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.
Showing posts with label Gary Bettman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gary Bettman. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
Kovalchuk Files a Grievance
In an act that most people figured was going to come along, the NHLPA has filed a grievance against the NHL after it rejected Ilya Kovalchuk's 17 year, $102 million contract because the NHL said that it violated the CBA. In this Puck Daddy article, from Yahoo Sports, he outlines the process of how this will get to arbitration. The way that this sounds, it doesn't sound like there is going to be a resolution to this any time soon.
The issue that the NHL has with this contract is not the amount of money, or even so much the length of time, it's the way that the contract was structured. I will, again, reference you to CapGeek.com to see how Kovy's contract was to be paid out. What the NHL is saying is a violation essentially comes down to the last 8-10 years of Kovy's contract, when he would move from making $11.5 million a year, going down to the league minimum of $550,000 a year by the time he's 40 and no longer scoring 40 goals every year. The Devils did this to manage their cap hit from Kovy so that, even when he was making the $11.5 million a year, their cap hit would still only be $6 million. Basically, the NHL thinks that it is a dishonest contract because, even though the cap hit would still be at $6 million, they don't believe that he would still be playing by the time he was to be making the $550,000 per year. And that is a somewhat realistic assumption. Who is the last power forward that we have seen play well into their 40s? I honestly don't know.
What is going to be the result of all of this? I really don't know. I feel like the NHL will probably win this one, which would be a very good thing, all around. That would set a precedent for the next CBA, and really wouldn't give the NHLPA a leg to stand on when it comes to these insanely long contracts. The whole concept of front loading the contracts has really hurt some teams because they just don't have enough money, and then they become the Atlanta Thrashers and can't keep any stars because they have too much money tied up in 1 so they never really win, and then that one star leaves because he wants to win. Should the NHLPA win this one, and should Kovy get to keep this contract, and should the NHLPA then hire Donald Fehr to lead them into the next CBA "negotiations", I can almost guarantee you that there will be another lockout, or strike, the next time around.
Rarely will I ever pull for Gary Bettman, especially since I've rated him the worst commissioner in professional sports, but in this case, I have to put myself in Bettman's corner and cheer my guts out, because this is one batter that he can't afford to lose.
The issue that the NHL has with this contract is not the amount of money, or even so much the length of time, it's the way that the contract was structured. I will, again, reference you to CapGeek.com to see how Kovy's contract was to be paid out. What the NHL is saying is a violation essentially comes down to the last 8-10 years of Kovy's contract, when he would move from making $11.5 million a year, going down to the league minimum of $550,000 a year by the time he's 40 and no longer scoring 40 goals every year. The Devils did this to manage their cap hit from Kovy so that, even when he was making the $11.5 million a year, their cap hit would still only be $6 million. Basically, the NHL thinks that it is a dishonest contract because, even though the cap hit would still be at $6 million, they don't believe that he would still be playing by the time he was to be making the $550,000 per year. And that is a somewhat realistic assumption. Who is the last power forward that we have seen play well into their 40s? I honestly don't know.
What is going to be the result of all of this? I really don't know. I feel like the NHL will probably win this one, which would be a very good thing, all around. That would set a precedent for the next CBA, and really wouldn't give the NHLPA a leg to stand on when it comes to these insanely long contracts. The whole concept of front loading the contracts has really hurt some teams because they just don't have enough money, and then they become the Atlanta Thrashers and can't keep any stars because they have too much money tied up in 1 so they never really win, and then that one star leaves because he wants to win. Should the NHLPA win this one, and should Kovy get to keep this contract, and should the NHLPA then hire Donald Fehr to lead them into the next CBA "negotiations", I can almost guarantee you that there will be another lockout, or strike, the next time around.
Rarely will I ever pull for Gary Bettman, especially since I've rated him the worst commissioner in professional sports, but in this case, I have to put myself in Bettman's corner and cheer my guts out, because this is one batter that he can't afford to lose.
Monday, March 8, 2010
NHL Headshots
Ok, I have to say that I am getting a little tired of this subject being brought up week after week after week. Not because I want people to accept the fact that head shots are a part of the game, because they aren't. Just as Don Cherry has said over and over, there is a fundamental lack of respect for the health and well-being of the other players on the ice that wasn't this bad back in the rough and tumble 70s and 80s!
