Quote:
Originally Posted by MattyC
I think this is good, but I'd rather see something put into place to help the ones who didn't quite make it, or blew their chance at scholarships chasing the dream as teenagers/young adults. Not sure how the NHLPA can do anything in regards to that, but those are the ones who get it the worst IMO.
Life after any semi-decent NHL career is confusing because there's no more strict regime/structure to guide them, but money-wise (for school) and career opportunity-wise, they should probably be ok if they made alright choices. Even just putting a small portion of their signing bonus into a fund should yield them an education, if they want. Players that were late round picks from Jr and toiled in the ECHL/AHL for a while coming out at 24 or 25 with barely a high school education and none of the nice connections from playing in the show have it much worse off IMO.
Things like Steve Montador and Derek Boogaard happen because the NHL doesn't take good enough care of the players while they are playing, not necessarily because it doesn't support them well enough after (which it doesn't, but I don't think providing school for them at 30+ is getting at the root issues).
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Good points, but I have an issue with this comment. The
NHLPA doesn't take good enough care of their own brethern. As Rhett Warriner said on the radio, the PA offers a 3 day course in Toronto, at the ex-players own expense but they can't find out anything about it because the players NHLPA website access is cut off the instant they are not on a teams roster. He also said that the PA could contact CFP's, CA's and other financial and career planners in each NHL city and build a program.
Rhett stated that the depression most of them feel is because they don't have a purpose any more, that most have the money but no direction and need help with just planning what to do each day. Watching the last lockout, and contracts since then, to me it shows that the PA is only concerned with the maximum dollars for the top stars and the rest of the players are on their own fighting over the crumbs. The post retirement issues should/could have been included in veterans benefits but Sideshow Don only cares about one thing, and from what we can gather were these types of issues were never even discussed.