There's no hockey to talk about but I want to talk about hockey

So here's a bunch of little crap that isn't really worth talking about, except that I want to. That's the beautiful thing about the editing cycle of the blogosphere: there isn't one!

First of all, someone explain this to me: On the one hand, you've got the Rangers, right? All summer, we're talking about our lack of meaningful depth at center. We've got, basically, Dubinsky, Anisimov, Christensen, and a King's ransom of "utility" wing/centers. So what do we do? First, we maintain a very fluid borderline between "wing" and "center." Then, we offload Brashear and take on Todd White for $2.375 million. Finally, a week ago, we sign this Tim Kennedy winger with the intention of trying him in the middle.

Then, today, a few days into fucking September, the Pittsburgh Goddamnit Penguins sign Mike Comrie for $500,000. And they're probably going to play him as a wing! What the shits, people? Do we just live in a different economy of players than they do? Fuck the heck?!? I hate being jealous of the Penguins.





OK. I feel better now.

In other news, the league is going down in flames around us. For those of you who have been hiding behind a protective shield of willful disbelief, the CliffsNotes tell us that Richard Bloch agreed with the NHL that the Devils' offer to Kovalchuk was designed to circumvent the CBA and should be voided. The contract was therefore considered void, in accordance with the CBA (which itself defines the contract as valid, but allows for either the NHL or the NHLPA to file grievances and for independent arbitrators like Bloch to make decisions on those grievances that could potentially go against something that is otherwise completely valid according to the written terms of the CBA - basically think of him like the American courts in this case).

So, the Devils drafted a new contract that still abuses the terms of the CBA to its advantage (like other contracts in the NHL already do), but less so (although it still pays Kovalchuk $90 million over its first 10 years and then only $10 million over its final five). That one has not yet been accepted or rejected by the NHL. It was supposed to be decided by the league by 5:00 Wednesday, at which time they extended their own deadline to 5:00 today. Then, that night, our own beat writer Larry Brooks printed an article claiming that the NHL had delivered an ultimatum to the NHLPA.

The ultimatum, according to Brooks, contains a pair of "band-aid" rules modifying cap calculations on future contracts: one that cap calculations will only count contract years prior to the player turning 40, and one that cap calculations on contracts longer than five years will use some unspecified formula that gives more weight to the more expensive years. The idea is if that the NHLPA agrees to these amendments by the end of the week, the NHL will approve Kovalchuk's new contract and accept other currently-standing contracts with would retroactively violate the new rules. However, if the NHLPA rejects the amendments, the NHL would reject the Kovalchuk deal, as well as moving to void Roberto Luongo's contract and investigate Marian Hossa's.

Since then, it has become less clear whether or not the NHL gave an "ultimatum" per se, as well as what the specific rules are. Brooks's latest report claims that a deal that crosses age 40 would be treated as two separate contracts with two separate averages, while a deal for 5 years or more that goes past age 35 would treat all salaries under $1 million as a full $1 million for cap purposes. However, what's clear is that it seems like the approval of the Kovalchuk deal is somehow tied to the NHLPA's acceptance of some sort of CBA modification. And it certainly sounds like that acceptance also affects whether or not the league goes on to investigate other currently existing contracts, which obviously they have already approved. Which, to me, is the really, really shady part.

Meanwhile, the NHLPA, you may have heard, has no leader right now. Donald Fehr (often called "the man who ruined baseball" by people who give a shit about baseball, of which I am notably not one and therefore can't comment intelligently on the subject) is currently the most likely in line for this position, and he accepted it given a list of conditions, including a salary demand and the right to continue living in New York despite hockey operations going on in Toronto. The NHLPA board, of course, didn't seem that thrilled by his conditions (particularly, it is suspected, the one where he gets to hire his brother as an outside special counsel), because they didn't bother to vote to approve him Wednesday night, even though they had originally been thought to. So, Fehr is acting director for now, but the NHLPA doesn't actually have a director.

And so that's where we are. More and more people are starting to speak out and call for an NHL commissioner with the best interests of the game, not of the league making money, in mind, the NHLPA still has no one in charge, and Bettman and friends continue to make the NHL the laughing stock of professional sports. The next chapter of this embarrassing drama should come in in about two hours, when some other bullshit excuse pushes this deadline back even farther, and the end result continues to be "everything is still up in the air."

Training camp starts in two weeks, by the way.

To go out on a lighter note, we turn to Michael Del Zotto, who appears to be auditioning for the part of our generation's Yogi Berra, reportedly saying, "There's no days off, whether it's practices or games, or even if it's a day off getting rest."