Jolt Country

But the size of his contract and his early, if unsustainable success on the mound (3.48 ERA but only 32 strikeouts against 16 walks in 51.2 innings) have made him the face of a small triumph of good sense over greed and institutional stupidity, an enormous upset in the baseball world. I see no problem in overhyping someone like that.

Saturday was a wonderfully disgusting tour of Gary Bettman's hockey world for fans of the Vancouver Canucks if they were paying attention, espeically those who might be season-ticket holders.

Follow us while we explain. As everyone knows, the Calgary Flames acquired the negotiating rights to Jay Bouwmeester in a trade with the Florida Panthers whereby they gave up a player they weren't going to re-sign in Jordan Leopold and a third-round pick. That's fair enough. But in order to clear the cap space to have even a ghost of a chance to sign Bouwmeester, they first off-loaded the $2.3 million U.S. cap hit of defenceman Jim Vandermeer to, of all teams, the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for a forward named Brandon Prust who was making just $500,000.

That's right. The Phoenix Coyotes, whose bills are being paid by the NHL, felt free to expand their payroll by taking on an expensive Flames defenceman. That means the Flames now have the best chance to sign a player the Vancouver Canucks might liked to have signed, by off-loading a cap liability in Vandermeer to the Coyotes, a team whose bills are being paid partly by the Aquilini family through revenue sharing and most recently by league dues. By extension in Bettman's world, Vancouver Canuck fans therefore have helped finance a competitive disadvantage to their own team.

The money they pay in tickets to buy Canuck tickets has gone a goodly long way to help the Flames get better and thereby better able to beat the Canucks on the ice if they're able to sign Bouwmeester, a defenceman with some offensive ability and outstanding mobility.

That certainly seems fair doesn't it. Vancouver fans paying to have their own team beaten. It's not exactly a new concept in sports by any means. Yankee fans have been doing it for years, financing the likes of Tampa Bay for extended periods by paying massive amounts of luxury tax which is then redistributed to the welfare cases of baseball, somethng that was acceptable to New York fans because they continued to beat the Rays like a drum most years. It's only recently whereby paying to watch your own team get hammered has become much of an issue, and there the focus is on inept Yankee management more than how the Rays are financing their rebound.

But in this league, the CBA prevents the Canucks from spending more and outbidding smaller markets like Calgary for players they deem to be better. So when your money as a fan is being used by loser teams to beat your own, which is financially prevented from putting a better team in front of you, as a paying customer you probably have the right to ask why.

Further, try to imagine the delight of Jerry Moyes, the owner of the Coyotes at the moment even though he clearly has very little control over what is being done on his behalf. The league will almost certainly be a secured creditor when the Phoenix situation ends in some fashion, which means the money they're using to buy more players for the team now will almost certainly be returned to them. So where is that money eventually going to come from if it's going back to the league when all is said and done? You got it, out of Moyes' jeans, because by the time the bills are all paid, what's left to go to him is going to be reduced even further by this deal. Not content to tie the man's hands, now they knee him in the financial groin for good measure.

Full marks to Flames GM Darryl Sutter for pulling off the deal to off-load Vandermeer, a guy with so little mobility you have to wonder whether Phoenix GM Don Maloney hasn't had his brain raddled with all the stuff that's been going on around him. Or maybe Maloney has been listening to Suns' GM Steve Kerr, who seems to be able to screw up anything he touches, all the while smiling sweetly and pretending he has a clue. Evidently the league will let anyone run it's team, or Moyes' team or Jerry Reinsdorf's team.

There you have it in a nutshell. A league run for the benefit of losers to the detriment of the teams that have a decent hockey market and know how to run their businesses properly. It's a league where the fans in the best markets get screwed.

© Copyright (c) The Province

This column appears in the January 11 issue of ESPN The Magazine. By Rick Reilly.

In New Orleans town
The fans hit their knees,
Thanking good heaven
For a Saint named Brees.

