Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Brian Rafalski of the Detroit Red Wings was pretty vocal this week about a so-called 'privilege tax' in effect in the State of Tennessee. Essentially, it forces visiting players from teams such as the Wings to pay $2,500 when their teams play the Nashville Predators.
As Dirk Hoag of On the Forecheck pointed out when the tax was put into place last year, it effects opponents of the Preds and the NBA's Memphis Grizzlies, but not those who play the NFL's Tennessee Titans, despite the fact that football players generally make more money then their hockey and basketball counterparts.
Rafalski is making a stink about this issue this week, voicing the opinions of some of his teammates that are essentially paying out of their pocket whenever they have to face the Preds in Nashville. Detroit makes three visits to the Music City a year.
There are 193 days in this NHL regular season, and players are basically paid "by the day". Let's use forward Drew Miller as an example. His salary this season is $525,000, working out to a daily rate of $2,720 (per CapGeek).
Tomorrow, let's first subtract the escrow that all NHL players are paying this year (recently 18%). Then, the state of Tennessee will dock him $2,500 for playing.
It's pretty easy to see how he comes out having "paid to come to work" tomorrow, and that's before we've even got to federal income and other taxes.
As to why this doesn't hit the NFL's Tennessee Titans and their visiting opponents, apparently the NFL already had rules in place that would have penalized the state if they had enacted such a tax on football players.
I know, that's as stunning as it sounds.
As Hoag mentions later in his piece, it's unlikely that such a tax will be repealed in this tough economic climate. But nevermind the fact that these guys make half a million dollars a year or more, it's really just not fair that they're paying to play in a city. Would you like to pay to go to work for a day?
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