And the winners are...

Coming soon!

I'll start posting the winners of each Kovy award in the next few days. To get you all in the mood, let's begin with the Coyote Cup.

And the winner of the Coyote Cup, the team that has no business being in its current location is...


The Phoenix Coyotes
(Big effing surprise)

Conflicts of interest, blocking a lucrative sale that would move the franchise, shitty attendance despite a superior record, and bad, bad ice, all made the Phoenix Coyotes a lock to repeat as Coyote Cup champs.
Unless something changes, we could see Phoenix win this trophy for many years to come.

Kovalev's Kousin open letter to Gary Bettman

Dear Gary,
Fuck off.


Let me elaborate:
The sooner you either resign, or die, the better it will be for the NHL, and the sport of hockey.


To further elaborate:
I would like an explanation of why you have summarily rejected the contract that the New jersey Devils and Ilya Kovalchuk recently signed. In no way does the contract contravene any rules of the collective bargaining agreement for which you sacrificed an entire season.
There is no limit on contract length in the CBA.
The CBA has no stipulation limiting the degree to which contracts can be "front-loaded" in order to alleviate the salary cap. New Jersey operated entirely within the limits of the rules of the NHL. It may not have obeyed what you personally think is spirit of the rules, but it obeyed the very letter of the law. You are having a tantrum now, saying the contract circumvents the rules, but that is not New Jersey's problem. It is YOURS. You are paid seven and a quarter million dollars every year to supposedly use your brain and think of eventualities like this. You canceled an entire hockey season to get a salary cap, but didn't think beyond that. And now the rules you insisted on, the rules we fans paid an entire season for, are not good enough?


I couldn't care less about New Jersey or Ilya Kovalchuk. Personally, I think the deal is stupid and bound to create long-term problems for New Jersey. But it's their decision. What worries me is the precedent this sets. For one thing, you cannot prove this contract circumvents the problems raised by the salary cap any more than Vincent Lecavalier's, Pavel Datsyuk's, or anyone else's contract. So if there really is no difference, what's to stop you from stepping in and barring any contract you personally dislike? If you can indeed do that, then no NHL team, or fan, is safe. If Carey Price should blossom into a superstar, can you prevent Montreal from signing him to a long-term deal? The answer, based on your actions, is a definite "yes."

That is why, with all my heart, I urge you, I implore, to step down and let someone with some business sense, some foresight, some amount of brains, to take over as Commissioner of the NHL. Failing that, I promise you this: I will devoutly pray, each and every day, for your demise.

The Rangers Cup

Awarded to the most overrated team in the NHL

And the nominees are:

The San Jose Sharks

Not as bad as in recent years, but still: The Sharks won first overall in the Western conference, but fell in the Conference Finals. The only thing that surprised some people was that they went that far in the playoffs. No amount of success will convince anyone that the Sharks are a good team until they actually get to the Cup finals, a feat they have yet to manage. So they can continue to win regular-season games and President's Trophies, but they will have a permanent spot on this list until they prove they're an equally good playoff team.


The New York Rangers

If only games were won on paper, or based on contract size. The Rangers would have a winner each year. But this is reality, where people like Olli Jokinen, Chris Higgins, Wade Redden, and Chris Drury have to actually produce results. The final game of the season was a microcosm of the Rangers' season: they waited and waited for something to happen, for someone to score a goal, until they finally realized they had lost a game waiting to win it. Like so many previous Rangers teams, they had plenty of potential, but had no idea what the hell to do with it.



The Washington Capitals

Presiden't Trophy winners, a first-round exit. It doesn't matter that they got out-coached, out-played, out-defensed, or out-goalied. None of the reasons they lost excuse the fact that a first-place team could not get past the first round of the playoffs. Perhaps Washington needs to consider the old saying that offense wins games but defense wins championships. Washington has outrageously good offense, but Montreal brought their shortcomings in goal and on defense into sharp relief.


