Three years ago the National Hockey League locked out its players
because the sport was losing money and needed to be fixed.
After losing a full season to the lockout, the NHL owners told the
fans that the league would be different on and off the ice. And for
the first two seasons it was. There was parity and the big-money teams
weren't handing out ridiculous contract.
Then something changed this summer.
First, the Philadelphia Flyers give big contracts to Danny Briere,
Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell. Then the New York Rangers signed
Scott Gomez and Chris Drury. Finally, the Flyers gave Mike Richards a
12-year contract worth more than $60 million during the regular
season.
And I began thinking what was the lockout for if the league was going
to slowly become unbalanced again. My fears were realized when this
headline was written:
Washington's Ovechkin signs a 13-year, $124-million extention.
At first glance those numbers are ridiculous, but if you're a
Washington Capitals fan it means that as long as the Caps are in town,
so is Alexander Ovechkin.
The structure of the contract will pay Ovechkin $9 million in years
2008-2009 through 2013-2014. From 2014-2015 through 2020-2021,
Ovechkin will be compensated $10 million per season, according to
Canada's version of ESPN, tsn.ca.
It's not that Ovechkin isn't worth it. Here's a highight reel:
It's the fact that it will drive up the price for the rest of the
league's young stars, especially Pittsburgh's Sidney Crosby and Evgeni
Malkin.
The Penguins are already stretched for money, and the Ovechkin
contract forces them to choose. This allows Malkin to go to a big city
team, and the league is right to where it was before the lockout:
Small-market teams selling young talent because they can't afford
them.
