Fighting pays off for Cup champions
• It pays to fight in hockey and it especially pays to hoist the Stanley Cup if you’re a grinder.
In a study that seems more inspired by a Don Cherry rant than a master’s thesis, former Windsor Spitfire Derek Lanoue calculated the payoff for being an enforcer and, in a first, the payoff for winning the Stanley Cup other than fulfilling a boyhood dream.
Players who signed a contract in the year after winning the Stanley Cup got an average salary boost of 19 per cent, he found in a study that helped earn his master’s degree in economics at the University of Windsor recently.
It’s the third or fourth liners who have the most to gain, said the former right-winger who had that role with the 2010 Memorial Cup-winning Spitfires.
“Winning the Stanley Cup kind of separates yourself from the pack of the grunt players,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to do as much for the all-stars and guys that have already separated themselves.”
The prime example in his study of 217 players who signed contracts in 2013-15 was another former Windsor Spitfire: Bryan Bickell of the Chicago Blackhawk was earning an average of $541,667 a year before the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2013.
Afterward, his pay cheque jumped to $4 million a year in a four-year deal. A player with similar stats but no cup received a $1-million contract.
The study looked at players who signed new contracts after the 2012-13 season and the 2013-14 season, when the Los Angeles Kings won. Although the sample was limited — only seven players won the cup and renegotiated a new contract — Lanoue feels the findings are intriguing.
They include: ❚Lose the Stanley Cup final and you’ll get about 2.5 per cent more, what players who log about 20 playoff games got on average in the study. Win the cup and get 21.5 per cent: the average 19 per cent Lanoue found plus 2.5 per cent for playoff experience. ❚ Lengthen your earnings. Retired National Hockey League players with a Stanley Cup ring played 60 per cent more games than those who were not on a winning team. ❚Let your fists fly. Those who fought about once every 12 games got paid 14 per cent more in new contracts.
“We found justification for fighting in the National Hockey League,” Lanoue said.
He got the idea for the paper while talking to his former Spitfire teammates who were negotiating National Hockey League contracts
“It almost seemed a little high to me,” he said of a 19-percent salary boost his study found. “If you’re thinking about a $2-million contract, that’s a pretty good chunk of change.”