What I want to know is how much of this is enough to make the league take action? I mean, this problem has gone back for a while. Marty McSorely , Todd Bertuzzi, Chris Simon. And now we have even more, it seems like every single week! Just now we have another one where Marc Savard ends up getting carted off on a stretcher. . Worst part of this is that there wasn't even a penalty called on this play. How can we possibly have that happen here?!
Suspensions are only a part of what needs to happen with this sort of hit. This sort of hit has no place in the game! I am totally with Don Cherry with his explanation of why things have gone downhill with this. With the fight instigator penalty in play, it makes it impossible for any type of policing. If you knew that you had to fight the other team's biggest and toughest guy if you took a cheap shot on one of these players, would you really do it? Probably not! But now, with the fight instigator penalty, that makes this impossible, because if the tough guy comes after the other guy, they get the fighting major, and extra 2 minutes, and a game misconduct. That changes the game.
So what is there to do? Outrage of this will only do so much. We can all sit back and say that these are gutless cheap shots that have no place in the game until the end of time, but that isn't going to stop it from happening. 5 game suspensions won't stop this from happening. When will the NHL, and Colin Campbell specifically, take a stand and do more than just say that this has to stop. We can get rid of the fight instigator penalty, and allow players to police each other again. Ban those types of hits entirely and impose HEAVY suspensions on players that make this kind of hit, with the potential of lifetime bans on players who are repeat offenders. This is one of the only ways that I can think of to stop this from happening. If the respect for the other player's health isn't there, at least they may be stopped with concern for their own career. That way, they would have nobody to blame but themselves once they are taken out of the league.
The bottom line in all of this is that every time things like this happen, it puts the NHL in the news for the wrong reason, and people are more turned off from what is an amazing game because of the actions of a few thugs who can't control themselves. We all need to work together to get this sort of thing out of the game. Come on Colin Campbell, Gary Bettman, you're the people who set the standards. DO MORE THAN JUST TALK!!!
What I want to know is how much of this is enough to make the league take action? I mean, this problem has gone back for a while. Marty McSorely , Todd Bertuzzi, Chris Simon. And now we have even more, it seems like every single week! Just now we have another one where Marc Savard ends up getting carted off on a stretcher. . Worst part of this is that there wasn't even a penalty called on this play. How can we possibly have that happen here?!
Suspensions are only a part of what needs to happen with this sort of hit. This sort of hit has no place in the game! I am totally with Don Cherry with his explanation of why things have gone downhill with this. With the fight instigator penalty in play, it makes it impossible for any type of policing. If you knew that you had to fight the other team's biggest and toughest guy if you took a cheap shot on one of these players, would you really do it? Probably not! But now, with the fight instigator penalty, that makes this impossible, because if the tough guy comes after the other guy, they get the fighting major, and extra 2 minutes, and a game misconduct. That changes the game.
So what is there to do? Outrage of this will only do so much. We can all sit back and say that these are gutless cheap shots that have no place in the game until the end of time, but that isn't going to stop it from happening. 5 game suspensions won't stop this from happening. When will the NHL, and Colin Campbell specifically, take a stand and do more than just say that this has to stop. We can get rid of the fight instigator penalty, and allow players to police each other again. Ban those types of hits entirely and impose HEAVY suspensions on players that make this kind of hit, with the potential of lifetime bans on players who are repeat offenders. This is one of the only ways that I can think of to stop this from happening. If the respect for the other player's health isn't there, at least they may be stopped with concern for their own career. That way, they would have nobody to blame but themselves once they are taken out of the league.
The bottom line in all of this is that every time things like this happen, it puts the NHL in the news for the wrong reason, and people are more turned off from what is an amazing game because of the actions of a few thugs who can't control themselves. We all need to work together to get this sort of thing out of the game. Come on Colin Campbell, Gary Bettman, you're the people who set the standards. DO MORE THAN JUST TALK!!!
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
New Decade, Old Memory
All sorts of places have been making a big deal about how we are now in a new decade, and have been reviewing certain events of the last decade. Best game, biggest upsets, greatest goals, etc... I think I'm going to go ahead and get in on that action (a little late, but still getting in on it nonetheless. This particular event, whenever I re-visit it, always makes me mad for a few different reasons.
