The Crush of Something

Does anybody ever go to FOX Sports for sports news? I tend to only go there when I'm looking for a softball of an article (see below), but they have a ticker-like bar at the bottom to tell you what games are being played today. Because you can't just click on "Schedule" and open in a new tab? Anyways, FOX Sports on MSN Presenting The Hockey News gave me Edward Fraser's list of four names that aren't all correct. Let's see if I can remember to copy, paste, bold and swear.

Before the lockout, you could forgive a player who was overpaid because it didn't really affect the team; you could simply throw more money at the problem, filling the hole left by the underperformer.

It's so hard to remember the halcyon days of hockey without a salary cap, but I'm pretty sure fans and management alike used to bitch about players not playing to match the amount of money being paid. Just like any other fan has said in any other sport, salary caps be damned. Poor play while being paid millions has always been deemed as unforgivable, and then the player gets a significant pay cut. It happens in sports and everyday life, but let's write a boring article about it.

But nowadays, and it has been an issue that has grown year after year since 2005-06 as more teams gravitate to the salary-cap ceiling and space becomes increasingly precious, being overpaid is a crime.

I guess I'll have to pretend that this is a new issue.

If a player is heaped a handsome sum, he is expected to maintain or elevate his play, even though his best years may have gone by or were never even possible.

Isn't your beef with the GM that throws him the money? It's hard to fault a player for signing a contract that he is offered if the player knows he isn't going to be good. If ESPN.com came to me tomorrow and offered me money to write this bullshit, I'd take it. My integrity can disappear if I can work and wear this shirt at the same time.

That has been the case with the following four. Not a soul among this quartet has played overly poorly, but the grand expectations placed upon them based on their stipends have resulted in unrealistic goals.

So this article exists... why? Instead of trying to delve into why contracts are so much, maybe use press access to talk to GMs and scouts, we're going to see four players - that may be very good - and roast them for not asking for less money. Outstanding.

Brad Richards, C, Dallas Stars ($7.8 million cap hit)

The league's fifth-highest cap hit and 12th-highest salary (also $7.8 million), Richards was rewarded for his brilliant 91-point effort and two-way play in 2005-06.

It was a steady decline in production from that point on, however, with seasons of 70, 62, 51 and 48 points. His plus-minus suffered as well — though that's as much a product of a shaky team in Tampa — going minus-46 in the 144 games after inking the deal.

Good thing he repeated that salary number. Almost forgot it in the 58 characters between them.

So Brad Richards played for a shitty team in Tampa, huh? Well now that he plays in Dallas, his numbers must still suck. After all, the article is about players that can't perform to match their salaries. What would you say, Mr. Fraser, if I told you that Brad Richards was having a great year?

The 29-year-old is generating top-notch numbers this season and is on pace for 23 goals and 93 points, but replicating this effort next season will be a must if he hopes to prove he is in fact a true No. 1 pivot and deserving of such dough.

Oh, it was the very next paragraph of your article? Good thing you included him in this. To recap, Brad Richards was signed to a contract for scoring 91 points in a season, and is on pace to score 93 points in a season and this is a problem.

Scott Gomez, C, Montreal Canadiens ($7.3 million cap hit)

Perhaps Gomez doesn't belong on this list,

Two players in and we have 0 players that belong on this list. What's worse is that I'm not the one saying that they don't belong here, it's the author of the list. What's worse than that is that he finished.

as he arguably hasn't lived up to even what he should be — a second-line center. But I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest if he was making $5 million the collective complaints wouldn't be nearly as loud.

In his two seasons in New York, the skilled setup man had seasons of 54 and 42 assists to go along with 16 goals in each campaign. The numbers weren't bad, but the Broadway masses expected him to immediately gel with Jaromir Jagr and create instant magic. We know how that turned out.

What a great chance to make a Jaromir Jagr gambling joke. Something like "...Broadway masses could have put money on him to gel..." There, a gambling and hair product joke.

Now, he's on pace for his worst season ever, making Habs GM Bob Gainey look terrible in the process. If he doesn't bounce back in the second half, he'd be overpaid at half price.

To clarify, Bob Gainey looks terrible because he traded to get Scott Gomez and his contract, not because he signed him to it.

Brian Campbell, D, Chicago Blackhawks ($7.1 million cap hit)

Oh, how the Blackhawks wish they could turn back the clock and avoid doling out $57 million to the mobile defenseman. Then-GM Dale Tallon should have had the foresight to see his own cadre of blueliners would develop into a formidable corps, but instead Campbell has become cap enemy No. 1 (after Cristobal Huet stepped up his game this season) on a team that will be in dire straits this summer.

It's fairly obvious that Dale Tallon had no foresight, and is thus out of a job as GM. (And with a name like Hjalmarsson, it has to be good!)

The Hawks' highest-paid player is third on their defenseman depth chart and in average time-on-ice (behind Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook), but would be a top-pair blueliner on 80 percent of the league's clubs. Even so, few of that 80 percent would find it worth spending 12.5 percent of available cap space on a single, one-dimensional defender.

Brian Campbell would be a top defenseman, but some GM that isn't a GM anymore spent too much money on him. Good thing this article was written.

Players named: 3. Players that suck: 1.

Chris Drury, C, New York Rangers ($7 million cap hit)

Blueshirts GM Glen Sather must have thought Drury was the second coming of Mark Messier when he doled out more than $35 million for seven seasons to a player who had never topped the 70-point mark.

Damn, he got one.

Leadership is an intangible that doesn't show up on the scoresheet and Drury certainly has that trait in spades,

And combined with Chris Drury's grit and determiniation, makes him worth $7 million. Just kidding, he sucks and shouldn't be playing.

but the 33-year-old was and is better suited for second-line duty. With that in mind, his performance (22-plus goals and 56-plus points in each of his first two years on Broadway) would reap positive reviews.

But like his brethren on this list, his egregious contract will always be his millstone.

If he had used the "on pace to" numbers, he'd have Chris Drury dead to rights for this season. 11 goals, 21 assists for 32 points in 77 games. For whatever reason, that was glossed over so that all four players in this article look like they may or may not be overpaid. What a waste of time. But at least I can feel better about myself for posting since Terry Frei no longer supplies article to ESPN, and isn't that really what I'm being paid to do?

How Not to Write an Article: List Edition

It gets pretty hard to write articles. You have to sit down at your job - which pays you to write articles - and come up with a story line. Just one idea, even. Brian Costello of The Hockey News just can't handle the pressure of a deadline and instead just gives up.

Yanic Perreault, where did you go?

Kevyn Adams, where did you go?

Chad Kilger, where did you go?

Google came up with nothing on Yanic Perreault, Kevyn Adams as a player-agent as announced on January 6th, and Chad Kilger's plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan. It spun in. There were no survivors.

So much about NHL hockey revolves around the here and now that it’s easy to forget the players who are not back with us this season.

We make a big deal, for good reason, about the retirements of the big-name players such as Dominik Hasek and Trevor Linden. And did anyone not read enough headlines of the pending retirements/comebacks of Scott Niedermayer, Mats Sundin and Peter Forsberg?

In Brett Farve perspective, not in the least.

But whatever became of Richard Matvichuk, Scott Thornton and Martin Lapointe? How about Glen Murray, Geoff Sanderson and Dick Tarnstrom? I haven’t seen the names Mark Smith, Jim Dowd and Aaron Miller on any NHL rosters this season. Dallas Drake? Sandis Ozolinsh?

OK, now you're just naming people. That's not really constructive.

Some players retire simply because their time has come. Others never play again because, as seasoned veterans in a salary cap world, they don’t fit in anymore for a variety of reasons. But we salute you all for worthy careers that effectively evaporated before we had a chance to formally recognize them.

Is it necessary to formally recognize every player that retires? All they did was not play anymore.

Every year in the NHL, more than 100 players make their big-league debuts. For some, it’s the start of something huge. For most, it’s just an NHL cup of coffee along the way to maybe something more next season.

I bet you anything that the NHL uses that awful Douwe Egberts that my college cafeteria had.

But if 100-plus players are making their debuts, many dozens of players have been phased out, never to be heard from in the NHL again.

Or perhaps they are sent back down to the minors after being called up on emergency conditions and will be back up when they're actually ready.

It’s actually a staggering list. You don’t realize the volume until you start jotting them down. Here’s a long list of NHL regulars in seasons past who are either playing in Europe or the minors this season. Apologies to those I’ve forgotten. If we don’t see you back in the NHL, thanks for the memories. We hardly knew ye.

And if we do see you back in the NHL, then you have to tell The Hockey News why you didn't retire and have a big party in your honor. Let's see this list.

Bates Battaglia, Jason Ward, Mike York, Petr Nedved, Patrick Traverse, Marcus Nilson, Branislav Mezei, Kris Beech, Vitaly Vishnevski, Ladislav Nagy, Steve McCarthy, Brad Isbister, Nolan Pratt, Bryan Berard, Curtis Brown, Sergei Brylin, Sean Hill, Jeff Cowan, Jon Klemm, Martin Rucinsky, Mathias Tjarnqvist, Josef Vasicek, Scott Parker, Peter Schaefer, Jeff Jillson, Mike Johnson, Randy Robitaille, Trevor Letowski, Shawn Bates, Andrei Zyuzin, Jan Hlavac, Nolan Baumgartner, Rory Fitzpatrick, Eric Boguniecki, Steve Kelly, Josh Green, Keith Carney, Alexei Zhitnik, Patrick Thoresen, Jed Ortmeyer, Brandon Bochenski, Joe Dipenta, Mark Hartigan, John Pohl, Jozef Stumpel, Martin Straka, Bryan Smolinski, Jaroslav Modry, David Vyborny, Martin Gelinas, Branko Radivojevic.

...and that's the end of the article! Well, thanks for coming out, it's been a blast!

What? You were expecting more than just a long list? Well go piss up a rope, Eileen. This is The Hockey NEWS, asshole, not The Hockey Exhaustive Research Into What Players Are Doing or Where They Are Playing.

There's no method to the list, it's just names. So what was the point of that? How about the list of the 100 new players in the league that replaced this list? Maybe we have to wait another week...

And now, in honor (honour?) of the kickstart of the 2009 AFL season, I will now attempt to copy and paste the most recent lineup of players for the Hawthorn Hawks, defending champions of Australian Rules Football's Premiership.

Max Bailey, Jarryd Roughead, Jordan Lewis, Rick Ladson, Sam Mitchell (captain), Mark Williams, Michael Osborne, Xavier Ellis, Chance Bateman, Clinton Young, Brad Sewell, Simon Taylor, Grant Birchall, Luke Hodge, Beau Dowler, Beau Muston, Brent Guerra, Mitchell Thorp, Tim Boyle, Ben McGlynn, Travis Tuck, Lance Franklin, Trent Croad, Ryan Schoenmakers, Liam Shiels, Stephen Gilham, Thomas Murphy, Campbell Brown, Stuart Dew, Josh Kennedy, Cyril Rioli, Brent Renouf, Jarryd Morton, Jordan Lisle, Brendan Whitecross, Luke Lowden, Robert Campbell, Shane Savage, Garry Moss, Tim Walsh, Matt Suckling, Will Sierakowski, Cameron Stokes, Riley Milne, Hayden Kiel, Luke Breust, Carl Peterson

It's not another Brian Costello article, but an incredible simulation! Where's my dollaridoos from The AFL News?

The Hockey News Creates Stupid Ideas

My beloved sport isn't popular. That's why we've been best friends all these years... *single tear hits keyboard* The sport has become more exciting ever since they went and canceled a season on all of us. Perhaps too exciting. So says Sam McCaig, senior copy editor of The Hockey News. Why they let these people blog is beyond me.

A couple of days ago, a fellow THN editor asked me if I was still “down on the shootout.”

I promptly replied, “Yes.”

Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays.

However, back when the tie-breaking format was introduced in 2005, I probably would’ve yelled, “Hell, yes!” and immediately launched into a double-decibel rant about the NHL selling out the game and the shootout’s complete lack of credibility.

Complete lack of credibility? It's a game, asshole. How do you measure hockey's credibility? Man, I wish that I would have read that article.

“It’s a skills competition they ripped off from the All-Star Game!” I would’ve cried. “Nothing more than a novelty act!”

And I would have yelled back, "Hey, dipshit, the 1994 gold medal in the winter olympics was decided by a shootout! Shut the fuck up so I can eat my sammich!" And a novelty act? A novelty act would be the teams trotting out a three member circus freak panel to fight each other. A winner would be determined by blood loss.

"Hockey is a team game!” I surely would’ve shouted. “Let the teams decide who wins and loses, not an individual player on a propped-up breakaway!”

Because those teams played to a tie. So lets bore the fans who don't care about the sport anyways by having them play even more.

Not being smart enough at the time, I wouldn’t have even thought to bring up the fact that four-column records (win–loss–overtime loss–shootout loss) are a royal pain in the standings. Or that the “loser point” would forever relegate a trusty stat like winning percentage to the trash pile. (Now teams have a “points percentage,” which is like winning percentage…but completely irrelevant.

Hey, that's a great point. Unless you could reclaim that room by just adding the shootout loss into the overtime loss column. It's the same outcome, with the team getting one point in the standings. Or you could just be a shithead about it. We've seen where Sammy decided to go with that. And on the same note - way to waste space by separating your idea inside the parenthesis into two paragraphs. What a shithead.

A team could lose all 82 games in a shootout for a record of 0-0-82…And hey! Look! They’re .500! What a year! Stanley Cup, here we come! What do you mean there’s no shootout in the playoffs! Just wait…)

Caution! Sam's slope is very slippery. Or a team could lose 82 games in overtime, before the game is decided in a shootout, and still be 0-0-82. Oh, what's that? You're using three columns? Yeah, get fucked, Sam.

The truth is, though, I’ve mellowed on the shootout a bit.

A bit.

I have only gotten angrier in the last fifteen minutes. Sam has had three years to cool his jets.

I still feel the same way I did when it was thrust upon the league three years ago – that a player-versus-player competition is an awful way to decide a team game – but my passion has subsided with the passage of time.

So what about penalty shots during the game? That's part of the tradition that you're so fond of. Are you going to decry that? And let's also set about in eliminating the ability for a single player to get a breakaway during the game and facing the goalie by himself. Those are unfair because the whole team has fucked up and let a forward get behind the defense. While we're at it, lose the goalie. Why should one individual be allowed to only stop shots in this team sport?

I can even grudgingly concede – as long as you don’t throw it back in my face – that fans, for the most part, seem to like the shootout. If you’ve ever been in attendance for an NHL game that required one, you know the in-arena intensity shoots through the roof. And, definitely, entertaining the fans and giving season-ticket holders the feeling they got their money’s worth is important.

And it brings in fans that normally wouldn't watch a game. I could yell "Shootout!" in college and roommates would come in and watch, then go back to not caring about the NHL. It's good for the league and good for the sport. A larger fan base would bring more into the sport, and then the talent grows and the game gets better.

However.

What however? However, the game needs to be boring because the way it was is much better! The game should die a slow and miserable death at the hands of Sam McCaig! The streets shall run black and red with newsprint and blood! More fans = better for the sport. Shootouts make the game more exciting, so how is there a however?

Nothing is more important than maintaining the integrity of the game. And while the introduction of the shootout did not sink the league’s credibility, it was a shot across the bow. Think about it. The next logical step is to introduce the shootout to decide playoff games; say, for games that remain tied after one 20-minute overtime period.

Are you fucking kidding me? The overtime period(s) in the playoffs are still played 5-on-5. So the next logical step would be to go to 4-on-4 like they do in the regular season. A shootout is very far from the next logical step unless you're a blithering moron. And as for Credibility and integrity? You could have gone with TV and greed forcing the shootout to create artificial excitement and make games end on time so that FSN Final Score doesn't get bumped. Notice the lack of evidence to show that the league has lost credibility and integrity, which can't be measured. What can be measured, of course, is attendance and league revenue. Those have gone up since the lockout, and the excitement of a shootout could be a cause of it, along with redistribution of talent with a salary cap and revenue sharing. But the game lost integrity, scruples, and street cred. No hustle either, Skip.

Surely, we can all agree that would be a terrible day for the league. NHL playoff overtime is the best thing about hockey – you could argue nothing is more exciting in the world of pro sports – and the last thing the league should do is tamper with its most thrilling aspect.

Overtime playoff hockey was pretty cool when I could stay up and watch the games. A couple overtimes are still fun to watch. In Dallas, they stand through the whole thing, which is a pretty cool tradition for such a mindless fan base. There are a lot of things that are more exciting in every sport than playoff overtimes. Baseball has bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, football has last second desperation, and basketball has the last 45 seconds that turn into an hour with timeouts when the score is close. Fuck, even bowling has the 10th frame. Breakaways are the most thrilling aspect of the game. So stop bitching about the way it used to be. Didn't you see they changed the logo, Sam? It slants upward.

In fact, I think the league should go the other way and extend overtime during the regular season. Forget the shootout; how about 4-on-4 OT for 10 minutes instead of five? Or 20 minutes? Or play until someone scores; that’s what sudden-death overtime is all about.

And the arenas could play Brahms' Lullaby.

The naysayers might complain about games going too long – granted, no one wants to stay up until two in the morning on a Tuesday night in February to see who wins the fifth St. Louis-Nashville meeting – but the fact is, more than 40 percent of regular season games that go to overtime are decided within the five-minute frame. Plus, if teams know they don’t have the option to try and “hold on” for a shootout, they’ll be more apt to go for the win in OT.

Right now, 100% of the games end within a reasonable amount of time. Andrew touched on fairness in OT in football and now here it is in hockey. Shootouts are a fair way to end a game. In a long OT game, a bad penalty can be called and ruin the outcome of the game, fucking up Sam's precious integrity.

And if it’s really a big concern that far too many games would go on for far too long, why not go to 3-on-3 after 10 minutes of 4-on-4? There won’t be any triple-overtime marathons under that format, we can guarantee you. Granted, 3-on-3 is a little cartoony, but it’s much better than deciding games with a 1-on-1 format.

Actually, 3-on-3 hockey has been done before. And it was the greatest video game. Ever. But in the NHL overtime, I don't think that all of the sudden somebody will yell "BO-NUS!" and you'll get an unstoppable slap shot. Well, not yet.

Pretty much anything is.

How about games are decided by the drawing and quartering of senior copy writers from The Hockey News? Teams win by having the majority of the corpse. I don't want that to actually happen, but is that better? Pretty much anything is.