HM: Calgary, Anaheim

The Alexander Daigle Memorial Trophy

Awarded to the league's most overrated player

And the all-goalie nominees are (perhaps they should get their own category?):

Michael Leighton

 
The guy performed admirably in the playoffs, filling in for injured Brian Boucher. The Habs could have done well to realize the guy was not all that good, but Montreal has a history of making reasonable Flyers goalies look like the second coming of Bernie Parent. It was the Blackhawks who exposed his weaknesses, helping him to a 3.96 goals against average and a save percentage of 0.87 in the finals.
True to form, the Flyers (always on the lookout for their next mediocre goalie) awarded Leighton a two-year contract worth 3.1 million dollars.
 

Tim Thomas

Vezina trophy winner last year, backup with a losing record this year. Granted, Tukka Rask only played a couple more regular season games than Thomas this year, but his record was exceedingly better. Also, Thomas did not play a single playoff game this year. Last April, the Bruins locked up the soon-to-be Vezina winner with a four-year contract extension worth 20 million dollars. Thomas could almost qualify as one of the most overpaid players in the league, but he certainly makes the cut as one of the most overrated.




Carey Price

I know at least one reader who will not like this nomination one little bit. But Price simply hasn't earned the title of Franchise Savior that has been (unfairly) forced upon him. And all signs from management point to a mysterious case of the tail wagging the dog. Bob Gainey brought Price straight into NHL action in 2007, after seeing him jump in and dominate the AHL's Calder Cup playoffs. That first season was a decent one, where Price had a 2.56 GAA and .920 save percentage. The real shock came when Gainey traded Cristobal Huet (another overrated goalie), asking the rookie Price to take Montreal all the way through the playoffs just as Ken Dryden and Patrick Roy had done. Time passed, and Price found himself struggling under the weight of the media's and management's expectations, platooning with Jaroslav Halak.
We all know the rest: Halak was largely to thank for Montreal's upsets of President's trophy winner Washington and defending Cup champs Pittsburgh. The Habs promptly traded Halak.
There's more to be said though: Price has shown flashes of brilliance, most notably in the Centennial game where he was fierce and fiery, refusing to allow defeat that night. The deal for Halak makes some weird amount of sense, as a young goalie needs a chance to prove himself without constantly looking over his shoulder. Most perplexing is that the Canadiens seem to become a different team in front of Carey Price. They skate poorly, they don't back-check, they can't pass...basically the team falls apart each and every time Carey Price is in the net. Who knows what causes this, but it has to stop; Montreal now has no one left to fall back upon should Price fail.
Time will tell. The always fickle media have curbed their expectations, but Habs management is shooting the moon with Carey Price. For the moment, it seems like a huge gamble.



HM: Roberto Luongo, Wade Redden, Mike Komisarek

The Alexei Yashin Memorial Trophy

Awarded to the league's most overpaid player

It's ironic that on the day we announce this award, we have so much to cover regarding contracts. The NHL has rejected Ilya Kovalchuk's 17-year deal with the Devils, claiming it circumvents the salary cap.
Let's see if we can simplify this: Teams often sign players to what's called a front-loaded deal. They pay him a lot of money for the first few years of the contract, after which, they pay him smaller and smaller amounts until the end of the deal. This helps the team spread the cost of the entire contract out over a larger amount of time. This also makes the cap hit smaller, as the salary cap takes the AVERAGE salary, not the year-to-year salary, into account.
Daniel Briere is a textbook example. He signed an eight-year, 52-million dollar contract in 2007, but the final year of his contract pays him only 2 million. That makes it easier to trade him should he not work out, and makes the contract longer, thus the average per-year cap hit smaller.

The NHL has rejected the Ilya Kovalchuk deal, as it seems the Devils had no belief that Kovalchuk would still be playing for them 17 years from now, and that the deal was made so long only to artificially lower the cap hit.

Interesting times. More to follow, I'm sure.


