Who has been the Most Supportive Team in Regards to NHL Player Salaries?

In every league there is that one team that pisses you off because they keep poaching the top talent which in theory is supposed to make them winners; the New York Yankees were the poster child for this theory of Talent+Money=Winning. Of course, there are a lot of other teams that have failed in this model, mainly because they tend to stick with the 'franchise player' idea, in which you pay 1 player an insane amount of money to produce wins and while it has proven to perhaps increase your winning percentage a little, it doesn't necessarily equate to championships.

The idea of the salary cap is to make a competitive team on the ice and in the owner's bank account. And while there have been some instances where a GM appears to have been sniffing glue at that one particular moment in time when they fill in the 'yearly salary' blank on a player's contract, most teams are learning that they can't just ride the back of one player to the Stanley Cup. Well, except for Philadelphia who has had a decades long history of raising the bar in terms of player salaries.

Did you know Chris Gratton once made $10 million a year? (1996-97) Which was $4 million a year more than Wayne Gretzky was making at the time?

Of course, it helps that he signed in Philadelphia, who has continually shown over the years that their ownership has no concept of money, says Chris Pronger, Ilya Bryzgalov, Danny Briere, Mike Richards, Eric Lindros, Shea Weber - all people who have profited immensely by being on Philadelphia's 'no price is too much' bargaining strategy. By trying to buy talent not only do the Flyers put a 'price' on a player, the rest of the players use that as a comparison to what they should get paid. When Gretzky saw what he was being compared to, he retired rather than be the guy that was being paid less than Keith Tkachuk, who is a great player, loved the guy but he's not all-time scoring leader.


Basically, the Philadelphia Offer Sheet is every Restricted Free Agents Holy Grail as proven time and time again when it comes to the off season.

Seriously, who the fuck was Chris Gratton?

Other notable observations taken from Wikipedia's top 5 NHL salaries by year...

All-Time WTF Canucks Moments or And the winner of the Vancouver Goaltending Controversy is... Eddie Lack?

Little does he know by next week his life will be hell.

Man, here I was thinking i'd be done writing about hockey for awhile, maybe write something about being a dad then Mike Gillis goes off and does something that shocks most of the hockey world more then seeing that Iron Mike Keenan in Russia documentary on Sportsnet. Luongo finally gets traded for a 3rd string goalie, only months after the Canucks dealt away their other #1 netminder, Cory Schneider.  In less than a year, the Canucks have lost 2 starting goalies, their most successful head coach, and the once dominant scoring machine Sedins are both approaching their worst offensive outputs in their careers.  

But how does this rate in the Vancouver Canuck all-time list of colossal WTF moments?

Here's my Favourites, in semi-random order.

Wayne Gretzky IS Luke Skywalker...

While this was already published by the UK webzine, Whatculture this is also part of my ongoing attempt to catalog/save/remember past articles. However, for this special blog post, I've added my own photos for the most part as I don't think the UK editors really knew who i was talking about. 

Enjoy the read... 

NHL 8 Reasons Hockey is Perfect for Star Wars Geeks

or

How I learned to stop worrying and just rip off other people...

Being given an opportunity to introduce the world of the great sport of ice hockey into the WhatCulture’s vast canon of subjects didn’t come without its own set of problems. Specifically, how do you start? With an explanation of the rules? Boring. Perhaps an overview of the top players and teams? Only if you already knew the game. The best fights in one of the only professional sports that condones fighting? Potentially next time… How about the way that Hollywood has portrayed the sport? Now, we are getting somewhere.

Now to associate it with Star Wars in some way…

Being a predominantly UK-based pop-culture website, it can be understandable that most of our sports coverage discusses football, what with its rabid fan base, history of passion, the occasional riot and world-wide acceptance. In North America there is a sport that has many of those characteristics and it’s not American football or professional baseball.

The one sport that parallels football, at least in countries in where it snows, is hockey.

First lesson; hockey is not referred to as ‘ice hockey’ by those that know the game, much as football is not referred to as ‘foot-soccer’. Just getting that out of the way.

Simply stated, the goal in hockey is to beat your opponent’s team by getting an object (the puck) into their net more times than they do in yours. To make the game move faster, the puck is propelled forward by a stick, the surface is covered in ice and players strap blades of steel to their feet called skates.

Basically, it’s football on meth, as designed by people with short tempers and limited attention spans. Due to the high rates of speed, players can either turn quickly in a circle (if they are European) or hit into each other and start again (if they are North American).

As a primer to the introduction of this great game and the dysfunctional league under which the top athletes of the world come to make vast (or little) amounts of money (depending on who you talk to) a comparison of hockey’s modern day history to the greatest movie franchise of all time seems as good as way as any to its introduction to WhatCulture’s readership.

Star Wars is a movie steeped in tradition, with heroic figures, interesting side characters, evil shadowy villains and run by a large unknown group of marketing executives who would do anything to make a buck, hiding behind the public face of the franchise, George Lucas. The National Hockey League (or NHL herewith) is a league steeped in tradition, heroic figures, interesting side characters, evil shadowy villains and run by a large group of team owners who would do anything to make a buck, hiding behind the public face of NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.

