Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice....

SHAME ON ME!

If you haven't paid any attention (and because it's hockey, chances are you haven't), recently one of the NHL's biggest stars scored the longest tenured contract in league history. Ilya Kovalchuck signed an unprecedented 17, that's right, SEVENTEEN, year contract for $102 million dollars with the New Jersey Devils. In all fairness, the guy is absolutely ridiculous on the ice. He possesses a combination of size, speed, skill, and the natural ability to bury pucks in the back of the net that so few are gifted with. He, in every sense of the word (as a 27 year old with 338 goals already to his name), deserves a contract that is near the highest in the league. But to blatantly disregard integrity and abuse a loop hole such as this is both embarrassing for him and the Devils franchise.

After the lockout, the league didn't just come back on a shitty outdoor (oh the irony!) network, which allowed the rest of the country's major sports team to laugh in their faces, it actually came out with the intentions of financial stability. This meant a salary cap, the urge for reasonable contracts so the league could profit, and a responsibility to maintain the integrity of a well run league so that something like this never happened again.

Let me clarify the salary cap rules really quick:

Each team would be allowed only to spend a certain amount of money per year on the roster (simple, yes i know). Contracts would work as an average amount of money divided by the amount of years, no matter front loaded, back loaded, or evenly distributed. For example, if a player signed for 5 years and $50 million dollars, his salary cap "hit" would be $10 million dollars for each year even if he received $20 million the first, $15 million the second, $10 million the third, and only $2.5 million the final two seasons. Make sense? It gave some flexibility for clubs to spread evenly the cap hit as to maintain a more reasonable financial stability.

Now, let us check how this was almost instantly abused....

The first time we saw this was when a certain goalie, let's call him Rick D. .... no no.... that's too obvious..... R. DiPietro!, signed an unheard of 15 year $67.5 million offer with the team which was both mocked for absurdity as well as confusing for most hockey fans. Why would he sign for 15 years at only $4.5 million per season? What if inflation effects the value of the dollar? What if he didn't last the life of the contract? ....Oh, how naive were we.... I feel like I just watched Sammy Sosa smash a ball 1,000ft during an all-star game with a wood painted aluminum bat as his eyes bulged out further than Wiley Coyote just before the anvil hits. Perhaps it was because he was just 23, perhaps it was because he was a franchise caliber goalie (and the team would love to hold on to him forever, literally), or perhaps it was because we thought he was getting that spread evenly. Well, turns out it was for the same exact reasons outlined in the NHL's rejection of Kovalchuck's latest contract.

Don't mess with the NHL!

This is the best run sports league on this hemisphere (I only hold it to this side of the planet because of the nearly instant ban of vuvuzelas by the English Premier League, a league I am learning to love more than the any...). Never has there been such a pro-active league that not only does the right thing for the sport, but does the right thing to ensure fairness across the league. Sure the NFL has a "salary cap" but when was the last time you heard a team go anywhere near it? They abuse the system most of all by giving "signing bonuses" that are 80% of their contract while paying them pennies on the dollar as "salary". Even if the NFL took offense to this ridiculous abuse of the system, it'd take negotiations with the player's association, the owners, and likely wouldn't even be implemented until a year or two later. The NHL? Try two days! Immediately the league said "I'll be DAMNED if I'm fooled again!" and REJECTED it!

Kovalchuck had rejected a contract extension with the awful Atlanta Thrashers (yes, they have a team) which would have made him the 2nd highest paid player in the league (details: 12 years $101 million) which, at the time, seemed both honorable and selfless. He gets nearly identical money with New Jersey, but it's for an absurd amount of years. New Jersey planned on giving him $95 million of the $102 million over the first 10 years (reasonable), but spread out the $7 million over the next 7 years (um, yeah he's not Dan Carcillo....) all the while keeping his cap hit at a nice and easy $6 million.

Well the NHL will not be fooled into shaming themselves.

LeBron-a-thon!

Today is finally the day. We all get to sit around the TV and find out where LeBron (LeBrand) is going. No, there will not be a race by ESPN, or Sports Illustrated, CNN, Fox News, Yahoo! Sports, or CBS Sports to report the news. No, we won't need to frantically check our Twitters or Facebooks. We will find out his decision on a nationally televised hour long press conference solely on ESPN.

And that should tell you everything.

The timeline does not lie. First we were told the day he'd know, and we were okay with that news. Second we were told it would be a press conference. Okay, fine, that is usually how some of these things go. Lastly we found out that it's an hour long and on one network. Gee, do you think there is $omething driving that decision??

Precisely. This whole thing is about money.

Then we were told that the proceeds were going to charity (the Boy's and Girl's club). Yeah, okay. Why would ESPN want sole rights to this? To drive up advertising dollars based on potential ratings. You really think they did that for a charity? They make billions being the world wide leader in sports. They rake in ratings and advertiser dollars nearly every night dominating an entire genre of television. But they did it for "charity". Yeah, okay...

And there's LeBron. The humble kid from small town Akron, Ohio who always used to tell his grade school teacher he was literally going to put Akron on the map (because it was not visible on a physical map of Ohio in the class room). The same kid that stayed away from drugs and violence as outlined in his book co-written by Buzz Bissinger titled Shooting Stars. We were all lead to believe that this wasn't a guy that would irritate the people in a dire financial situation this country, and planet, is enduring. That this was a new type of person, one who is willing to potentially sacrifice athletic dominance to stay with his current beloved Cleveland Cavaliers, or sacrifice some of his salary to play with his two Olympic teammates down in Miami. Instead we are left with a 25 year old kid who's acting like he's fixing to pick a hat and decide which college he's going to, which is the perfect comparison considering the dirty recruiting that goes on with college athletics. We are left with a guy who is trying to save face by saying his egotistical "press conference" was using its profits to go to charity. The phrase itself is true and the charity will likely receive quite a nice amount, but really? LeBron James needs to hold a press conference (nearly like a tele-thon) in order to donate a significant amount to charity? I am not educated on his previous potential donations, but the last time I looked this kid was 18 years old and guaranteed over $100 million dollars to his name (90 from nike, 13.5 from his rookie contract) before he stepped foot on an NBA basketball court. The player who's very press conference is to announce which team is going to back a dump truck full of money in a long term contract (which will also include incentives based on marketing sales with his new jersey / number) into his pocket.

Fitting.

How noble is it? Had he never held a press conference, or even stated that he intended on matching the amount generated by said press conference, he would have saved face. If he wanted to donate to charity, then donate to charity. He doesn't need ESPN to help drive up the amount, he's got no chance of going broke like Scottie Pippen.

We are all interested in where he goes, and that is fair for us sports fans, but for the sake of his ego, don't watch. And don't be fooled that this is some sort of "charity event".

It's a chance for him to go through the attention seeking recruiting process he could have gotten out of his system when he was in high school.

I won't be watching, but my guess is this will be just as calculated, and even less authentic, than Wayne Gretzky's fake tears as he left his sweet little home town Edmonton for the glitz and glamor of Los Angeles.