And the nominees are:


Vincent Lecavalier

Vinny has a contract that goes until 2020, paying him 10 million dollars each year until the 2016-2017 season. After that, his salary goes down to 8 million, then 4, then 1.5, then 1 million. This basically makes Lecav un-tradeable until 2017, at which time he'll be 37 years old (no spring chicken). So the Lightning are stuck with his enormous contract and a cap hit of 7.727 million each year.
Last year they paid Lecavalier $10,000,000 for his 24 goals. That comes out to a price of $416,667 per goal. Intangiables count for a lot: added to his un-tradability, his "leadership" has caused most of the problems Steve Yzerman has come in to fix.






Chris Drury

The Rangers have a habit of making decent players into the most overpaid people in the league. The Rangers thought they had a pair of aces when they signed Scott Gomez and Drury to obscenely large contracts. No one, except for Glen Sather, was surprised when those high expectations did not meet reality. Chris Drury's contract has a cap hit of 7.05 million dollars each season; last year, he scored 32 (of which only 14 were goals) points, bringing his cost to $220,312 per point. (The per-goal figure is even nastier.)
He'll make 8 million next season, and 5 million in the 2011-2012 season. Habs fans should actually feel like they got a bargain with Gomez.





Rick DiPietro

What is it about the New York metropolitan area that makes teams spend outrageous sums on decent-but-not-outstanding players? On top of Alexei Yashin's buyout and its hit on their cap, the Isles are also paying Rick DiPietro 4.5 million dollars each year until 2021. (And that's not a cap hit, which, as we discussed earlier, is an average of the contract over time). No, the contract calls for 4.5 million dollars each and every year; no end-of-contract reductions, nothing to make him more tradeable should he not work out. The Islanders will pay Rick DiPietro a salary of 4.5 million dollars for the 2020-2021 season (barring a trade or buyout). Last season, DiPietro was good for eight starts, two of which were wins. TWO WINS. That comes out to a cool 2.25 million dollars the Islanders shelled out per win from Rick DiPietro. Compare that to Dwayne Roloson, who got 23 wins last year at a salary of only 2 million, and you can imagine that Garth Snow is already planning to give him a contract that goes until 2057.



HM: Alexei Kovalev, Scott Gomez, Brian Campbell

The Jerry Seinfeld Award

Awarded to the most obnoxious, asshole fans in the league

As a side note, Alexander Mogilny-I mean Ilya Kovalchuk- re-signed in New Jersey.
Now back to the awards.

And the nominees are:

Philadelphia Flyers fans

Montreal Gazette reporter Pat Hickey had his tires slashed while he was in Philadelphia covering the Flyers-Habs series. All because he had Quebec plates. Nice job, Philly fans. Way to bring honor and respect to your city. Of course, that shit-ass town did not have far to fall, as its residents have made a reputation for taking the frustration of living in their putrid, decaying cesspool out on anyone who has the misfortune of passing through. If anyone represents the average Philadelphian, it's Daniel Carcillo. Greasy, obnoxious, ill-mannered, ugly, and stupid, and convinced that these foul qualities make him "colorful."




Carolina Hurricanes fans

Hey Hurricanes fans...didn't your team recently win, ya know, the Stanley Cup, or something? 23rd in the league in average attendance, 23rd in overall total attendance. Hurricanes "fans" are a joke.
And enough...ENOUGH with the Rick Flair WHOO bullshit. Just..stop it. You suck at life.



Montreal Canadiens fans

Um, seriously?



HM: Leafs, Islanders, Devils

The Barry Melrose Award

Awarded to the league's most obnoxious douchebag broadcaster

And the nominees are:

Rick Jeaneret



Every time the Sabres have a scoring opportunity, I mute the TV. When I have the NHL network on, I keep the remote handy in case they show the station promo with Derek Roy and Jeanneret's obnoxious VO, ready to pounce, once again, on that mute button. Every time I hear his labored, ridiculous scream, I hope he has a heart attack and dies, right on the air.



