Team spirit

Re: “Stumped by stalemate,” Letter, Oct. 29.

The animosity toward NHL players — usually derided as “millionaires” — is as out of place as calling all actors millionaires. A handful of movie stars command massive salaries, but only because millions of fans want to watch them in movies.

Likewise, hockey fans scramble to watch when Sidney Crosby is on the marquee. But due to bad luck or injury, over half of all NHL players appear in fewer than 100 games, and five per cent play only one. And most draft picks never play in the NHL at all.

The fact that the superstars are willing to go to the wall for every player — even those with the briefest of careers — is the opposite of self-interest. Jarome Iginla is giving up a massive amount of money to support the marginal and the much less talented, and all on principle. A NHL player’s likelihood of severe or debilitating injury is astronomical. For just over $500,000 (NHL minimum), a player may never again walk easily, turn, bend or think straight. Would you give up $10 million to support your co-workers? If you signed an agreement and your boss, whose profits are way up, now decided he wanted to pay you less, would you agree? Maybe if you were a young draft pick. By the way, only 19 per cent of those hotshot draft picks ever skate in even one NHL game; the rest are simply discarded.

Daniel Libman, Calgary