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.

Ilya Kovalchuk

Okay, NHL Free Agency has been going on for about 2 weeks now, and the big question going in was where was Ilya Kovalchuk, the prize of this year's free agency class, going to end up. Pretty much everybody (Puck Daddy, ESPN, Barry Melrose, etc...) figured that he was going to end up on the L.A. Kings. People figured that the Devils would definitely make an effort to keep him, but after the first day, with all the moves they made, it seemed like it was going to be impossible for him to stay. But Kovy didn't sign on the first day, or the second day, or the third day. No, he's drawn all of us out for 2 long weeks.

Now, The Kings were out, then back in, then out again, then Kovy went to visit them, but they weren't really back in quite yet, and now they may be out for good. The Devils have said that they would make space to keep Kovy, but it doesn't appear as if there has been any meaningful movement on that front. I had heard that the Devils had made him a 10 million a year offer for 17 years, but I, of course, have no references of that. Still, even if that was there, the Devils don't have anywhere near enough cap space to fit him in there, so, to me, that sort of report is clearly full of it.

What this has all boiled down to is money. Kovy wants 10 million a year for 10 years, which, in the salary cap era, basically means that you are blowing any chance of keeping any future talent because you've got all of your money tied up in one guy. Now, Kovy is naturally not concerned about that, he just wants to get paid. He is also the only one in this free agency class that would garner this type of money, but he has absolutely over-played his hand. He really needs to think of this like buying a house, or in his case, selling a house. When you're selling a house, you aren't the one that decides how much it goes for, the market is. If you want to sell your house for 500,000 dollars, but the market says it is only worth 450,000, there isn't any way that you're going to get it, no matter how much you say that it's worth that. Kovy is, unfortunately for him, our 500,000 dollar house. He believes that he is worth this much, yet the market has spoken. As far as we know, 3 teams have told him that he isn't getting what he wants, 4 if you include the KHL. Yet, he keeps saying that he is worth this. Well, I'm sorry Kovy, you are not going to get what you keep demanding, no matter how much you keep saying that you're worth it.

It's strange, I didn't really think there was a guy that could come out looking worse than LeBron in all of this free agency stuff. I mean, LeBron came off looking like a narcissistic primma donna who was more interested in being rich than working hard to make his home town team take the next step. But Kovy comes off as a stubborn narcissistic jerk who doesn't care that you don't believe he hasn't earned the money that he wants, you're going to pay it to him no matter what. Well, he's managed to do it!

At any rate, I don't think that Kovy is going to end up playing in the NHL next year. It is well known that the KHL wants him back in Russia and will do pretty much anything to get him back as he is a super talented player who is actually under 35 and is still pretty much in his prime. They will pay him more and kiss his butt to make sure that he comes there. In my opinion, don't count on Kovy playing in the NHL next year.

Miami Bound

So, after a gigantic circus and everybody saying he's going to go here, he's going to go there, we now finally know that LeBron James is heading to Miami. Now, I don't personally care because I'm not really a huge basketball fan, but it is worth talking about.

This season we really began to learn a lot about the real LeBron James. For years, all people could do was talk about how perfectly he has handled everything, but then some things began happening. It all really started when LeBron got dunked on at his own skills camp. Suddenly nobody is allowed to see it, all the tapes are seized, and we have to watch things from way behind the action and can barely tell that it's him anyways. Rumblings of primma donna syndrome begin. But, can we tell that it's actually James, or was it Nike making sure that their golden boy is not publicly shown up, so we kinda let it go.

Then, all they hype about his contract year. We see all this stuff with Jay-Z and LeBron, everybody start talking about how LeBron is totally going to go to New York and be with his boy Jay-Z. But the worst part about things didn't come until the playoffs where LeBron pretty much quit on his team against the Celtics. After he got eliminated, started talking about his "team", refer to a previous blog post I wrote right after the Cavs were eliminated, talking about the offseason. Said he hadn't thought about the offseason, but had already made comments to people about wanting to be the highest paid free agent EVER. Clearly, he's not referring to the Cavs when talking about his team.

Then, all the hoopla. I mean, it makes sense that he didn't decide on the first day of free agency. He knew that he absolutely had the power in all of this. Nobody is disputing that, this whole hour long special on ESPN to announce something that would take a grand total of 20 seconds. I mean, what happened to the kid who accepted his first NBA MVP trophy back at his high school? All of this doesn't project somebody who is playing because he loves to play. This is all showing people a ham who wants to stay in the center of the spotlight for as long as humanly possible, knowing that he has everybody at his beck and call.

At any rate, we FINALLY learned that LeBron is going to Miami, who just signed Chris Bosh and re-signed Dwayne Wade. This is definitely one of the most potent combinations to come into the NBA..well, ever. The last time there was a group this potent, just the group of 3, had to be Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippin, and Tony Kukoc. Obviously you have to favor the Heat in the Eastern Conference with these three guys leading the way. But again, I don't really care.

Obviously, lots of people in Cleveland are going to be absolutely livid about this. And you just have to feel bad for Cleveland. I mean, if it wasn't for Michael Jordan, the Cavs probably would have had like 3-5 titles in their chest. The Browns get moved, and then come back as pretty much the NFL's whipping boys, LeBron comes and gets the Cavs so close to winning titles, and then up and leaves them. He says that Akron will always be home, but really, I don't think his home will be very welcoming whenever he does decide to come back. But, at least we know, and we can stop making a huge deal about this. I mean, why talk about this when we can all agonize and annoy each other over whether or not Brett Favre will come back?