Dozens of QBs
All tried and all failed
To do what dear Drew
Has nearly nailed:

Take the Suff'rin Saints
Out of their black hole
And drop them into
A real Super Bowl.

Misfits, scatter arms,
Collections of bums --
Only good for selling
Wheelbarrows of Tums.

For 42 years
They whiffed at a ring.
Try to name them all?
Sure, but this might sting:

One owned a Heisman.
His name was Wuerffel.
But once he turned pro,
He was just err-ful.

One called Aaron Brooks
Perfected the miss;
One was named Everett
(Please, don't call him Chris).

Three Bobbys, two Todds,
Three Billys, one Jake,
Two Tommys, one Tim,
A Guido, a Snake.

Nino Ninowski
Made the O a no;
Baton Rouge fans were
Glad to see him geaux.

A Rebel named Archie,
Victim of fate's whim.
His two sons made it --
Sadly, never him.

They came and they went:
Wilsons -- Dave and Wade --
A guy named Cipa,
A stiff named Fourcade.

Hobert, Tolliver
(Both were Billy Joes),
Guys who got the rock
Then stood there and froze.

Cuozzo and Bob Scott
Were better off sat;
Nussmeier and Blake
Made you say, "Who dat?"

One, Bobby Douglass,
Was so not money
(But he did marry
A Playboy bunny).

There was Edd Hargett,
Yes, spelled with two D's.
That's grading too high;
He wore lead booties.

Five of them made it
To Bowls with others:
Stabler and Collins
(A pox on their mothers).

Nice guy Gary Wood,
Stand-up dude Mike Buck.
Wood? Not very good.
Buck? Fond of the duck.

Jake's a good Panther
(Last name of Delhomme).
He stunk as a Saint.
Guess they didn't know'm.

Bobby "Eh-bear"
Wasn't all that great.
The pass rush would come,
And he'd hibernate.

One guy, Karl Sweetan,
Taught Plimpton to play.
Flick called Paper Lion
(We'd take George, all day).

The U sent to town
Fella named Walsh, Steve.
By the third quarter
You'd get up and leave.

The Aints had more busts
Than Walgreens has meds.
Small wonder fans watched
With bags on their heads.

But now good times roll
To all Cajuns' glee
(God forbid Drew Brees
Takes free agency).

content beaver wrote:Chris.

Bill Simmons wrote: Even though Garnett ended up winning a title, his recent decline is more than a little unfair; after killing himself on all those crappy Timberwolves teams, when he finally reached NBA nirvana and found the right teammates and the right crowd, his body held up for exactly 16 months. Now he's playing on one leg like 2004 C-Webb, and there's no going back.

"One of the first to step out into the sun was veteran Colts offensive line coach Howard Mudd, who has said he would retire after this season. Before what is likely his final game, he looked up into the stands, presumably and friends and fans."

2006
RB Reggie Bush(notes), USC: Bush is a fringe bust classification; a talented player who was drafted far too high at second overall. He'll stay with the Saints in 2010 despite an $8 million base salary

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Also, it hit me again that the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS WON THE SUPER BOWL. This off-season could last ten years as far as I am concerned.

When LeBron shot his first set of free throws during Game 3 of the Boston series, I was disappointed that the Boston crowd didn't chant either "You're a fa-ker! You're a fa-ker!" (to tweak him about his injured elbow) or "You're gonna leave! You're gonna leave!" That's when I realized something: Thanks to Twitter, we could mobilize crowd chants almost to the minute during playoff games.

For instance, let's say someone created a Twitter account called @CelticsChants (just for fun, I did it) and became the go-to chanting coordinator during games. Before Game 3, I post the tweet, "Chant for first LeBron FTs: 'You're a fa-ker! You're a fa-ker!'" Then, during garbage time, I post another one: "If LBJ goes to line again, chant, 'You're gonna leave! You're gonna leave!'" Even if 500 people at the game were following that account, wouldn't that be enough fans to get those chants rolling so everyone in the stadium joined in? Just for fun, I'm trying this for Game 6 in Boston: www.twitter.com/celticschants.