Klein could not say what rate of tax would be imposed, how much revenue it would raise or what the impact might be on ticket prices. This is apparently how they do things in the government of Alberta: announce a policy you barely understand, having decided on it in advance of the facts.

Possibly comprehension should have preceded action. Had it done so, the Premier might have realized what a transparent shell game he was proposing.

The justification for slapping visiting hockey players with a tax merely for having touched down on Alberta soil is obscure, to begin with. Is it to discourage them from coming? Is it compensation for their use of Alberta's health system? Or is it, as one suspects, a variant of the answer the notorious Willie Sutton gave, when asked why he robbed banks: "Because that's where the money is." The appeal of the scheme is obvious. As Mr. Klein said, "everyone wants to keep the teams in Alberta, but no one wants to see taxpayers' dollars go to support the teams." No kidding: The notion of taxing those on average incomes to subsidize a bunch of 22-year- old millionaires has proved to be political poison. Presto: Take it out of the other teams' millionaires. Won't cost the taxpayer a cent.

As with most such something-for-nothing schemes, however, there's a catch. Alberta is hardly the first place to think of the idea: the tax is already in place in 14 jurisdictions in the United States. Nor will it be the last. Mr. Klein had barely finished speaking before teams in Vancouver and Ottawa began clamouring for the same treatment.

So let's suppose that every team benefits from the same tax. The city of Anytown collects from visiting players after each home game, raising millions of dollars for the local team, the Anytown Examples -- who use the money to rebate their own players for the taxes they pay on the road. Or, if the players are not compensated, if it really is a net transfer of income from the players to the owners, then why play fiscal ring-around-the-rosie? Why not just let each team tax its own players? Better yet, why not just cut their salaries?

Ah, but there's something I'm not telling you. As the tax laws stipulate, whatever taxes the players pay their hosts for away games -- Peter Forsberg, in one reported example, is estimated to have paid the city of Columbus, Ohio US$18,650 for the privilege of playing two games against the Blue Jackets -- are simply deducted from the taxes they pay in their home jurisdictions. The revenue Alberta collects from each member of the visiting Detroit Red Wings is revenue denied to the state of Michigan and the IRS.

So it isn't the players who pay the tax, or the teams: it's other governments. What Alberta is proposing is really a system of government subsidies for hockey teams, laundered through the players. Only instead of docking the taxpayers of Alberta, the bill is charged to taxpayers in Michigan, Colorado and so on -- not to mention Ontario, Quebec, and the rest of Canada.

You could say that's only fair: Alberta is now losing revenues by the same route to those governments that already have such a tax in place. But if, indeed, every team winds up getting the same treatment, then nothing will have been accomplished in the end, except to transfer revenues from every government to every government, from every team to every team. Well, something would have been accomplished: taxpayers everywhere would be out of pocket.

Which means, before long, so would the fans. If there is one thing that we should have learned by now, it is that subsidies are not the answer to the NHL's fiscal troubles. We know this, because the teams are already massively subsidized: the luxury boxes on which every team has come to depend are purchased almost exclusively by corporations, who are allowed to write them off as a "business entertainment" expense. Where has all that forgone tax revenue gone? Straight into players' salaries. More subsidies, however artfully disguised, would only make this problem worse.

On the other hand, as long as we're subsidizing professional hockey six ways to Sunday, maybe it's time we put some conditions on it. It is, after all, "our game." Here's what I propose: In exchange for taxpayer support, the NHL should be required to ban fighting, clamp down on all that hooking and holding in the neutral zone, eliminate the centre red line and bring back the tag-up offside rule. Who knows? With all the millions we're paying them, we might even make them widen the rinks.