You Know Your Franchise Is In Trouble When ...

I am speechless.

Hypocrisy In Hockey

The NHL has decided to allow goon Brandon Sugden to play this season. Sugden signed retirement papers with the Columbus Blue Jackets in 2006 but was invited to join the New York Islanders training camp. One little thing there, NHL rules state that a player must sit out a full year of professional hockey before being eligible to return from retirement. After retiring from the NHL, he "played" in the LNAH, that Quebec goon league. He had 37 fights in that league, 24 less than the leader but 10 more than Jared Boll, who led the NHL. All 30 NHL teams voted whether to allow Sugden back into the league and four said no. That should have been that but the league listened to his pathetic sob story and decided to break their own rules and let him back.

I know the Isles are left bottom trolling for talent, but to make a big deal of a minor goon like this clown is ridiculous. I am not heartless, I feel bad for his dad, but that should have nothing to do with it.

Bettman and the NHL are clearly against fighting (no matter what they say) so to let a former drug addict in just to make a dying man happy is insane. I don't know if they noticed, but Sugden was banned from a minor league for attacking a fan! The only thing Sugden is capable of doing on the ice is hurting players with actual skill. The NHL had psychos like him before - John Kordic, Link Gaetz, etc. - and have clearly discouraged one-dimensional maniacs since. So why now? Does the league really miss Chris Simon's inexcusable acts that they will allow another homicidal barbarian to join their ranks?

This is a tremendous mistake and I eagerly await the first Islanders/Penguins game so this lunatic can injure the NHL's golden child and give the league what they deserve.

Right Outta Slap Shot ...

You gotta see this:



The entire video is here, you just have to click on Junior A hockey brawl. And the details on the ensuing suspensions are here. Friggin wild.

Much thanks to Mirtle for discovering it.

Please Stop The Insanity!!!

The Edmonton Oilers offered Dustin Penner a $21.25-million, five-year offer sheet and I want to hunt down Charles Wang and beat him over the head with a hockey stick.

The deal would pays Brown $4.25 million in each of the next five seasons ... that is ridiculous. This is Dustin Penner we are talking about ... he had 45 f-ing points last season. If this sort of thing continues, and I think it will, the league will be headed to a labor dispute again around the time of the 2012 Olympics. Teams cannot keep offering ludicrous contracts to mid-level talent. Edmonton already tried to pull this garbage on Buffalo for Thomas Vanek (and failed), resulting in another prematurely-deserved high money contract. But at least Vanek averaged a point per game this last season.

Don't think I am attacking this just because it is the Oilers; I think the deal the Rangers gave Scotty Gomez was stupid as well - too many years, too much money after a poor season. I do blame it all - of course - on the Islanders and the farce of a contract they handed to DP, thus the stick to the head of Wang comment.

Offer sheets themselves have always been troublesome - the Rangers helped speed the league towards chaos when they gave an offer sheet to Joe Sakic back in '97. But again, at least Sakic was a somebody who had proven his worth, not some kid who may turn out to be something someday.

Sooner or later the league will have to step in, if only because they will lose hold of the salary cap that they were so easily able to force upon the players. I don't want to have to spend another season driving two, three hours to watch UHL or AHL hockey.