Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Things that Are and Are Not okay with the NHL

Things that are Okay:

-15 year, front-loaded, cap-circumventing contracts that are unlikely to be fulfilled because both the player and the team are aware that the player is a butterfly goalie with groin muscles made out of gossamer and voodoo.

-12 year, front-loaded, cap-circumventing contracts that are unlikely to be fulfilled signed mere minutes after a player has declared themselves a free agent on July 1st.  Or by a Canadian on a Canadian team.

-8 year contracts to aging defensemen that is unlikely to be fulfilled by teams whose owner were prominent in Gary Bettman's hiring and supported him through the lockout.

-12 and 11 year contracts, front-loaded, cap-circumventing, signed by Detroit.  Detroit and player contracts are like a Roy Halladay fastball that paints the outside corner:  They both know what they're doing so they always get the call.

-13 year contracts signed by the league's most popular player.  There's no out-clause where he can bolt for the KHL, right?  Okay, yeah, then it's fine.

-Headshots, hits from behind, missed high-sticking penalties.

-Concussions.

-Bankruptcies.

-Labour disputes.

-Neutral zone traps.

-Bad attendance.

-Bad U.S. television numbers, unless absolute top-flight superstars are involved.

-Potential team owners who cobble together money from the sock drawers of magicians, couch cushions of used car salesmen and the power of Gary Bettman's prayers.


Things that are Not Okay:

-17 year contracts that is unlikely to be fulfilled IF the player is Russian, not North American or the Good Kind of Eastern European.

-Potential team owners who are Canadian and RICH AS FUCK.

-"Sloppy seconds."

-ESPN

-The 2007 Preakness Stakes.


So yeah, the Kovalchuk contract is a hilariously bad contract.  Here's the breakdown, courtesy of NJ.com:

2010-11: $6 million
2011-12: $6 million
2012-13: $11.5 million
2013-14: $11.5 million
2014-15: $11.5 million
2015-16: $11.5 million
2016-17: $11.5 million
2017-18: $10.5 million
2018-19: $8.5 million
2019-20: $6.5 million
2020-21: $3.5 Million
2021-22: $750,000
2022-23: $550,000
2023-24: $550,000
2024-25: $550,000
2025-26: $550,000
2026-27: $550,000

The total cap hit is $6 million.  Or "was."  It's ridiculous, right?  Look at the last 6 years!  It takes our beloved CBA that we lost a year of hockey for, chews it for a while, spits some of it out, stores the rest in its lip for years until it develops a Lou Brown voice:




 


THEN sprays it all over the front page of every hockey publication in North America!  A tragemedy!  Except that it's totally legal, totally compliant with the CBA and would probably win an appeal, even though the Devils have said that they won't appeal the ruling.  This is so stupid.  WHY DOES THE NHL DO THIS?!?!  I'M SO MAD I oh fuck it it's 30 degrees outside, who cares.  Enjoy your summer!

Monday, July 12, 2010

The Team That Everyone Hated


*I'm sorry if you read this after I published it but before I edited it.  That's the wrong order to do things in.  The amount of typos and spelling mistakes... just, sorry.

See those guys?  A busy week for the three worst people in the world.  They ruined the competitive playing field in the NBA, engaged in blatant collusion against the poor helpless owners, shamelessly flaunted the loyalties of their former and current cities, wreaked further havoc on the already-shaky sporting confidence of one of the world's great cities (over a sport they don't even like), grabbed the poor ugly kid/city who never gets the girl who tries oh so hard and punched it in the face on national TV, possibly ended the life of the NBA in one city but that doesn't matter because they set in motion a series of events that ENDS WITH CLEVELAND BURIED AND FORGOTTEN.

Oh it was quite a week.  If you can find any sports news website columnist, blogger, radio personality or Guy You Met Once At A Party who thinks that Lebron's bizarre ESPN primetime Hey, Go Fuck Yourself Cleveland! was in poor taste, congratulations, you've passed into a parallel universe!  Neato!  Bring me back some of the Oreos with the cookie part in the middle and a shopping cart with three wonky wheels!  Nobody likes itAnywhere!

