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Senators’ Chris Neil owes creditors over $2 million

Chris Neil , Eric Goddard

Ottawa Senators’ Chris Neil (25) fights with Pittsburgh Penguins’ Eric Goddard during the third period of an NHL hockey game in Ottawa on Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Fred Chartrand)

AP

Sometimes being a well-paid professional athlete can have it’s own sorts of crazy problems. For instance, sometimes you can start a business with your brothers and end up owing a ton of money to creditors because you started said business before you struck it big in the NHL. If that story sounds familiar to you, you might just be Ottawa Senators enforcer Chris Neil. Chip Martin from Slam! Sports in Canada fills us in on the details.

A judge will consider final details in a proposal that would see the bankrupt NHLer’s 45 creditors receive about 20 cents on the dollar.

A report from his trustee shows Neil owes his creditors $2.4 million. He has available assets of $544,451 after his trustee receives its cut of $104,671.

So just how does a guy that makes $2 million a year have only a little over a half-million in assets? Easy, he just started making that much money this past season. Before that he was making just a shade over a cool million. All right, so he’s not exactly crying poor because of that, but just how did this come to be? Sarah Varrati at Brock Aggregates, Neil’s main creditor, explained what happened with Neil’s business.

The business, which specializes in excavation work, stopped paying its bills in 2006, she recalled, which prompted Brock to consider its options to recoup its money.

At the very least Chris Neil was saved from being publicly humiliated by Brock Aggregates as they had plans to pay a visit to a Leafs-Senators game in Toronto and come bearing signage for Neil asking him to start paying his bills to them, amounting just over $46,000. For that amount of money, the creditors may have actually been able to get seats by the glass at Air Canada Centre.

Maybe.