Jim Veltman, the National Lacrosse League's reigning Most Valuable Player, and Gary Gait, the league's alltime leading scorer, are among fourteen players named yesterday as franchise players.

The Franchise designation is used to prevent veteran players from becoming unrestricted free agents. Teams may name two franchise players, and each is guaranteed a salary of $20,625 for the 2005 season, ten percent higher than the maximum salary otherwise permitted.

Veltman and goaltender Bob Watson earned the Toronto Rock's franchise player designations from among four potential unrestricted free agents -- players 32 years of age or older who have played at least six seasons.

Buffalo (John Tavares, Steve Dietrich), Philadelphia (Dallas Eliuk, Tom Marechek), Rochester (Mike Hasen, Pat O'Toole), San Jose (Rob Blasdell, Dan Teat), and Vancouver (Curt Malawsky, Andy Ogilvie) also used both of the Franchise tags, while Calgary (Ted Dowling) and Colorado (Gait) protected one player each.

Anaheim and Arizona elected not to use the designation at all.

As a result, the following players are now unrestricted free agents:

ANAHEIM STORM
    Brian O'Keefe
    Gordon Purdie
    John Rosa
    Paul Talmo
ARIZONA STING
    Mark Cochrane
BUFFALO BANDITS
    Randy Fraser
    Derek General
    Rich Kilgour
CALGARY ROUGHNECKS
    Jason Wulder
COLORADO MAMMOTH
    Del Halladay
    Erik Miller
ROCHESTER KNIGHTHAWKS
    Pat Cougevan
    Jeremy Hollenbeck
    Tim Soudan
    Regy Thorpe
TORONTO ROCK
    Glenn Clark
    Chris Driscoll
VANCOUVER RAVENS
    Pat Coyle
    Chris Gill
    Dwight Maetche
    Dan Stroup

In addition, almost forty players have qualified for restricted free agency, and dozens more may join them once qualifying offers are made.

By league rules, a veteran player who has played for at least three seasons and played or dressed for at least twenty-three scheduled regular season games before the beginning of a season becomes eligible for restricted free agency if he meets one of the following three conditions:

1. The player does not agree to terms with the club owning the right to his services and sits out for one full year;
   
   
2. The club owning the right to the player's services offers compensation for the 2005 season which is lower than what the player earned this past season;
   
   
3. The player is not offered compensation at or above the league-wide per-game average salary for the last season.

A team has seventy-two hours after receiving an offer sheet to match or beat the offer in order to retain the player's rights. No compensation will be awarded to teams that lose free agents.

The following players are eligible for restricted free agency:

ANAHEIM STORM
    Joe Ghedina
    Ted Jenner
    Mike Law
    Greg Traynor
ARIZONA STING
    Bruce Codd
    Gewas Schindler
    Wes Suddons
    Phil Wetherup
BUFFALO BANDITS
    Aime Caines
    Drew Candy
    Kyle Laverty
    Pat McCready
    Neal Powless
CALGARY ROUGHNECKS
    Matt Green
    Kevin Howard
    Matt King
PHILADELPHIA WINGS
    Bryan Barrett
    John Gagliardi
    Dan Marohl
    Spencer Martin
    Shawn Nadelen
    Nick Schroeder
    Dallas Squire
    Ryan Traynor
ROCHESTER KNIGHTHAWKS
    Marshall Abrams
    Pat Campbell
    Ryan O'Connor
    Steve Penny
    Chris Schiller
    D'Arcy Sweet
SAN JOSE STEALTH
    Brandon Miller
TORONTO ROCK
    Sandy Chapman
    Carter Livingstone
    Eric Pacey
    Matt Shearer
VANCOUVER RAVENS
    D'Arcy Berthiaume
    Matt Dwane
    Bruce Murray
    Aaron Smith

The following players could become eligible for restricted free agency based on their respective qualifying offers: