National Hockey League: Final word on Kovalchuk expected sometime today
All kinds of rumours have been heard this off season, from grand contracts to grand conspiracies and the press has been eating it up. The fans love a controversy but as the Saga unfolds, an ugly side of the NHL is in the spotlight, the business side.
The fans treat the players like infallible idols who can do no wrong. At least that is how they want to look at the players. If it were up to the fans they would Canonize Ilya Kovalchuk as the patron saint of ice hockey forwards, or at least the Jersey fans would. That is if the New Jersey Devils deal with Kovalchuk survives the Arbitrator. If it doesn’t then possibly Los Angeles fans would be canonizing Kovalchuk or Atlanta fans. It doesn’t really matter where Kovalchuk eventually ends up playing. The fans aren’t all that picky. They just want the players to work their magic on the ice.
What they don’t want to see are financial squabbles. Kovalchuk’s star power and fans thirst for controversy has seen an unexpected side effect. While publications competed with one another to give the most insight into the internal workings of NHL and the horrific collective bargaining agreement the fans just stood there in horror. The game they love, the players they idolized and the teams they rooted for, turned out to be less sport and more business.
The franchises are indeed businesses and their primary function is making money. The only reason it works out is because, to make money the businesses have to appear as sport-like as possible. Teams and players go to great lengths to uphold their public image as true devotees of the sport. Sure they love the game but there is big money involved. The players want as much as they can get and the teams try to be as stingy as possible. This perception of greediness is damaging for both teams and players.
At the heart of it, money is what this Kovalchuk Saga is all about so it’s a good thing all around that by the end of today, hopefully, it would be behind us. The fans can do without it.
The Arbitrator, Richard Bloch, heard the league and the players association’s arguments and concluded the hearing. Today he is expected to announce a decision and that decision is likely to be in the New Jersey Devils’ favour. The owner of the New Jersey Devils Jeff Vanderbeek’s temperament certainly suggests as much. While speaking to the press, Vanderbeek said that he wouldn’t be losing sleep over the weekend while the fate of a $100 million dollar contracts hangs in the balance. Perhaps its bravado or maybe Vanderbeek realizes what so many analysts have been saying, the league has very little chance of prevailing in this round.
It is an opinion that has been gaining more popularity as the deadline for the arbitration ruling inches closer. The league had a weak case against the contract and they knew something like this might haunt them later when the collective bargaining agreement was signed. The Devils’ general manager, Lou Lamoriello, was one of the people who tried to cover these loopholes when the CBA was been written down. In fact, because of that a particularly farfetched rumour has been gaining momentum. It has been suggested that Lou signed Kovalchuk to the unapologetically front-sloaded contract in part to stir the league into action. Even if the arbitrator rules in favour of the Devils the whole drama would serve as a stepping stone in the next collective bargaining agreement for the league to make their case. The Devils would still get Kovalchuk even if the arbitrators voids the deal with a new, more league friendly deal which the Devils have probably formulated already.
That said, in its current form the Kovalchuk deal is perfectly in line with the CBA and after today’s decision everyone would finally be able to move on from Kovalchuk.
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