Rejected!!

Couple of days late with this one, but school has been starting, you guys understand. Anywho, our favorite Russian diva has been back in the news after the arbitration hearing for Ilya Kovalchuk sided with the NHL on Monday. Now, I know that there are a lot of people upset about this whole thing, most of them are probably Devils fans, but I am personally dancing about this decision! I mean, come on, when the GM of the team says that he doesn't believe that contracts like this should even exist during a press conference to celebrate the contract like that, then you know that this thing shouldn't really be able to hold up to any kind of smell test.

Here is the main reason that I think that this is a good thing. As most hockey fans know, the current collective bargaining agreement will end after the 2011-2012 NHL season. Many people have already feared that there will be another lockout, something that players have not helped along with all the rumors of Donald Fehr being tapped by the players to lead the player's union into negotiations. Money is always the issue in these, not that anybody involved in the negotiations really need more money, and you know that these types of mega-long term, front loaded contracts were going to be a huge issue. The league now has a precedent on their side that these sorts of things won't fly. They can come to the bargaining table already knowing that they have won that argument. If the players try to push too hard for that, they will lose badly. If this had gone the other way around, the players could just argue that it was allowed in the last CBA, and they wanted to make sure that it stayed that way. Now, all that will really happen is some kind of clarification.

This will pave the way, in my opinion, for an NBA-like maximum contract. If you aren't sure of what those are, just look at Lebron James' current contract with the Heat, and you will see what I mean. It would be a fantastic thing for the NHL to put in a Max contract that says the most years that you can have on a contract is 7 years, (6 in the NBA). Then, a good compromise as far as the whole front loading of contracts, could that the league says a player may only front load their contract a certain amount, not how nutty the whole thing was with Kovy, so that there can be a slight manipulation of the salary cap, instead of the attempt to completely avoid it as it happened with Kovy. A possible restriction on salaries based off of a player's age could be a good idea as well, also something that happens in the NBA. Bettman SHOULD know about all that, as he did come from the NBA, but of course, he remains absolutely incompetent.

All in all, a big win for the NHL and its fans. This is something that may help to prevent a work stoppage in a couple of years. One last word to Mr. Kovy. I know you really, really wanted to be the highest paid player in the NHL after this. Well, then the last thing that you would really need to do before being the highest paid player is to actually be better than the current highest paid players, which you are not.