I will get this out of the way right from the get go. My observations here are going to be sophomoric, idiotic, moronic, stupid, lacking of empirical data, not representing the top .006 of individuals in their respective professions. How dare someone claim our beloved athletes are not needed and that they are just greedy individuals with no true sense of reality?
Only someone who is old and washed up, reduced to drinking beers with his loser “old” friends at the Haney Hotel would even dare to make such ridiculous statements as the following.
Observation Number 1
Owners & Players of the NHL. Congratulations - job well done! The season is now on the verge cancellation. Who do we blame? Personally, I don’t care. I know not caring is a sign of my lack of intelligence. It must be. Surely my IQ must be in the toilet spiraling down uncontrollably not being compassionate to the plight of these individuals. To break it down further, let us take a brief look at them individually.
Owners
How dare you continue on with the oppression of the players. It is ridiculous that you expect them to survive on an average salary of 1.8 million a year. They add so much to North American culture after-all. In fact, in a large portion of the States they rank below Women’s Bowling in popularity. Sure athletes in a major league sport of such magnitude deserves to be paid at such an astronomical levels. Shame on you for shutting down a business that is so profitable that you can afford the losses just to make a point. You are no better than the McDonald’s outside of Squamish, British Columbia that choose to close down when a union was put in place to avoid closing down in the future when it could not sustain its existence.
Players
You win. You have shown your tremendous resolve. Your solidarity. Kudos to you. You have avoided the salary cap. You have had to live on your union pay of $5,000 - $10,ooo per month. How do you do it? It appears that a large portion of you have gone to Europe and taken jobs from players who cannot play at your elite level. Others are playing in what are basically beer leagues for teams such as The Motor City Mechanics for a pittance of $500 per week. Good work, you now are up to between $7,000 - $12,000 per month. Way-to-go you have avoided the soup lines. Who cares if you have put marginal players out of jobs. “If they don’t want to lose their jobs they should be as good as us.” It has been fantastic what you have done for the future generations of players, your willingness to forgo a season or two will surely result in the owners caving and giving you unlimited incomes in the future. Hell - who needs fans? The owners have deep never ending pockets and your resolve will eventually show that reality.
To carry it a step further, once the new NHL re-surfaces, you surely will be able to recoup the lost income from the lost “seasons”. You wouldn’t have missed that equation with all of the Mensa members in the Players Association. What’s that - 4 teams have folded. Fortunately the remaining teams have decided to make up for the lost jobs by increasing their rosters accordingly. Wouldn’t want any of the .006% of needed oppressed athletes to be out of work. It is a good thing that the upper-echelon athletes of the sport are looking out for their lesser peers.
So in conclusion. Congratulations players, you have truly taken the game back. You have won the battle.
……to be continued in the Fall of 2005.
Observation Number 2
Jose Cansceco’s new controversial book has just been released. "Juiced." How exciting. Here is my take on the whole book.
“I did roids with him, him, him and him. I helped him to do his injections. This one guy, I used to get in his car and we would meet a guy in a parking lot, he would hand us the stuff and we would give him cash. It was always cash for the goods. That is the way this business works. Sometimes I would get mad and smash things. After a few cycles on the juice I found I could hit the ball further. The juice isn’t really bad for you, if you know what you are doing. It is a vicious cycle - rampant in our sport. I feel I was a scapegoat for the whole league. It wasn’t fair. Oh my god books are long.”
Throw in some other random shit. Perhaps a failed relationship or two.
-The End-
And now for some intelligence from the NHL players and a Player Rep - Brian McCabe of the Toronto Maple Leafs
The following is verbatim.
Interviewer:
"Brian how are you going to get the lost money back?"
Brian:
"It is not about the money. It is about getting the game back on the ice. Not one player cares about the money. We could all care less about the money. We just want a healthy product on the ice."
Interviewer:
"Come on that is all it is about?"
Brian:
(Changes Topic) "We don't appreciate the idle threats by the league."
Apparently the threats weren't idle.
Let us see what the players earn when they come out the other end.
Good Work Boys.
-The End #2-
Cheers
Seed.
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