Bourque Gets 5 Game Suspension

Link to video

The video explains pretty much everything about the reasoning behind the suspension, but one thing the videos do not ever mention are the finacial penalties associated with a suspenion. I don't have a lot of time for analysis (I'll be working on the Empire Sports Blog for a bit), but I generally agree with the ruling. I was perhaps expecting maybe a little more considering the recent suspension along with the way Bourque really seems to go out of his way to make contact with the head.

Since he is a repeat offender (defined by the CBA as a suspension within the last 18 months of the incident), then he forfeits more money. I've explained this before, but perhaps not in the new Hockey Cop blog, so I'll explain again how the forfeited money is calculated when it comes to suspensions for those that don't know.

It is all layed out there in Article 18 of the CBA (which is 475 pages long, so feel free to just trust me on this unless you want to go through all that yourself).

The season is 82 games which lasts over 185 calendar days (in 2010-11 season). It will not be less than 184 by the agreement by the way. Your average salary is divided by one of those numbers depending on which type of offender you are. I'm not going to get into how one determines average salary, but for the sake of argument, it's how much money you make in a season (or divided out per season if you have a multi-year term). This doesn't include signing bonuses and stuff like that. Oh, and the offender status is on a rolling basis meaning that if it has been 18 months since a player's last offense, the new offense will be treated as his "first". Last note: suspension days are only counted towards the fines for regular season games, not preseason games. All moneys go towards the NHL Players Emergency Assistance Fund.

Still with me?

Okay, so what's the coin one has to pony up? Well, the repeat offender has his salary divided by 82 (the number of games in a season) and then multiplied by how many games he was suspended. The first time offender has his salary divided by 185 (the number of calendar days in a season).

Repeat: (Salary/82) x #GamesSuspended

First Time: (Salary/185) x #GamesSuspended

Or, with real numbers. Let's say two players both make 1 million dollars and are both suspended 5 regular season games (we'll keep things simple). What will they pay?

Repeat: ($1,000,000.00 / 82) x 5 = $60,975.61.

First Time: ($1,000,000.00 / 185) x 5 = $27,027.03.

You pay roughly 56% more per suspension if you are a repeat offender.

That's you brief explanation on suspension money surrendered.

Bourque will forfeit $203,252.05 in salary for delivering an elbow to the head of Washington Capitals forward Nicklas Backstrom.