Canadian NHL teams face heavy tax burdens that limit their ability to compete for star players against U.S. teams with lower taxes

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NHL commissioner Gary Bettman badly underestimates how much higher income taxes in Canada put Canadian teams at a serious competitive disadvantage by reducing players’ take-home pay and limiting their ability to attract top talent.

The NHL salary cap is a league-wide spending limit that restricts how much each team can spend on player salaries each season. It’s intended to promote parity but doesn’t account for geographic differences in taxation. As a result, players on Canadian teams effectively take home less money for the same salary as their American counterparts, putting those teams at a major disadvantage when competing for elite talent.

In a recent TNT broadcast, Bettman dismissed the idea that teams might adjust the salary cap to offset income tax differences, calling it “a ridiculous issue” and saying taxes were only “a little bit of a factor.” Pointing to high state taxes in California and New York, he asked, “What are we going to do? Subsidize those teams?”

 Keeping stars like Connor McDavid in Canada isn’t easy with our high tax rates.

The CBC is a government-funded giant no one........

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