For example, just last year, after declaring record league-wide revenue hockey team owners unanimously decided to lock out their own players from training camp because they felt the players were making too much money, which would eventually destroy the league. This is like saying making too many Star Wars ‘collectibles’ would ultimately result in no more Star Wars movies. Yet Disney just bought the entire Star Wars franchise for all the money in the known world because anything with a Star Wars logo on it seems to make more money. The NHL team owners claimed to be on the cusp of bankruptcy, despite the same owners recently beginning to shell out decade-long contracts for decent players that have little collectible value, like a present day David Beckham jersey.

If you look at the history of hockey compared to the original Star Wars trilogy that’s not where the similarities end. Here are 8 more ways hockey is the perfect sport for Star Wars geeks, in particular because of a certain Wayne Gretzky…

Worst Canuck Subjects to Bring Up Drunk.

You have to admit, there is nothing more fun sitting in a pub with a few of your most devoted Canuck brethren and sticking it to them regarding their choice of lame-ass teams to follow.  There is something about watching the spittle form on their lips as they defend their great Canucks that reminds you "Yet somehow this is all really funny."

you can also make fun of anyone
weighing less than a bag of pucks.

Of course, the key to bashing the Canucks in a alcoholic setting is to make sure that you know the people you are drinking with.  Beware the guy who is wearing a Canuck hat; their obvious show of loyalty makes for a bad sense of humour.  Of course, this doesn't apply if he is wearing some type of clothing that in some respect mentions Roberto Luongo.

Another person to beware of is the person who is wearing a "vintage" V jersey.  They will most likely be unable to pay for their drink.  If they are sporting a major bald spot and long moustache, it could also be Harold Snepsts and he can still kick your ass.  An easy way to tell is to approach them and ask if they are Harold Snepsts and buy him a drink if so.  DO NOT mention Mike Bossy or Game 1 of the 1982 finals.

The third person, who is complete fair game is the guy who proclaims his love for the Canucks but doesn't show any outward proof.  The easiest way to get a rise out of him is to tell him that he is obviously ashamed of the Canucks or else he would be wearing some type of swag that has set him back at the mininum $25.  He will be too old to play the game but still young enough to remember how real hockey used to be played.  He has an opinion about everything and believes that there is a vast Canuck conspiracy to keep Vancouver from ever winning a cup.  He probably has a name like 'Tyler' or 'Rob'.  During the playoffs, he grows a sub-par playoff beard that somehow succeeds in making him look less manly.  And when he starts talking hockey, he is seeing the world through blue/green/white tinted glasses.  He is a Canucklehead and 'sorta' proud of it.  

The top 10 debates to have with a Canucklehead;

1) Ugliest uniform.  This is to just get things warmed up and reminds the Canucklehead that no matter how heated the arguements forthcoming will be, you can always remind him that in the end, the Montreal Canadiens have never changed their team colours and have won the Stanley Cup 23 times (that legend, although hard to believe, is true) wearing basically the same jersey.  Talk about that 'salmon-colored' third jersey, or just what other franchise puts their owner's emblem on the front (orca)?

2) Petr Nedved.  This may be limited to the age of the Canucklehead who may have never heard of Petr Nedved.  If so, just tell him that Petr Nedved was considered the greatest player ever to be drafted before coming to the Canucks, at which time the franchise proceeded to suck all talent out of him.  This can be expanded to nearly every draft pick ever made by the Canucks, with only Trevor Linden and the Sedin twins proving the exception.  If they mention Linden, rebuttal with 'but they traded him, didn't they?' which will lead into the 3rd debate.

1. Anatomy of the '82 Canuck Drive

Once Upon A Time in Bizarro World

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  Although it may seem laughable now but once many, many years ago, the NHL was ruled by two teams for a decade; the New York Islanders and the Edmonton Oilers.  Yes, it's true.  Karma does have a sense of humour. 

During the run and gun eighties, these two teams epitomized that winning the Cup took only determination and a great mixture of skill, toughness and access to cocaine.  The Islanders owned the early eighties, the Oilers the later half.  If you were lucky enough to be alive in the mid-late eighties, you were treated to two Stanley Cup Finals; the Battle of Alberta and then the other one against whatever poor team hobbled out of the Eastern Conference to  lose to either Edmonton or Calgary. 



I said "one of..."

It was different times then.  Vancouver, with their 'Flying V' uniforms were considered one of the ugliest uniforms in North American sports.  Their all-star selection was picked via lottery and their most boisterous fans could afford to pay for tickets and pretty much all rode the bus to the games.
However, right on the cusp of the Oilers transforming the game of hockey into ...this... the 1982 Vancouver Canucks became the Champions of the West; true underdogs that had the unfortunate task to try and beat the last great dynasty; the New York Islanders.  It was Vancouver's first modern-day quest of the Cup and was due to five factors;