Players taking to the ice in a shortened National Hockey League season will have their own defined benefit plan.
The new plan was included in the 10-year collective bargaining agreement reached Jan. 6 between the NHL and the National Hockey League Players' Association. The league's Board of Governors approved the agreement on Jan. 9 and the players voted overwhelmingly to ratify the deal Jan. 12, ending a four-month lockout. The season, which was originally slated to start in early October, was scheduled to begin Jan. 19.
The league and NHLPA now turn to dealing with the nuts and bolts of the new Taft-Hartley plan, to be administered by a benefits committee comprising three or four representatives of both the NHL and the players' association, said Alex Dagg, the union's director of operations based in Toronto.
Through an e-mail from John Dellapina, NHL spokesman, league CFO Craig Harnett in New York confirmed the plan will be jointly administered with the players' association through the committee. Neither Mr. Hartnett nor the NHL would provide further details or comment.
League players previously had two defined contribution plans — the National Hockey League Retirement Plan (United States), New York, and the NHL Club Pension Plan and Trust, Toronto. The U.S. plan, a 401(k), had $22.6 million in assets as of June 30, 2011, according to the league's latest Form 5500 filing. The size of the Canadian plan could not be learned.
The DC plans, created during the last league lockout in 2005, will be restructured into voluntary contribution plans and neither plan will be terminated, Ms. Dagg said.