Jack Edwards



A guy who knows nothing about hockey, given his total lack of knowledge concerning the actual rules or terms of the game. Listening to the Moby Dick audiobook with the TV muted gives you more insight into what's happening on the ice than listening to Edwards.



Jeremy Roenick



There are moments that can define one's life, good and bad. Jeremy had just such a moment when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, creating what was probably the most awkward moment ever seen during a hockey broadcast. I for one, do not buy his crocodile tears for a second. Jeremy may have come up with Chicago, but he was just as much a Flyer as he was a Blackhawk, and his attempt to steal the spotlight was deplorable. Jeremy, it's not about you; it's about the players on the ice.


Mike Milbury should be glad Jeremy had that moment; otherwise, he'd be on this list.

I hesitate to even mention his name, but Pierre McGuire also deserves an Honorable Mention.

The Mario Tremblay Memorial Trophy

Awarded to the league's worst coach

And the nominees are:


John Stevens, Flyers
Fired at the beginning of the season, team went on to the Stanley Cup Finals. In all fairness, the Flyers had a 13-11-1 record this season when he was fired.


John Tortorella, Rangers
Completely unable to motivate his team to score, or for that matter, to win.




Ron Wilson, Maple Leafs
It's not that the Leafs sucked (they did), but the fact that everyone, Ron Wilson included, were very vocal in expressing just how great they thought this team was. Nobody outside of Toronto was surprised that the Leafs fell short of their own ridiculous expectations, but Ron Wilson gets the dummy prize for his team's own arrogance.

The Gary Bettman Trophy

Awarded for the league's worst management

And the nominees are:


The New York Islanders

Let's see, where do we start...how about in goal?
If The New York Rangers are where great players go to die, the Islanders are where mediocre goalies go. Garth Snow as GM. Mike Dunham as goalie coach. DiPietro, Roloson, and Biron in net last year.

As Captain Sparrow pointed out, the Islanders raised some eyebrows when they entered the season with THREE goalies, each with starter credentials. But who could blame them? They had Rick DiPietro signed until the end of time,  and they knew as soon as a puck touched him he would be on the IR for the rest of the season. So this year the Islanders spent 4.5 million dollars for 8 games, and two wins from DiPietro. That comes to $562,500 per game. DiPietro's contract will haunt the Islanders for years to come, virtually assuring their place on this list for a long time.




The Tampa Bay Lightning

When you think "God-awful management", Tampa Bay should be one of the first things that comes to mind. Tampa's problems begin, and end, with Vincent Lecavalier. His contract makes him unmovable, and impossible to afford good teammates. He has had coaches fired, and is a cancer in the team's locker room.

Look for things to change in the upcoming year, though.
The Lightning have a new owner, who has fired the old figurehead GM Brian Lawton, as well as Vinny's personally endorsed coach Rick Tocchet. With Steve Yzerman as the new GM, look for a return to competitiveness. Perhaps we'll even see a few sparks once Lecavalier realizes he cannot bully Yzerman. My money's on a trade next year, and I fully expect Tampa to be gone from this list next summer. 

The thing that put the lightning over the top for a nomination this year was their fugly, nonsensical third jersey.



The NHL

Gary Bettman, you make it too easy. In an award normally reserved for team ownership and management, you still somehow found your way onto this list.

How did he accomplish that? By owning a team, of course. You see, the NHL OWNS the Phoenix Coyotes. They divert resources to keep the franchise alive, even when all the evidence screams that the team must move. They intervened to stop a lucrative sale that would have stopped the bleeding for the franchise, brought a team to an enthusiastic market, and ended the millions of dollars being paid in corporate welfare by the fans and owners of legitimate teams. Now the NHL is stuck with a team that they still cannot sell. Of course, they could sell it very easily, but the NHL insists that any buyer MUST keep the team in Phoenix. So, no deal.

We've already covered how the NHL is actively engaged in a conflict of interest, that they cannot advance the best interests of their own team while simultaneously treating the rest of the league impartially.

