Quellet The Dogs Out
10-22-2003, 06:13 PM
Well - I did some researching, because I was very curious, and i've found some very interesting information.
I dont know how many of you know this, but the ECHL has a $10,000 dollar a week salary cap on every team.
This means $10,000 must be distributed to 20 players!!! You would think that this means that everyone would make $500 dollars a week, right?
WRONG!!! Veterans players make closer to $700-$900 dollars a week, and the younger/rookie/inexperienced players make around $300 a week. Not much to live off of at all.
There are a lot of booster clubs associated with teams, and these booster clubs greatly enhance the players living. Not monetarily but materially. They provide food, housing if necessary, transportation. The little stuff, like a motel room or sheets, pillow, blankets for their apartment. Something to make the players more cozy during their stay in town -- which most of the times is brief. They provide a lot of game day food, stuff for the locker room, etc.
I was very un-educated about this, and I found information from the Trenton Titans Booster Club website (www.trentontitansbc.com (http://www.trentontitansbc.com/)) - and it explained what the booster club does. Here is what it said:
"Ever wonder what the Trenton Titans Bosster Club does? Here is an explaination of what the club does for the players and the community written by Bernie Haney, President, Trenton Titans Booster Club. The Trenton Titans Booster Club was incorporated in 1999, and became fully functional in 2000. A Booster Club in the ECHL operates under the umbrella of the ECHL Member Club. Therefore, in order to be recognized as an ECHL Booster Club you have to have the support of the team in our case the Titans. The ECHL Booster Club is much more than a Fan Club as you will see. The major function of an ECHL Booster Club is to support the minor league players. As you may be aware, the salary cap for each ECHL team is $10,000 a week for 20 players. At first blush that looks like $500 a week per player, but that is not how it works, some of the veteran guys like Bertoli, White, Edinger, Hurley are making between $700-$900 a week, and that leaves the majority of the team at $300 or so a week in salary. So, the ECHL Booster Clubs step in and makes there living cost a bit less expensive by helping with things such as sheets, pillow cases, apartment needs like lamps and toasters and such. We also take care of the road trips, as you know these guys log thousands of miles a year in buses, and we attempt to make that trip a bit more enjoyable with things such as power bars, bagels, fruits, some limited goodies, and the like. We also send things like cross word puzzles, word finds, magazines and generally things to wile away the hours on buses. The Trenton Titans Booster Club also provides, Bagels, Fruit, Yogurt and other healthy morning stuff for the locker room. To give you an idea, we will go through about 250 cases of bottled water a season. That is why our motto is "The Team that Supports the Team" Most of the guys are Canadian and are here without family or cars for that matter, so the BC members do little things like:
-wake up in the middle of the night, and get three players to the airport at 2AM so that they can go home for Christmas Break or the All Star Break.
-Pick up family members at the airport, and entertain them while they are in Trenton. -Make sure that when a new players that come in and are housed in a motel are filled in on the area, and set up as comfortable as possible in a motel.
-Take care of family members, like Mike Hurley, Mike came to Trenton with his wife, and they moved into a pretty empty apartment. Mike got here and went to work, the Titans and the BC took care of his wife.
The BC CANNOT give the players money, and we will never do that, but we can give them a material hand, and help them to be as "at home" in Trenton as possible. The most important aspect of what we do at least in my mind is raise funds for local and national charities all season long. In the past three years the Trenton Titans Booster Club has donated in excess of $32,000 to charities such as the Trenton Boys & Girls Club, Anchor House, Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, Volunteer Fire Companies all over the area, Youth Hockey Programs, Friends of Homeless Animals, and national charities such as MDA, The MS Assoc., the Parkinson's Alliance, and the list goes on and on." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I think that stuff is really cool...but the player's salaries aren't. This needs to improve -- Lets say Player X makes $450 a week, times that by 40 weeks (if their lucky) and their only making $18,000. THAT IS PITIFUL.I wish there was something we could do otherwise to support the players... :rolleyes:
I dont know how many of you know this, but the ECHL has a $10,000 dollar a week salary cap on every team.
