Ice hockey is one of the world’s biggest sports. In fact, the National Hockey League, a North American professional ice hockey league, is the world’s fifth wealthiest league in terms of revenue. There’s a huge amount of money in the sport and, naturally, the most successful and popular players can make significant earnings.
In this post, we look at the sport’s biggest earners. Even though many of the top players make money on the side from things like sponsorship deals and media work, ice hockey is still their main earner and most, if not all, of their side work relies on them playing the sport at the highest of levels. As with other sports, hard work, determination and commitment can take you a very long way indeed. Let’s see who ice hockey’s top earners are.
5 – Alexander Ovechkin – $60 million
The Russian left winger is believed to be the fifth richest, with a wealth of $60 million to his name. He’s known as ‘Ovi’ or ‘The Great Eight’ and is widely regarded as one of the NHL’s greatest players of all time. He’s currently acting as captain of the Washington Capitals.
4 – Chris Pronger – $65 million
Chris Pronger is a Canadian ice hockey professional who played in defence. His last match was ten years ago in 2011. He formally retired from playing because of post-concussion syndrome brought about by a number of hits he’d taken throughout his career. His vision impairment, which was caused by another player hitting him in the eye with his stick, also contributed to his retirement.
Though Pronger was celebrated as one of the NHL’s top players, he was formally sus-pended eight times throughout his career because of ‘dirty’ play. This didn’t stop him amassing a fortune estimated to be as high as $65 million. Since retiring, he’s been working at assisting the NHL’s Player Safety Division.
3 – Pavel Bure – $70 million
Known as ‘The Russian Rocket’, Pavel Bure is a retired professional ice hockey player who played right wing. His career on the ice lasted from 1987 to 2003 and in that time, he competed in the NHL a dozen times, earned a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame and won silver and bronze medals at the Olympics.
2 – Mario Lemieux – $150 million
Mario Lemieux is one of the most famous and successful ice hockey players ever, so it should come as no surprise that he’s earned so much money. The Canadian, who’s now retired from professional player, was active form 1984 to 1997 then from 2000 to 2006, and spent all those years playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins as centre.
He announced retirement in 1997, citing various health problems and dissatisfaction at the way in which the NHL was being run. Because of his many achievements and excellent reputation, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame that same year (usually, a player has to go three years without taking part in a game before being listed). He became the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1999 then spent several years as both owner and player.
1 – Wayne Gretzky – $200 million
If you haven’t heard of Wayne Gretzky before, he’s the player who needs no introduction. He’s widely regarded as the best ice hockey player in the history of the sport and has been labelled the top player by the NHL itself. He made a very impressive number of achievements throughout his career from 1978 to 1999. In fact, by the time he retired he had a total of 61 NHL records to his name. Some of these are listed below:
- Most assists: 1,963
- Most regular season goals: 894
- Average points per game: 1.921 points
- Most three goal games in one season: 10 (record set twice)
- Most seasons with 100 or more points scored: 15
- Most points scored by a centre: 2,857
During his active years as an ice hockey player, Gretzky landed sponsorship deals with many major brands, including:
- Domino’s Pizza
- The Coca-Cola Company
- Upper Deck Company
Gretzky’s astounding success at ice hockey has helped him earn the bulk of his $200 million fortune. The renowned player has worked in coaching and management, while also undertaking a number of business ventures not related to ice hockey. He currently works in the wine and restaurant industries, having opened the Wayne Gretzky Estates winery in 2017.
