Ben Resnick- Staying Invisible and Playing an Important Role

Anonymity is part of Ben Resnick's job.  As a Coordinator of Hockey Operations for the Minnesota Wild Resnick is responsible for as he puts it “making other people’s lives easier at the end of the day,” while staying nearly invisible to everyone outside of the club.

Resnick is an important part in the everyday operations of the Wild.  One of the key parts of his job is making sure everyone is paid correctly and on time.   He needs to make sure he has a grasp on what players are traveling, injured etc.

“That stuff, well fun’s not the right word for it,” Resnick starts to explain from his office in St. Paul, MN.  “It’s complicated because the physical location of a player on a given day matters.”

Resnick spends the rest of his time mostly filing paperwork for player transactions, and contracts but without Resnick the Wild would be in trouble.  Contracts and things like qualifying offers are crucial parts of the everyday operations of an NHL team.  When they are not filed properly they can result in the lose of a player.

As part of his job Resnick has to help double check to make sure that every offer is correct, and all paper work is filled out properly.

The Hockey Operations Coordinator for an NHL team must manage and help oversee many different aspects of life in an NHL front office.  Whether its helping make contract offers, managing payroll, or making sure players have their per diem on the road, Resnick is always doing something to help the Minnesota Wild run smoothly and put a solid product on the ice for the fans.

The daily grind of the job is not always glorious but Resnick enjoys the job.  Sometimes in professional sports it is the invisible people behind the scenes that are do the important daily tasks that allow us to watch our favorite players take to the field of competition on a daily basis. 

Interview Transcription:

IB: Thanks for doing this again.  Going back a little to what we talked about last time.  Just talk a little bit about what your job is working in Hockey Operations for the Wild.

Ben Resnick: Sure uh, I think we mainly talked about stuff during the season which is the interesting stuff. But my job is sort of at the end of the day is to make other people’s lives easier. I manage a lot of things like paperwork with the league, we talked about the contract process is pretty long because the league has a strict set of rules set out by the CBA.  And you can always call the central registry and check with them.  If we sign a player you have to send copies to the player, to the league, back and forth. I think it’s a 22 step process I keep on my desk I have to send every contract through.  And then if we send players up or down to the minors or if players have injuries and need to be put on IR or just have injuries and they are physically unable to perform we file paper work with the league. Most that stuff usually falls to me.  I also coordinate with our payroll department to make sure all the player payroll is done correctly.  And that stuff is well, funs not the right word for it.  It’s complicated because the physical location of every player on every day matters because state and local taxes vary depending on which team you’re playing against.  If you play in the city of Pittsburgh for example you pay state and local tax, but in some other location like in St. Louis, you only pay a state tax. So not only do we need to know which players on the roster and what time the team travels but if a players hurt he might not travel at all.  That’s another separate thing that I have to keep track of. So I usually have a decent handle on the NHL side of things because I’m around everybody and I’m filing the transfer forms but I get some great help from great guys that work for our minor league team that’s moving to Iowa.  The PR guy and the broadcaster are great to email me and let me know who travels with the team. Who is healthy, who’s not.  Where the team is on what days.  Without them I wouldn’t have a shot to do it.  They’re important, very helpful guys. 

IB: So do  you also take care of all the payroll stuff for the AHL club as well?

BR: So Minnesota owns the AHL club. So at the end of the day we are responsible for the payroll of nearly everybody that’s associated with the AHL team.  We even do paperwork for, sometimes in the minors unlike the NHL you can do a loan agreement between teams where let’s say a player is not going to get a lot of playing time with one team.  He can be loaned for one month or two months to another team in the league.  It doesn’t happen a lot but it happens every once in a while and if that’s the case he’ll usually still get paid by the first team because he hasn’t been traded.  There just saying he’s just going to play for a different team so he can get some time in and get some games in. And then there can also be agreements between lower leagues. If you’re going to have players come up to fill up the AHL roster from the Coast League of the CHL but in general yeah. I’m good at tracking all the players that are playing for Iowa or Minnesota. So it works out at any given time to be give or take around 50ish.

IB: Going back to the NHL side of it. What are some of the things you have to do, I know last time you mentioned tendering an offer to a restricted free agent. What are some of the things you go through each offseason when you start the process of tendering offers to those guys that are RFA’s?

BR:  So the first thing we do is we  make sure we actually know everyone that actually is going to be restricted. So we actually make a list and check with central registry to find out which one of our players is going to be restricted free agents, who is eligible for arbitration at this time.  Once we have that list we are going to have to make a qualifying offer to each player. The qualifying offer is dictated by the CBA and it depends on how much money you made the previous season. For most guys in practice a qualifying offer gives them a 10% raise.  If you’re making over a certain thresh hold, and I don’t remember the exact number so don’t quote me on this but I think it’s a million-five but it could be a little more or a little less.  Then they don’t need a raise they just need to be given the same amount.  So to do a qualifying offer you do up a letter that tells the player this is their formal qualifying offer.  It’ll pay them this NHL number and this American league number, depending on which team they would play for.  And then you want to make sure that that form is correct to a T. It’s just like a contract except if we  screw up a contract and you send it to the league they’ll reject it and say this is not a valid contract. Here’s why you, and you guys need to update it.  I would say in general maybe a half dozen of those a year happen.  And sometimes it’s a typo like an extra zero somewhere or something. Sometimes a contract would put the team over the number of contracts they can have.  Whatever it is the league will let you know and you can work with the player and the agent to take care of it.  With the qualifying offers once you send them off, if they’re wrong it gives the players an avenue to fight to say that you have not fulfilled your obligation by the CBA and that they should become unrestricted free agent, which is pretty bad.  So you want to make sure you don’t lose a player.  You can send a copy to the central registry and say hey does this look good to you guys.  They will say yes that’s what you’re required to offer them and that’s a valid qualifying offer. And the way we do it and I think it’s a great way to do it.  Everybody in the office wants to double check each other.  Specifically for qualifying offers we have two different people come up with lists saying here’s what each offer should be.  And two people read every offer before we send it out.  So the process from there.  You send them to the players.  The players have a window to accept or reject.  As soon as the players  receive that letter they are going to be restricted free agents. So when free agency opens up either you have a right to match the contract or get compensation.

To listen to the entire interview click below

https://soundcloud.com/psweeneyny/interview-with-ben-resnick