Evander Kane has fat stacks. CFL punters (and his union brethren) do not – especially after the CFL screwed them out of their off-season bonuses.

Veteran Calgary Stampeder Rob Maver used NHL player Evander Kane to make very valid point about how the league is holding back their off season bonuses in order to exert pressure on the membership to sign a new collective agreement.

The quote:

“It’s not like CFL players are going to Vegas and posting pictures of them holding stacks of bills like Evander Kane did when the NHL locked out,” Maver said.

Kane posted the picture on Twitter while with the Winnipeg Jets during the NHL labour dispute in 2012-2013. The NHL minimum salary is $700,000 compared to $54,000 in the CFL.

“These are guys that are struggling to make ends meet. So the fact the league is going back and failing to honour signed contracts has frankly pissed a lot of people off,” Maver said.

The league office has issued a directive to the teams instructing them not to pay signing bonuses, roster bonuses and report and pass bonuses starting Jan. 1, 2019 – despite the fact that the collective agreement is not slated to expire until May 15 of this year.

“This is money that’s been agreed upon previously and the optics of this are bad,” Maver said.

“They’re trying to get something done quickly and this is a way they could potentially go about doing it.”

Maver is right about this of course and by using Kane as a comparison, he managed to get the issue front and centre in a Canadian Press wire story – which is distributed to media outlets across the country – and a column by the Winnipeg Free Press’ Paul Friesen.

Getting fans to sympathize with your plight is an important element of any union PR strategy. Pointing out that you aren’t Evander Kane seems like as good a place to start as any.