MM would not be welcome news to the Kings, with Doughty still left to sign. I’m fascinated, however, by the fact that the range he quoted was three million dollars. Because one way the cap can go up no matter what is if the players’ union votes to apply the 5% inflator. Five percent of $60.5 is … $3.02MM. Is Daly just saying, if the cap doesn’t go up enough for ya, blame the union?