In 2004, the Colorado Avalanche has a very heated rivalry going with the Vancouver Canucks. Things began to go even farther with this rivalry when Steve Moore had a questionable hit on Markus Naslund. Here's a link for that with some "interesting" remarks made by former Avalanche Coach, then Vancouver coach, Marc Crawford. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owpYYNjWnro) I have to say that this is the point in history where I lost all respect for Crawford, which is tough considering he was the coach when the Avs won their first cup. The assertion that this was a cheap hit, and that the refs should have more respect and make a call when it was a hit on a star player. I'm sorry, Marc, this is not the NBA, and he is not Kobe Bryant. Do star players get preferential treatment? Sure, that's impossible to deny, but don't act like every single time a star player gets hit hard in an emotional game that the refs need to call a penalty. It was a tough hit, and ended baldy based off of a lot of circumstances. Naslund was stretched out, which caused his head to be much lower than it otherwise would have been. He was stretching out as Moore moved in to make a shoulder check on him, which, when thrown all together at the same time, caused a bad hit with an elbow. THAT, however, is not what really caused the problem. That was not enough to give Naslund the concussion that he suffered at the end of this play. Naslund, as many hockey players do, doesn't have his helmet fully secured, and you can see that his helmet slid off just enough that, when he did get to the ice, his head had no protection. THAT, caused the concussion. You can argue all you want about this, but the league ruled and it ruled correctly in saying that this was not a penalty, nor was it a dirty hit by any means. No suspension was given, and none should have been given, no matter who was hit in this play.
The unfortunate part about this lead to what I see as one of the most disgusting acts I have ever seen, if not THE most disgusting and cowardly act, in sports. The infamous sucker punch on Steve Moore by Todd Bertuzzi. Here's a link to that. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA8cdtpV0vM). Again, say whatever you want about this incident, this was a premeditated assault. How do we know this? It was well publicized that the Canucks were talking about getting back at Moore, and that there was a price on his head. Plus, the next year, when Brad May, then of the Canucks, signed with the Avalanche, he admitted to the press that they had planned on getting Moore in the Canuck locker room. All of this leads to bigger questions about the league and the way it is currently run, but for the time being, I'll relegate myself to the "discipline" that was given to Bertuzzi. He was suspended for the rest of the season, and the playoffs, which ended up being a grand total of 17 games, and was then re-instated the next season. Before you start, YES, I know that the official "next season" was the year of the lockout. I am speaking of the next time that there was a season. At that time, our all knowledgeable, please notice the sarcasm, Commish (Gary Bettman) determined that a full year of suspension was enough of a punsihment, and brought him back. Here's the only issue, he wasn't suspended that season, he was locked out. Nobody played, so for Bettman to say that there was an extra punishment of missing a season is completely and totally false. But Bettman, in his George W. Bush-like way of running things, is always convinced that he is in the right, and has never second guessed this ruling. So while Bertuzzi continues to play for millions of dollars, Steve Moore still sits at home, suffering from post-concussion syndrome, with fracture in his neck that will never allow him to play hockey again. Criminal charges were brought against Bertuzzi, and he pled guilty, and was sentence to community service. Ask yourself, if this was Marty McSorely, or Bob Probert, or some other notorious thug, would they have gotten this leniency? We know the answer to that question.
It continues to shock and amaze me that Bertuzzi is even allowed near a rink anymore, let alone allowed to play the game of hockey. True, his career has definitely gone down a few notches ever since this incident, a bit of karma if you ask me, yet the man still plays. The bigger problem this creates is that Bettman constantly claims that things like this have no place in hockey, yet he enables a goon like Bertuzzi to get away with this kind of action. His penalty was a slap on the wrist for breaking somebody's neck, and until the NHL gets a commissioner that has the guts to stand up against hits like this for real, somebody who won't tolerate it no matter how many goals the goon scores, until the NHL gets somebody no nonsense like the NFL has, these things will continue to happen. If I had one bit of justice to dole out, one sentence to give, it would be this. I would suspend Bertuzzi for life, and make it so that every day, at least twice a day, he is forced to watch the replay over and over, and see the after effects of what he did, so that every single day he is reminded that he took away another person's livelihood. As we get a start to a new decade, I hope that fewer things like this happen in the NHL, because this sort of thing doesn't belong in the league, but as long as there are thugs like Bertuzzi, coaches who condone this action like Marc Crawford, and enabling commissioners unwilling to admit fault like Gary Bettman, the greater problems of the NHL will never be full solved.