This means $10,000 must be distributed to 20 players!!! You would think that this means that everyone would make $500 dollars a week, right?
WRONG!!! Veterans players make closer to $700-$900 dollars a week, and the younger/rookie/inexperienced players make around $300 a week. Not much to live off of at all.
There are a lot of booster clubs associated with teams, and these booster clubs greatly enhance the players living. Not monetarily but materially. They provide food, housing if necessary, transportation. The little stuff, like a motel room or sheets, pillow, blankets for their apartment. Something to make the players more cozy during their stay in town -- which most of the times is brief. They provide a lot of game day food, stuff for the locker room, etc.
I was very un-educated about this, and I found information from the Trenton Titans Booster Club website (www.trentontitansbc.com (http://www.trentontitansbc.com/)) - and it explained what the booster club does. Here is what it said:
"Ever wonder what the Trenton Titans Bosster Club does? Here is an explaination of what the club does for the players and the community written by Bernie Haney, President, Trenton Titans Booster Club. The Trenton Titans Booster Club was incorporated in 1999, and became fully functional in 2000. A Booster Club in the ECHL operates under the umbrella of the ECHL Member Club. Therefore, in order to be recognized as an ECHL Booster Club you have to have the support of the team in our case the Titans. The ECHL Booster Club is much more than a Fan Club as you will see. The major function of an ECHL Booster Club is to support the minor league players. As you may be aware, the salary cap for each ECHL team is $10,000 a week for 20 players. At first blush that looks like $500 a week per player, but that is not how it works, some of the veteran guys like Bertoli, White, Edinger, Hurley are making between $700-$900 a week, and that leaves the majority of the team at $300 or so a week in salary. So, the ECHL Booster Clubs step in and makes there living cost a bit less expensive by helping with things such as sheets, pillow cases, apartment needs like lamps and toasters and such. We also take care of the road trips, as you know these guys log thousands of miles a year in buses, and we attempt to make that trip a bit more enjoyable with things such as power bars, bagels, fruits, some limited goodies, and the like. We also send things like cross word puzzles, word finds, magazines and generally things to wile away the hours on buses. The Trenton Titans Booster Club also provides, Bagels, Fruit, Yogurt and other healthy morning stuff for the locker room. To give you an idea, we will go through about 250 cases of bottled water a season. That is why our motto is "The Team that Supports the Team" Most of the guys are Canadian and are here without family or cars for that matter, so the BC members do little things like:
-wake up in the middle of the night, and get three players to the airport at 2AM so that they can go home for Christmas Break or the All Star Break.
-Pick up family members at the airport, and entertain them while they are in Trenton. -Make sure that when a new players that come in and are housed in a motel are filled in on the area, and set up as comfortable as possible in a motel.
-Take care of family members, like Mike Hurley, Mike came to Trenton with his wife, and they moved into a pretty empty apartment. Mike got here and went to work, the Titans and the BC took care of his wife.
The BC CANNOT give the players money, and we will never do that, but we can give them a material hand, and help them to be as "at home" in Trenton as possible. The most important aspect of what we do at least in my mind is raise funds for local and national charities all season long. In the past three years the Trenton Titans Booster Club has donated in excess of $32,000 to charities such as the Trenton Boys & Girls Club, Anchor House, Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, Volunteer Fire Companies all over the area, Youth Hockey Programs, Friends of Homeless Animals, and national charities such as MDA, The MS Assoc., the Parkinson's Alliance, and the list goes on and on." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I think that stuff is really cool...but the player's salaries aren't. This needs to improve -- Lets say Player X makes $450 a week, times that by 40 weeks (if their lucky) and their only making $18,000. THAT IS PITIFUL.I wish there was something we could do otherwise to support the players... :rolleyes: