This week I am hosting my entire family [sans my Dad who is staying home in Charlotte]....so I really haven’t had time to really delve into my blog or really anything sports related. However, I will just throw out some quick takes on stuff I’ve caught on the fly in those precious moments when I don’t have to have Spongebob Squarepants on.
*Apparently the NHL and the NHLPA have agreed on a deal that would keep the peace for 6 years. There will be nearly a 25% rollback....meaning that everyone is taking a quarter paycut. There WILL be a hard salary cap that will require teams to spend $21M and no more than $37M...and that number will move with revenue. They will allow buyouts of contracts that wouldn’t count against the cap. No player can make more than 1/5 of his team’s payroll. So if a team is at the cap of $37M, then the highest player can only make $7.4M. The top 10 money making teams will dump money into a pool for the bottom 10 money making teams. There will be salary arbitration [perhaps similar to MLB’s] and the NHL will shut it down in February 2006 so the NHL players can participate in the Olympics [there will be no 2006 All Star Game].
So...who are the winners and losers???? Well, I can’t say the players won anything. In any labor dispute...the public perception of athletes worsen as they are considered greedy. Also, the NHL pretty much got their wishes by installing a hard cap and rolling back contracts. The arbitration aspect lends owners a shot at lowering a player’s salary if he underperformed. The owners also established a entry salary cap so that this garbage of not being able to afford your draft pick will go away.
I also do not agree with the revenue sharing plan. Why should the #10 team be forced to share money but not the #11 team? I know what this is supposed to be for...but the execution is wrong. I’d like to see just a straight revenue percentage taken from each team...and that money gets placed into an "emergency fund". That fund only gets used when something extreme happens...like when the Sabres were having trouble to make payroll payments.
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*On Thursday, the NFL’s supplemental draft will be held. It is a special draft for guys that didn’t get in on the first NFL Draft. Guys like Chris Carter, Bernie Kosar, Brian Bosworth, Steve Walsh and Dave Brown came into the league via the Suppy Draft. But now, the supplemental draft is a haven for abandoned players. Guys with no where to go. So...who are the names this year?
Manuel Wright, a DT from Southern Cal, will most likely be drafted...as well as possibly eight others.
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*Wow...are the Washington Nationals for real or what!?!? Not only have they surprised everyone with their NL East lead heading into the All Star Break...but they just dealt for Preston Wilson and Eric Byrnes!!!
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