But how could you not???  We were witness to something pretty special:  the culmination of all the world's sporting egos combining together to form Egonotron, the Most Powerful Ego, whose powers include 1) thinking it's okay to humiliate one of the saddest, most unlucky loser cities in North America, 2) hold a ONE HOUR ESPN SPECIAL to simply say "Next year I basket my ball in *blank*," and 3) not telling anyone in Cleveland (remember Cleveland?  That city near Akron where you're from?), either the fans or the team that hired, fired and signed whoever James wanted, what he was doing and made them find out on TV SEVEN DAYS after free agency started.  That sucks because there are, you know, other players out there that Cleveland might've wanted to sign if you didn't want to play there.  All of this, all this self-created hype and exposure, all this attention and the weird WWE-style intro:



All this so that the Greatest Basketball Player on Earth (except for all those guys with NBA Championships like Kobe, Tim Duncan, Dwayne Wade, Shaquille O'Neal) could live with this philosophy (from Joe Posnanski's always brilliant blog.  Why aren't you reading him right now?):

“We don’t have to have the pressure of going out, scoring 30 every night, or shooting a high percentage or logging long minutes and worrying about our team suffering because of that at times.”

In other words, ALL THIS NONSENSE was so that Lebron can do LESS on the court that he was before and accomplish MORE because basketball will be EASY NOW and make this whole ordeal easier without all that silly team-building.  No more 30 point games!  Won't it be better for the team now that I, Lebron James, one of the two best players in the game, am playing LESS?  Why aren't other athletes like Gretzky, Jordan or someone else with a championship, as giving as I?  Now, with Bosh and Wade and some part-time cap-friendly illegal Cubans in the lineup, James can simply stroll into his pre-ordained vestige as Basketball Demigod.  Won't it be so much easier now without all that work???  We might never see anything this ballsy again.  Haha!  Of course we will.  After all, Kevin Durant is due for free agency... wait!  What's this?  The youngest player to even win an NBA scoring title just re-signed in his own bland and unremarkable city?  Without ESPN there to lick his balls for a full hour?  Pussy. 

Public opinion seems split on whether or not it was okay for Lebron to leave Cleveland at all.  Public opinion, in this case, is being gauged by the two hours of sports radio I listened to on a road trip before I lost signal, or my brain shut off from lack of activity, whichever.  Some callers, and one host, thought he'd blown his chance at greatness not so much by leaving his hometown team that drafted him, no, that only cost him immortality, but by going to a team with another superstar and another very good star.  By giving his reason for leaving as needing to play with better players, he was basically admitting that he needed help, couldn't do it alone, and wasn't willing to stay and build a team around him like Jordan or Bryant.  I counter that with "So he treated a team sport like a team sport?  He didn't destroy and alienate everyone around him by insisting on doing things his way, maybe having some players traded because they were as good as him?  He's going to sacrifice some vague notion of personal glory in order to win championships?  What an ASS!!!!

Other callers, and the other host, seemed to think that it's fine for him to leave, Clevelanders are embarrassing themselves by showing how angry, sad and hurt they are and after all James did spent seven years there, re-signing once and giving the team every chance to build a championship around him.  He left because management couldn't find any complimentary talents to play with him, so he took charge of his own life and career and made the best move for himself and his family.  I'll counter that with BUT HE WON 60 GAMES TWICE!  If the Lakers or Heat had back to back 60 win season and didn't even make the finals, Kobe and Wade would be labelled chokers!  Why is it different with Lebron???

The lesson, of course, is that nobody's right about anything and everyone's an idiot.  Well, except for everyone who says the one hour on ESPN was stupid.  When they announced The Decision would air on ESPN, it was like when the Oilers traded away the 17th overall pick in the 2003 draft to New Jersey and the Devils took Zack Parise.  I was watching and knew it was stupid right away and it would only prove itself a stupider and stupider move the more time went by.  Same thing with The Decision, everyone knew it was preposterously arrogant, self-important, journalistic unethical and embarrassing the minute it was announced.  It got so much worse when it included, as a bonus, the crushed soul of an entire city which simply accelerated the rate at which this ridiculous experience has sickened our taste for the famous and powerful in sports.  Only when they actually act rich and powerful though; we're fine with with them when they act like cole miners, pulling out teeth and getting stitched up in hallways.  Athletes:  They're Not Really Like Us At All!

Perhaps the only thing more universally agreed-upon than the denouncing of ESPN's Big Stupid Mess, at least among fans, is how much everyone wants to see this team get its ass kicked.  Every caller I listened to giving their "opinion" on whether it was okay for Lebron to leave Cleveland either loudly cheered for or quietly conceded that they hoped the Heat lose out at some point this year, either suffering the embarrassment of not making the playoffs at all or the heartbreak of an overtime playoff loss.  I'm hoping for a Final where Kobe hits an impossible three-pointer to give the Lakers the lead with seconds left and for Lebron to miss the buzzer-beater while Wade and Bosh wave their arms and scream "I'M OPEN!!!"