Good God

When I worked at a gym, selling memberships and making people feel bad about themselves, I got a glimpse into the mechanics of where these amazing stories about ordinary people going through unbelievable problems with their monthly gym payments came. What I saw was an industry of independently-owned businesses which were managed by guys who worked out in squalor their whole lives and wanted to Move On Up. They were like, Damn, that guy raised prices AGAIN, I'm not paying $11.50 a month for this place, let's go off and Make Our Own Gym. So you have gym guys now acting in a management capacity when instead you should have, say, ANYBODY ELSE. Like an accountant, or someone with sales management experience, or someone with a background in marketing, or a corporate finance grad, or... this is fun isn't it? There's a long list of choices, as long as the amount of time you want to toss out random qualifications ("Welder!" "Cable repair man!" "Drifter!") that would be better than a holier-than-thou fitness maniac with -8% body fat who can't understand why you have to cancel your membership with this new job, couldn't you just work 14 hours THEN come in five days a week? You've got a cousin or something, right? Can't they water your six kids for you? Broken leg? You've got TWO, suck it up! No? Well just die then.

The same inmates running the asylum motif exists in the NHL, and was never more evident than July 1st, 2008. Ex-players in management, in their own minds still blocking shots and picking fights to defend their honor, leap at the chance to do whatever's necessary to better their brethren. This CBA was supposed to hinder this behavior. In a cap system, a player isn't really paid a salary, they're paid a percentage of the cap space. Players have a portion of their salary held in escrow so that, at the end of the season, if league earnings have decreased the players take home the designated percentage less than their salary indicates. It's that "cost certainty" we heard so much about during the lockout, a way to make absolutely positively sure that general managers could managed to keep salaries under control this time and not pay more than what league revenues could sustain. Well, those GM's showed us! They were insulted by the league and players' attempts to hamstring their efforts to reduce the league to six teams, owned by the six richest kings of Europe, and steely-eyed and eagle-determined, they set their minds to finding new and hilarious ways of making the sane among us smash our faces into our keyboards each time we re-load TSN.ca on July 1st. At the rate ticket prices keep going up you'll only have six people attending games, arguing about what to do about this maddening Prussian quagmire.

Cristobal Huet is a nice person who recycles his bottles, watches friends' houses when they're out of town, and is rarely found punting puppies into nearby ravines. I wish him nothing but the best. Cristobal Huet now has a greater annual salary than Martin Brodeur, having signed yesterday for four years, $5.6 million per year with Chicago (all signings, with commentary, can be found here). This is fucking ridiculous. He'll be 33 when the season starts, and while coming a season where he did win 33 games for Montreal and Washington, before that never won more than 19. He's never played more than 52 games in a season, which indicates than while he doesn't have the miles that other 33 year old goalies might have, he was likely NOT GOOD ENOUGH to warrant more icetime than that. At least Nikolai Khabibulin was coming off a Stanley Cup.

Wade Redden is 31 years old, coming off a season of 38 points, +11, and averaged 22:13 of ice time per game. An above average defenseman for his career though showed signs of slowing down last season. The Senators tried to move him at this year's trade deadline and last year's draft, say the rumors, but he wouldn't waive his no-trade clause. He rejected an offer from the Sens prior to July 1st of, I believe to be, two years, $9 million if I remember correctly. So good player, wearing out, thanks for the great years on the Ottawa blueline, see if Detroit will sign you and give you one last shot at a Stanley Cup. Except that the New York Rangers woke up and thought, this is terrible. We've become only the 3rd most embarrassingly run team in New York City! How did that happen? Maybe we can't top the Mets firing Willie Randolph at 3 am while he was on the West Coast, or Isiah Thomas burning the Knicks into the ground with awful signings and sexual harassment suits, but by God, people will NOTICE US NOW! Six years, $6.5 million per season later, the Rangers have themselves Wade Redden until he's 38 which, according to the Sens management fans and media, has been his age for a few years now. This is maybe the worst free agent signing I can remember. This isn't a case of gambling on a player and having him not pan out, this is the Rangers paying for somebody that EVERYBODY knows is running out of time and will be, at best, a 30 point player with injury problems for the next six years. At least Sheldon Souray can hurt people with his shot.

