Adam B. D.NHL to Investigate Older Deals After Victory
August 11th 2010 15:18
The saga continues! Ilya Kovalchuk is a free agent once again after an arbitrator ruled that the NJ Devils had circumvented the salary cap rules of the CBA by signing him to a 17 year, $102 million deal.
If you read my last post on this topic, (Should NHL Have Nixed Kovalchuk Deal) you know that I'm of the opinion that the NHL created this mess for themselves. After the arbitrators ruling came out, I read a couple national writers who praised the NHL for finally putting an end to the tyranny of the general managers. But why praise the NHL? It is pathetic that it took them this long to do something about these "cheat deals", as they were called by the arbitrator, and now we are supposed to sing the praises of Bettman and the NHL? They have been like a kid who continues to give his lunch money to a bully for years until finally he gets the courage to stand up for himself and say no. That is a great story if we are talking about an undersized kid who finally scores a victory over the big lummox on the playground, but we are talking about a supposedly powerful organization keeping its general managers in line. The NHL merely did what they did not have the cajones to do years ago, so they will get no praise from me.
And now the league wants to revisit deals that they already approved. If Bettman doesn't have enough egg on his face, he is looking to put a few Denny's Grand Slams on there with this one! This is the equivalent of a dumb consumer who finds out that he got screwed, so a year later he goes back to the store to get his money back. The NHL made their bed and now they do not want to sleep in it anymore. Because I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the legality of what they are doing, but it reeks of injustice to the teams and players that thought they had signed league approved contracts. I am not saying that those contracts were appropriate, but if the league lacked the gumption to nix those deals when they happened, they should not be allowed to go back and cut them a year into their terms.
Specifically, the league is revisiting the contracts of Luongo, Hossa, Pronger and Savard. So if it turns out the Hossa deal is a violation, technically, the Blackhawks cheated and should be stripped of their Stanley Cup title! Hell yeah, I'm breaking out the champagne here in Philly! We won!!!!! But wait, we had Chris Pronger and they might invalidate his deal too! Oh man, put away the bubbly, looks like the Cup is going to either the Habs or the Sharks. Maybe the NHL needs to have a best of 5 series in late August between the losers of the conference finals to finally decide who the true Cup Champs are this year!
It is one thing to finally stand up and stop these contracts BEFORE they give approval, but it is clearly another to try to go back in time to stop the ones that are already official. Unless Doc Brown has put the Delorean back together and the flux capacitor is up and running, the NHL should be stuck with the deals they approved.
This league is a circus that is being run by the clowns and another work stoppage in 2012 seems inevitable at this point. (2012: Mayan Calendar Ends, Along with the NHL CBA) God help the fans of this sport!
If you read my last post on this topic, (Should NHL Have Nixed Kovalchuk Deal) you know that I'm of the opinion that the NHL created this mess for themselves. After the arbitrators ruling came out, I read a couple national writers who praised the NHL for finally putting an end to the tyranny of the general managers. But why praise the NHL? It is pathetic that it took them this long to do something about these "cheat deals", as they were called by the arbitrator, and now we are supposed to sing the praises of Bettman and the NHL? They have been like a kid who continues to give his lunch money to a bully for years until finally he gets the courage to stand up for himself and say no. That is a great story if we are talking about an undersized kid who finally scores a victory over the big lummox on the playground, but we are talking about a supposedly powerful organization keeping its general managers in line. The NHL merely did what they did not have the cajones to do years ago, so they will get no praise from me.
And now the league wants to revisit deals that they already approved. If Bettman doesn't have enough egg on his face, he is looking to put a few Denny's Grand Slams on there with this one! This is the equivalent of a dumb consumer who finds out that he got screwed, so a year later he goes back to the store to get his money back. The NHL made their bed and now they do not want to sleep in it anymore. Because I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the legality of what they are doing, but it reeks of injustice to the teams and players that thought they had signed league approved contracts. I am not saying that those contracts were appropriate, but if the league lacked the gumption to nix those deals when they happened, they should not be allowed to go back and cut them a year into their terms.
Specifically, the league is revisiting the contracts of Luongo, Hossa, Pronger and Savard. So if it turns out the Hossa deal is a violation, technically, the Blackhawks cheated and should be stripped of their Stanley Cup title! Hell yeah, I'm breaking out the champagne here in Philly! We won!!!!! But wait, we had Chris Pronger and they might invalidate his deal too! Oh man, put away the bubbly, looks like the Cup is going to either the Habs or the Sharks. Maybe the NHL needs to have a best of 5 series in late August between the losers of the conference finals to finally decide who the true Cup Champs are this year!
It is one thing to finally stand up and stop these contracts BEFORE they give approval, but it is clearly another to try to go back in time to stop the ones that are already official. Unless Doc Brown has put the Delorean back together and the flux capacitor is up and running, the NHL should be stuck with the deals they approved.
This league is a circus that is being run by the clowns and another work stoppage in 2012 seems inevitable at this point. (2012: Mayan Calendar Ends, Along with the NHL CBA) God help the fans of this sport!
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