**off my soap box**
In 2004, the Colorado Avalanche has a very heated rivalry going with the Vancouver Canucks. Things began to go even farther with this rivalry when Steve Moore had a questionable hit on Markus Naslund. Here's a link for that with some "interesting" remarks made by former Avalanche Coach, then Vancouver coach, Marc Crawford. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owpYYNjWnro) I have to say that this is the point in history where I lost all respect for Crawford, which is tough considering he was the coach when the Avs won their first cup. The assertion that this was a cheap hit, and that the refs should have more respect and make a call when it was a hit on a star player. I'm sorry, Marc, this is not the NBA, and he is not Kobe Bryant. Do star players get preferential treatment? Sure, that's impossible to deny, but don't act like every single time a star player gets hit hard in an emotional game that the refs need to call a penalty. It was a tough hit, and ended baldy based off of a lot of circumstances. Naslund was stretched out, which caused his head to be much lower than it otherwise would have been. He was stretching out as Moore moved in to make a shoulder check on him, which, when thrown all together at the same time, caused a bad hit with an elbow. THAT, however, is not what really caused the problem. That was not enough to give Naslund the concussion that he suffered at the end of this play. Naslund, as many hockey players do, doesn't have his helmet fully secured, and you can see that his helmet slid off just enough that, when he did get to the ice, his head had no protection. THAT, caused the concussion. You can argue all you want about this, but the league ruled and it ruled correctly in saying that this was not a penalty, nor was it a dirty hit by any means. No suspension was given, and none should have been given, no matter who was hit in this play.
The unfortunate part about this lead to what I see as one of the most disgusting acts I have ever seen, if not THE most disgusting and cowardly act, in sports. The infamous sucker punch on Steve Moore by Todd Bertuzzi. Here's a link to that. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA8cdtpV0vM). Again, say whatever you want about this incident, this was a premeditated assault. How do we know this? It was well publicized that the Canucks were talking about getting back at Moore, and that there was a price on his head. Plus, the next year, when Brad May, then of the Canucks, signed with the Avalanche, he admitted to the press that they had planned on getting Moore in the Canuck locker room. All of this leads to bigger questions about the league and the way it is currently run, but for the time being, I'll relegate myself to the "discipline" that was given to Bertuzzi. He was suspended for the rest of the season, and the playoffs, which ended up being a grand total of 17 games, and was then re-instated the next season. Before you start, YES, I know that the official "next season" was the year of the lockout. I am speaking of the next time that there was a season. At that time, our all knowledgeable, please notice the sarcasm, Commish (Gary Bettman) determined that a full year of suspension was enough of a punsihment, and brought him back. Here's the only issue, he wasn't suspended that season, he was locked out. Nobody played, so for Bettman to say that there was an extra punishment of missing a season is completely and totally false. But Bettman, in his George W. Bush-like way of running things, is always convinced that he is in the right, and has never second guessed this ruling. So while Bertuzzi continues to play for millions of dollars, Steve Moore still sits at home, suffering from post-concussion syndrome, with fracture in his neck that will never allow him to play hockey again. Criminal charges were brought against Bertuzzi, and he pled guilty, and was sentence to community service. Ask yourself, if this was Marty McSorely, or Bob Probert, or some other notorious thug, would they have gotten this leniency? We know the answer to that question.
It continues to shock and amaze me that Bertuzzi is even allowed near a rink anymore, let alone allowed to play the game of hockey. True, his career has definitely gone down a few notches ever since this incident, a bit of karma if you ask me, yet the man still plays. The bigger problem this creates is that Bettman constantly claims that things like this have no place in hockey, yet he enables a goon like Bertuzzi to get away with this kind of action. His penalty was a slap on the wrist for breaking somebody's neck, and until the NHL gets a commissioner that has the guts to stand up against hits like this for real, somebody who won't tolerate it no matter how many goals the goon scores, until the NHL gets somebody no nonsense like the NFL has, these things will continue to happen. If I had one bit of justice to dole out, one sentence to give, it would be this. I would suspend Bertuzzi for life, and make it so that every day, at least twice a day, he is forced to watch the replay over and over, and see the after effects of what he did, so that every single day he is reminded that he took away another person's livelihood. As we get a start to a new decade, I hope that fewer things like this happen in the NHL, because this sort of thing doesn't belong in the league, but as long as there are thugs like Bertuzzi, coaches who condone this action like Marc Crawford, and enabling commissioners unwilling to admit fault like Gary Bettman, the greater problems of the NHL will never be full solved.
**off my soap box**
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