TORONTO - Anyone who played in the NHL last season can expect to receive a nice little bonus by the end of the month, as each player will be given back all of the money they paid into escrow last season.
Each NHLer had 9.5 per cent of his paycheque put into the fund in 2007-08. Teams will issue cheques to players in October with that money - plus interest - and an additional .48 per cent because the players were paid less than the 56.7 per cent share of league revenues they were due.
A percentage of player salaries is held back under the current collective bargaining agreement because it's impossible to predict exact league revenues and total player compensation in advance.
Some players will receive fairly sizable cheques.
For example, Daniel Briere and Scott Gomez each earned US$10 million last season. They'll both get back the $950,000 they paid into escrow plus interest and an additional $48,000 or so to cover the shortfall in overall salary payments.
The league's total hockey-related revenue in 2007-08 was $2.6 billion.