Well are they paid more playing for US teams than canadian?

No. The NHL has a salary cap for all teams. This involves both a maximum and minimum teams can spend on players wages, to ensure one team cannot buy up all of the best players.

Stupid question I know but one Ive been wondering about

Does that take into account the exchange rate? So a canadian playing in the states would be paid in US dollars, compared to a canadian playing on a canadian team?

All players are paid in US dollars regardless of where they play.

Part of the reason canadian teams have struggled to win the cup...

It's quite a long time since a Canadian side won the cup isn't it?

Are you saying, in spite of the salary cap, the financial playing field isn't actually level and players will favour playing in the USA for financial reasons?

The Canadian teams are amoung the most profitable if not the most profitable in the NHL. The reason why many Canadian players play in the US is because there are more US NHL teams and the players were drafted by US teams. There is only one league and more cities in the US with larger populations. They don't get to choose which teams draft them.

Well, the cap sets max and min, but if the majority of your income is in CDN and its not worth as much as US, then you are likely to set your de facto cap near the bottom of the range.

Im not sure how it works with respect to local taxation rates. Are players in Canada paid locally and taxed at local canadian rates or are they paid centrally (as the NFL pays all the NFL franchise players) by the NHL as a US employer, and just happen to be working in Canada?

Either way there are still plenty of good players in Canada, but its seems the good TEAMS, with several well paid, established players seem to be more likely to be found south of the border,and its been like that for a while.

In very general terms Toronto is really the only market in Canada big enough to generate a high enough income to win, but as they sell out the ACC all the time my cynical suspicion is that there is absolutely no incentive for the team management to spend enough to try and win the cup. Canada gets teams that do OK now and then, like the sens or the flames, but somehow they always fall just short to a big spender.

That's not the argument, Im talking Canadian franchises struggling to win, not canadian players.

In theory the worse the canadian teams do, the better the pick of the fresh litter of draftees they have, but they still seem to fail to win the cup dont they?

Canadian teams will always be profitable because they are guaranteed media interest and season ticket sales regardless of success on the ice, so there is no imperative to spend heavily to ensure sucess on the ice, unless its being run as a hobby by an enthusiast, rather than as a cash cow by a business man or media mogul. They are profitable despite the exchange rate, and generally they build teams based on ensuring profitablilty despite the handicap of the exchange rate.

On the other hand, if you are trying to sell hockey to a disinterested public in Tampa, then you had better have a winning team now and then to generate some buzz (and even then it might not help!)

I for one think a good business model is to sell your product in a market where there is demand rather than trying to create demand in a place where winter sports is not common such as Florida. Take a couple of southern US based teams and move them to the Northern US and Canada.

The Canadian teams have finsihed in the middle of the pack in recent years and the bottom finishing teams get the top draft picks, so the top end draft picks are still going to US teams, although this year the Oilers could finish in last place and therefor obtain the first overall draft pick. The Oilers, Flames and Senators have made the Stanley cup finals within the last 5 years. Parity is the norm in the NHL and it is just a matter of time before a Canadian team wins. But since half of the players in the US are Canadian and half the players on the Canadian teams are not Canadian, what difference does it make if a Canadian team wins or not? You think I want to see the leafs win? I would rather see them relocated to Easter Island.

Unless you are Eric Lindros of course.

Players are paid locally. Those that live in Canada are therefore taxed as Canadian residents. However, quite a few carefully count the nights they sleep in Canada each year to make sure they qualify as non-residents for tax purposes.

Money still talks. A team with money can keep highly paid players on the farm team, to move in and out of the NHL roster as needed. They have a lot more depth than some of the poorer teams and this does count over a season.

This will explain why there is talk of introducing a second franchise in Toronto. If a more successful franchise were to arrive it would put pressure on the Leaf's to perform to hold their revenue streams.

I think it's a great idea as Toronto could easily support a second team.

Its a great idea that the leafs and NHL commisioner will allow over their dead bodies. It aint going to happen.

The fairly-recent saga of trying to get the Phoenix Coyotes moved to Hamilton became a farce in the end. The NHL bought out the team themselves rather than admit that Arizona is not a hockey market. They then sold the team to one of their favoured friends at a much lower price than creditors would have got if it had been a fair sale.

Phoenix are doing very well this season on-ice, but still rarely get more than 5,000 fans a night at home games even when giving away free tickets. Snowbird states and Ice Hockey do not mix well.