The Leafs are in full rebuild mode and are paying a lot of money to do it. Darcy Tucker was bought out, Brian McCabe is being forced out of town, re-signing Sundin seems like an afterthought, and they recently waived Kyle Wellwood and Andrew Raycroft. This team is going after Tavares and damn anybody who gets in their way, like say, their own good players. The first step in a rebuilding mode is, of course, to sign bad players to replace the bad players you just got rid of. Oh, and pay them a little more will ya? Jeff Finger signed a four year deal worth $3.5 million and Niklas Hagman to a four year, $4 million deal. Ha ha! That's not 3.5 and 4 total you big silly, that's PER YEAR. Finger is 28, just finished his second season in the NHL, had 19 points in 72 games, and was so impressive for the Avs in the playoffs that they sat him for five of their ten games. Hagman had 41 points last year and 29 the year before that (both in 82 games) which is nice, except that Darcy Tucker had 34 in 74 games last year and 43 in 56 the year before that and was making $3.5 million per season. Won't the Leafs be so much better this year with Finger and Hagman than McCabe and Tucker.

There were some very good signings yesterday, like Colorado getting Tucker for two years, $2.5 million each, Chicago overpaying but at least getting the best defenseman in Brian Campbell, and Brian Rolston going back to the Devils for maybe a year too long (four years, $20 million) but at a fair market value. No I'm not going to pull numbers to justify that, but I did see him score lots of goals against the Oilers and all with slapshots, even on tip-ins and wrap-arounds. I just saw that Hossa went to Detroit for $7.4 million on a one year deal, which is great for Detroit. A really odd choice for Hossa though because, in a sport where you're one shift away from ending your career, you'd think it wise to take the long-term, big money deal on the table. The rumor was that Edmonton was the highest bidder on Hossa, offering $63 million over seven years. That's WAY too much, kind of glad they didn't get him, but if you're Hossa why wouldn't you take that? I know winning a Stanley Cup is important, but you'd think at some point in the next seven years Edmonton will be a contender, maybe even this year (!?). Man. Detroit. So smart/lucky.

Quick comment on the two other trades the Oilers made yesterday. After getting Visnovsky and making me share my sad feelings late at night while drinking scotch, Lowe traded Raffi Torres for Gilbert Brule and Joni Pitkanen for Eric Cole. Both are great deals, principally because now I won't have to misspell Pitkanen "PitkOnen," anymore, which I realized I've been doing this entire blog. Torres was a salary dump and was probably being dangled at the draft for a mid-round pick. Getting Brule instead is excellent, a former 6th overall pick and Vancouver Giants star, he's struggled in Columbus (139 games, only 10 goals and 18 assists while -25) but is still very young (21) so there's still time for him to revitalize. He's a lottery ticket in other words, and the payout could be huge. Oh, and he's from Edmonton.

Erik Cole has one year left before unrestricted free agency, which was likely the same amount of time they'd have had with Pittckonyn if they'd re-signed him, since it sounded like they were far apart and thus any deal would be only for one year. They finally get another scorer, one they've wanted for a while apparently, and have another option on the second powerplay unit. Guess he'll also replace Curtis Glencross too, who played well for 20 games or so but wanted too much money for the Oilers. Remember Scott Fraser? Of course you don't. Even if Glencross continues to develope, hopefully not for the Flames as rumors suggest, he still wouldn't have been as good for the Oilers this year as Erik Cole will be. So great trades on paper, this team looks pretty complete until game eight of the season when Souray hurts his shoulder, Moreau breaks both his arms, Garon gets lupus and Roloson goes back to letting in one bad goal every four periods, and Gagner and Cogliano get sent to the minors. Hey if we prepare for it, it won't happen right?

TSN now says that Carolina re-signed Pehttquonnin for three years, $12 million, under July 2nd transactions. Couldn't we have afforded that?