NHLers loitering on the sidelines

I attended the BC Lions v Calgary Stampeders game at BC Place on Saturday night and I noticed that a group of Vancouver Canucks had been invited to watch part of the game from the BC Lions sideline.  If I'm not mistaken Kevin Bieksa, Ryan Kesler, Jason Garrison, Alex Edler, Mason Raymond and Cory Schneider.

Everyone knows that the Canucks have a lot of extra time on their hands due to the NHL lockout.  It seemed surreal to me to see them standing there in street clothes, supporting another local team, which, by the way, I thought to be a classy move.  They were supposed to be playing a game at Rogers Arena, or on a road trip, or resting up for another game.  It really was quite bizarre to see them there instead of on the ice all because of Gary Bettman's 3rd lockout.

Then it hit me....the 2012 CFL team salary cap is $4.3M.  Yup.  If you add up the salaries of the entire BC Lions roster it is equal to, or less than, $4.3M.  Ryan Kesler makes $5M.   Jason Garrison makes $6M+ per season.  Edler and Bieksa aren't that far behind.

What must that have been like for them?  Watching 2 teams go at it 100% banging heads, sacrificing limbs, and giving it their all in front of 30,000+ at BCPlace and hundreds of thousands more on TSN, knowing that their annual salary is more than the entire payroll of each of the two teams they were watching.  It kinda puts things into perspective as far as how much money NHLers really make.

The thing is, we can't look at NHL players as just athletes playing a game and being compensated with massive amounts of money.  It is important to realize that the players are a product.  They are a product that generates large amounts of money for the owners and they should get their piece of the pie.  The sooner the owners stop treating the players as employees, or cattle, and become business partners with them, the sooner we can get hockey players off of CFL sidelines.

You can follow Sporting Vancouver on Twitter @vansport