The Federal government has come up with an idea to keep National Hockey League teams in Canada.
The money will come from taxpayers.
NHL teams like the Ottawa Senators and the Edmonton Oilers have said for years that they are going broke.
They have threatened to move to the United States - where they say business is better - unless the government helps them out.
Yesterday Industry Minister John Manley finally agreed.
He has given the go-ahead to negotiate subsidies (money given to help out) on a team-by-team basis.
Some teams will get more.
Others will get less.
The subsidies could add up to millions of dollars.
The reaction to the program has been very mixed.
"People see it as the government giving us free money, but look how much tax we pay," he says.
"Guys make a million, but they pay half of that in taxes."
The average NHL player makes 1.3 million dollars a season.
But Olympic 100 metre sprinter Glenroy Gilbert is disgusted.
He says that it is not fair that millionaire hockey players like Turner Stevenson and Pavel Bure are getting help while hundreds of Olympic athletes have to scramble every month just to pay their bills.
"I've been doing this for 13 or 14 years, running on the national team and we've been forced to live on from $450 a month to $810 a month," Gilbert said from Austin, Texas, where he is training for the Sydney Olympics.
"That barely pays your rent."
Other groups are equally upset.
Frank Gilbert represents Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Residents Association.
He says his group struggles on a daily basis to help with basic needs of the poor.
Putting money into NHL hockey is fine, Gilbert says, as long as the poor are taken care of first -- and he says that hasn't happened.
He says professional hockey is a luxury, but heat and food are not.
The Federal government plan to give the teams money will last four years. 1. Who has come up with an idea to keep National Hockey League teams in Canada?
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