Quote from: Jeff on June 27, 2013, 12:05 PM

TB - Lecavalier

I'm beyond disappointed to see this happen.

I don't know much about the negotiations... what kind of nonsense is it that the new CBA reduced the salary cap but doesn't allow teams to restructure deals they made based on the old salary cap?

Or do I have my facts wrong?

I don't think there's a team out there that didn't know the salary cap was going down under the new CBA.  It had been rumoured for years and realistically if your team signs a player to a stupid contract (paying a guythat much for that long a term when he's in his thirties is pretty stupid).

Restructuring a deal under the new cap would mean the player would make less money.  Is that legal?  When you sign a contract aren't you legally, never mind the sub-rules imposed by the NHL itself, obligated to meet the expectations of that contract?  Both the player and the organization? 

If the player stops playing before the terms of the contract are up (i.e. retires) then he is or is not paid, depending on how the contract is worded, but the team is still charged an amount towards the cap.  The league did this to prevent teams from creating all sorts of stupid ass backloaded contracts which simply circumvent the salary cap.  Were this not in place, teams like Philadelphia (no brains) or Toronto (bottomless pockets) could simply backload all the contracts they want and be a gazillion miles over the cap.  How would that be fair to the other teams in the league that can't afford to do that?  It's not and realistically you'd do immense damage to the league.  I think you could expect the league to contract to about ten teams or less if you let them go freewheeling for salaries that are backloaded, maybe more. 

That's not to say that Vinny will be out of TB for long: he'll sign a one year deal somewhere and then re-sign for a lesser amount to end his career with the Lightning.  He's said as much.  So he gets paid out the buyout amount plus he'll resign for probably $4+ million somewhere for a year while his family stays in TB.  Then he'll re-sign a more realistic contract with TB to end his career there. 

Now explain to me why I should feel remotely bad about this.  Lecavalier is getting paid out two thirds of the 37 million dollars owed to him.  He'll sign for about $4 mill more with someone, then will sign with TB again for a more realistic term. 

Here's the math:
Payout 2013: 32.667 million
Probably 2013-14 salary: 4 million
Re-sign with Lightning for three more years with Lightning: 3 years, likely around $3 milliion per year average salary, total 9 million.

Wah!  Poor Vinny. 

Wah! Poor Tampa Bay. 

Vinny's up in money but plays one less year at the front end for the Lightning, still playing out his twilight years there and actually has to play a few less years (4 vs. 7) but ends up about $8 million ahead. 

I think I can miss my family for a year for that kind of coin. 

Tampa Bay on the other hand is out $32+ million dollars for signing a player to an idiotic contract in the first place.  At the same time they free up $7 million dollars in cap space allowing them to sign other players while Vinny is off playing in Toronto/Florida/Philly.  They also get a year to look at their roster and plan for his return with a cap hit of only about $3 million dollars. 

So tell me what the negative effect overall of the new CBA was on the Lightning and Lecavalier? 

Rumours around Letang getting an offer somewhere in the ballpark of 8 million per?  Aside from the fact that's an absurd overpayment, who the hell else are the Pens going to actual put on the ice? 

- Brent and his stupid team (looking forward to Kane and Buff’s summer troubles!)

Why you hatin' on the money phone? 

Me and Buff go to Rotten Ronnies together.  Long live moobs!

Not sure if we have any JDers in Calgary, but I sure hope they've grabbed their scuba gear and/or fled for the high ground or their boats.   

Was reading a report that the first ten rows are underwater at the Saddledome, the Calgary Flames dressing room is totally submerged and the water has effectively shorted out all the electronics in the building, including the jumbotron wiring.   

Apparently the Jumbotron was on the floor surface for maintenance work and is completely done. 

Oddly we got some pretty heavy rains in Winnipeg the exact same day, to the point where the drain in our new Ikea store was shooting up water and they had about 8" of water on the main floor so they had to close down.  Obviously pales in comparison to Calgary though, that's just crazy.

Got me some money from old cocky bastard.  Thanks dude.

Quote from: Jeff on June  6, 2013, 10:21 AM

Last time I went to Costco, it was an impulse buy of cheap 5-pack of socks for $6.  Time before that it was a 2.5lb bag of M&Ms.   

As long as you avoide the impulse buy of a 70" LED TV you should be fine.

Don't waste your time on the 70".  It looks tiny when side by side with the 80".  I'm hoping the 4K/ultra-HD sets drive the price of that down to around $3000 for Christmas and it will be mine.  Then I won't have to venture into movie theaters anymore and that will make me happy because there are too many buffoons in movie theaters playing with their phones and I hate people. 

No, I'm still fine doing it, I'm just not sure if everyone still wants me there so I thought I'd make it known that I'm not attached to it.  It's just that I spend altogether too much time looking at the nerd-verse that is Yahoo sports, so when a new registration period pops up for one of our leagues, I'm usually the first to see it and figure what the heck, I'll re-register us and then I become commissioner. 

I'm far from perfect at it, so I'll stay if you're fine but if there are complaints, I'll hand it over.  No worries either way 

Yeah, I thought about that when drafting and was wondering how smart a Braun pick would be.  Turns out it may have been pretty dumb, but I've been pretty scuttled by injuries this year already with my 2nd, 3rd (half a season), 4th (looking at about two months total), 7th (six weeks to start the season) and 15th rounders all spending time on the DL, some of it considerable.  Before dropping Cabrera tonight I had five guys on my roster on the DL.  So if I lose Braun, I lose contributions from my first four draft picks for various reasons for considerable periods of time.

All that whining aside I'd still like to see sports in general cleaned up.  Baseball and track & field are the dirtiest, to my knowledge but I'm sure there are many others.  At least baseball keeps trying.