The price of admission

Since every hockey blogger out there is putting something out on the Olympics I figured I would put  something together that maybe others haven't looked at as much - team salaries.


Team Canada is the Rolls Royce of the group, sitting at a payday of 123.600 million dollars over a 23 man roster. Averaging out for a whopping 5.3 per player, Hockey Canada sure is glad they are "on commission" (anyone who wins a gold medal receives $500,000, which after taxes is just south of $200,000). Not surprisingly, the lowest paid player is Drew Doughty, who is still on his entry level contract of $850,000. Most players are expected to donate their winnings to a charity or hockey Canada. Except for Doughty, who will be stuck with a near $200,000 bill if they go out for a team dinner.


As far as Canada's fiercest competition, team Russia, their NHL players combine for a total of 69.3 million over 14 players for an average salary of 4.95 million. Now, you should know that the 14 are of course their best players, and if their non-NHL players were contributing towards this average (best guess would be that the remaining 9 players could average a generous 3 million per year) for a total of 96.3 million. Meaning their average per player would then drop to 4.18.

By the numbers (cash money) the Russians should be (4.18/5.3=78%) 78% as good as the Canadians, right! haha


The next threat would probably be the defending champion, Sweden. The team comes together for a total of 75.5 million with 19 players; an average of 3.97 million. Which is just under the Russian's total. Accounting for the 4 other players, who are worth about 8 million combined (Forsberg) it brings them to 83.5 for 3.6 per player. Their calculation would be (3.6/5.3=67.9%). I think they have a real strong shot at upsetting one of the top two teams but those are the numbers.


Next is the Americans, they are quite the young team but do have some inflated contracts, which come to total 80 million for an average of 3.47 per player. Bringing their salaries quite close to the Swedes at 65% of Canada's salary.


I sort of hope that calculating these numbers can give you some perspective as to how heavily favored Canada would be should this tournament be played on paper. I guess that's why they actually play the games.