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First step: actually define hockey-related revenue

Pie

Which would you prefer – a 50 percent split of one pie, or a 43 percent split of a slightly larger pie?

Answer: depends how much bigger the second pie is, right?

That’s essentially what’s happening in the NHL when it comes to hockey-related revenue (HRR). The NHL and NHLPA can’t seem to agree on what size of pie they’re trying to split up.

Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman highlights four changes the owners would like to make to the current formula. The first involves limits on “cost of doing business” deductions, the second the cost of selling luxury suites, the third receiving credit for stadium upgrades, and the fourth closing the loophole that allows teams to gain cap relief by sending players on one-way contracts (e.g. Wade Redden) to the minors.

Cue everyone fuming at the owners for trying to close a loophole that THEY EXPLOIT.

Anyway, it probably makes sense to define the size of the pie the two sides are fighting over before the fighting starts.

Mmmm…pie.