Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

For players, escrow is the ‘highest thing on their radar scope’

Donald Fehr: Sidney Crosby

Donald Fehr, left, executive director of the NHL players’ association, talks to reporters following collective bargaining talks between the NHLPA and the NHL in Toronto on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012. Players, from left, Detroit Red Wings’ Daniel Cleary, Edmonton Oilers’ Shawn Horcoff, Pittsburgh Penguins’ Sidney Crosby, Carolina Hurricanes’ Eric Staal and Phoenix Coyotes’ Shane Doan listen in the background. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Young)

AP

By and large, NHLers have pretty good lives. But they do have worries, and chief among them is all the money they’re losing to escrow.

“What’s talked about now mostly is escrow,” NHLPA chief Donald Fehr told the Chicago Tribune during All-Star Weekend in Nashville.

“No doubt about it. And that’s really exacerbated by the Canadian dollar issues. But there’s no doubt that’s the highest thing on their radar scope — they see it every time they get a check.”

Escrow recently rose to 18 percent, and it remains to be seen how much of that will be refunded to the players when all the accounting is done.

It also remains to be seen if the NHLPA will accept the standard five percent growth factor for next season. That was a concern last year, and it could be even more of a concern this year. (To understand that issue, consider Duncan Keith.)

Still don’t care about escrow?