Puck Podcast – August 14th, 2010

This week we discuss the arbitration ruling on Ilya Kovalchuk's contract and where the Russian sniper, and the Devils, go from here. We also take a look at what other contracts the NHL is investigating and why they could be in danger of being voided as well as the latest wedding between an NHL player and a celebrity, a former NHL star who might be retiring, why Chris Pronger may miss the start of the season and a whole lot more.

MP3 File

About Doug Stolhand 27106 Articles
Doug Stolhand is one of the co-founders and co-hosts of the Puck Podcast and has been a member of the NHL media since the show's inception in 2006.

8 Comments

  1. I want to touch on two things, first is the cross-team ownership issue. Stan Kroenke, who is the sole-owner of the Colorado Avalanche & Denver Nuggets, is also a minority owner of the St. Louis Rams. I’m not sure what the exact rule is, but the NFL doesn’t allow a majority owner to own any part of a team in other leagues. He wants to be a majority owner of the Rams & has been looking into ways around that rule.

    As far as the C.O.O. thing, I have a theory about that title. I think an owner of a company came up with it a number of years ago after he was approached by a friend asking for a job. The owner heard his pet pigeon saying “coooo…coooo,” and he came up with the abbreviation before the job title & job description. “OK, buddy, you have a job, your job abbreviation will be C.O.O. I’m not sure what your title or description is yet, but we’ll work that out.”

    By the way, Ed’s wife was right, you guys ARE crazy, but we love you for it! 😉

  2. Here’s a funny thought, with the Comedy Central Roast of David Hasselhoff tonight. What Hockey Players would you like to see get the Roast Treatments!?

  3. Hey guys,

    I don’t know which of you was more politically incorrect with the monkey business, but thanks for the laughs.

    Also thanks for the tidbit about Hard Knocks expanding. Would be great if they did an NHL team!

    Keep up the good work,

    Bobby

  4. From the great resourse Wikipedia:

    A Chief Operating Officer (or Chief Operations Officer; COO) can be one of the highest-ranking executives in an organization and comprises part of the “C-Suite”. The COO is responsible for the daily operation of the company. The COO routinely reports to the highest ranking executive, usually the CEO and may also carry the title of President, especially if the highest ranking executive is the Chairman and CEO. In some cases, the duties of COO may be carried out by a sub-C-Suite executive such as a “Director of Operations” or “Vice-President of Operations”.

    So apparently the C.O.O is resposible for the daily operations of the company, as compared to the C.E.O, who just sits in his mansion counting his money.

    As for the dual ownership thing, Ted Leonsis owns the Capitals, as well as the NBA and WNBA teams in Washington.

  5. Again, you two are tossing around legal terms as if they have the same meaning as their everyday sense in conversational English. “Bad faith” (mala fides) means that a party had a malicious motive to behave as they did, or the party is abusing legal process for some malicious motive.

    For example, Company A has to shut down production or purchase an EPA emissions permit on the secondary market to continue in business. Company A is hemorrhaging money every day that it is shut down. Company B has a permit to sell, but the two firms cannot agree to terms. In this situation, an example of “bad faith” would be for Company B to demand nonbinding arbitration to settle the price, knowing that they will simply ignore the arbitrator’s findings. In other words, Company B demanded arbitration purely to prolong the negotiations, thus weakening Company A’s position.

    One is never acting in bad faith by simply following the custom or practice established within an industry. You or I may THINK that certain behaviors are in so-called bad faith, but our opinions mean both diddley and squat in this context. In its legal sense, “bad faith” amounts to deliberate, premeditated intent to injure another party by violating the law or abusing process. Obviously, the Kovalchuk contract does not fall into this category.

    If ANYONE is guilty of “bad faith” it is the NHL, which abused process to obtain an outcome that was not collectively bargained. Clearly, the CBA called for averaging a player’s total salary over the life of the contract to determine the annual cap hit. Clearly, this was an area for potential abuse. Clearly, the NHL failed to address these issues in the CBA itself.

    Essentially, the NHL has unilaterally altered the CBA without having to grant any concessions to the NHLPA. Considering the NHL’s long history of collusion, anti-competitive practices, and outright robbery of the players, this is just another black eye for a league that still thinks it is above both the law and common decency.

    Also, I beg you to stop referring to these contracts as “circumventions” of the CBA. In the legal sense, “circumvent” means to avoid a binding agreement by artfulness or deceit. Obviously, one cannot circumvent the cap by merely following the process outlined by the CBA. As I mentioned in a previous post, “circumventing” the cap would mean paying a player for hockey-related services in such a way that the payments do not count against the cap at all.

    One cannot circumvent the so-called “spirit” of a collectively bargained instrument, as it has no nouminal content. A CBA is the result of an adversarial process, not natural law or ethics, and it is intended to govern the behavior of adversarial parties. The CBA cannot be greater than the sum of its parts. It is exactly what it says it is, no more or less.

  6. Hey Guys…a week behind on the podcasts with a vacation. Doug, we did end up watching The Mighty Ducks first movie. Quack, Quack, Quack to you.

    Got online to get tickets to any Blackhawks home game I could. What did I score four seats for? The Hawks-Ducks in November!

    Explanations to Elijah from the 8/7 podcast:
    Sloppy Seconds–a second line that plays sloppy

    Douche–A tool used to clean out smelly things (true, huh?)

    Would appreciate to get your comments this week on these rule ideas. There’s got to be a powerplay rant in here somewhere:

    http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Six-rules-changes-we-re-excited-to-see-tested-at;_ylt=AvCScEEYkWI944qfT7cpgy17vLYF?urn=nhl-262996

    Like the idea of overtime with less and less skaters. Certainly better than a shootout.

    Or how about a shootout, but it’s a two on one…that would make for some awesome strategies… Does the home team get “last change” to pick the defensemen that lines up best against the two offensive players. Do you put you two best shooters out there together? If it’s tied after 3 shooters, it would be awesome to see a couple of defensemen bring the puck up against Patrick Kane.

    Loved the ‘Hawks analysis…looking forward to the season starting!

  7. I’m confused about this icing thing they are trying out at the camp. The linesman will judge if there will be an icing call depending on which player gets to the faceoff dot first. Now, I think that 99/100 that will be the defensive player. Now assuming he will blow a whistle if that player touches the puck, why not just go all the way with no touch icings? I’m hoping more that the offensive player will just be forced to go tag up, kind of like offsides. That way the puck is collected and play keeps going and the player now on defense will still have a chance to re-enter the zone and, if he is Pavel Datsyuk, take it right back. Hell, now that the offending team can’t change lines, what’s the point of having icing at all other than a reason to have a faceoff? I know some people say “well if there is no icing, then the winning team will just keep icing the puck” – yeah well, they’re giving up control of the puck. I’ve always thought that was a little silly.

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