And how much money does Gary Bettman earn for this unethical behavior? $7,230,783 per year. That's 7 MILLION dollars, in case you weren't counting the commas.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Gary-Bettman-makes-7-2-million-more-than-you-th?urn=nhl,255500

There's plenty more ammunition in this gun for why the the NHL deserves its very own award for bad management: horrendous FIFA-like officiating, absurd disciplinary decisions, atrocious apparel and uniform decisions, ridiculous TV deals, and more I'm sure I'm forgetting. But the bad management of a failing franchise is already enough to qualify Gary and the League for the award.


HM: Atlanta Thrashers, Calgary Flames

The Gorton's Fisherman Memorial Trophy

Awarded for the league's worst uniform

Special thanks to www.nhluniforms.com for their outstanding database

Before we announce the nominees, let us reflect on the namesake of this award, and give due deference to arguably the most ridiculous jersey design the world has ever seen:

Ahem.

And the nominees are:

The Atlanta Thrashers Third Jersey

It's not just the sweater; it's the whole package. What are Atlanta's colors? Wikipedia lists them as Navy blue, Baby blue, Maroon, Burnt umber, Yellow, and White. The Red Wings colors are friggin red and white. ONE color aside from the obligatory away white. Atlanta seems to have an identity crisis. They used to have Navy Blue jerseys. Simple. Then they went to the light blue. Now they've introduced this maroon that used to be a trim color. Atlanta is a prime example that you really can overdo it when designing a team uniform. Their third jersey is just the latest in a long line of garish designs that flat-out suck.

For added ugliness, check out the socks that come with this POS.




The Toronto Maple Leafs Home Jersey

Who can resist getting their digs in on the supposedly richest team in the NHL when they can't even seem to spend money on brains?

If the Thrashers use too many colors, the Leafs use too little. Not too few, but too little. When the Leafs unveiled their new Reebok jerseys, everyone else seemed to notice what Leafs management overlooked: stripes. Basically, the Leafs were playing in practice jerseys.
The obvious question: who the hell forgot the stripes, and why is he still employed at MLSE?

Which is the game jersey?



The New York Islanders Away Jersey

Nassau Coliseum may be falling apart, but that hasn't stopped the circus from coming to town. What list of bad jerseys would be complete without the Islanders, who have made messing with a good thing into an art form. Perhaps it's the fact that it's too similar to the ill-conceived vest jerseys that some baseball teams wear. Maybe it's the fact that Rick DiPietro is wearing it, adding to the clown/circus vibe. Perhaps it's the ridiculous piping on the shoulders, an idea that, unfortunately, has been adopted by other NHL teams. Maybe it's the numbers on the right chest, an area normally reserved for Stanley Cup Finals patches (then again, there's no need for the Islanders to worry about that for the foreseeable future). It's the combination of all these factors that make the Islanders an inevitable addition to this list of nominees.




HM: LA Kings third jersey, Colorado Avalanche third jersey, Tampa Bay Lightning third jersey

With all that said, we also need to recognize some of the best jerseys in the league, if no other reason than to cheer us up after seeing those pieces of trash we just looked at.

The Claude Lemieux Trophy

Awarded to the league's biggest pansy for acts of cowardice and gutlessness

And the nominees are:

Daniel Carcillo



Beating up on non-fighters, grandstanding after fights, running his mouth non-stop...all qualify him as one of the league's premiere bitches. Someone needs to step in and remind him and the rest of the Flyers organization that cheap and dirty is NOT the same thing as tough. And for God's sake, shave off that shit-stain on your upper lip, Dan.

You know it's bad when you make people cheer for Sean Avery:





Chris Pronger



Chris, you're a bitch. Has anyone ever seen someone this large act like such a small child? Chris Pronger is a classic example of someone who can dish it out but can't take it. Sure, he can play tough and mean, but when it comes to dealing with others giving him the same treatment, suddenly he looks more like Sidney Crosby than a 6'6" 220 lb defenseman.



Matt Cooke



The frontrunner for the Trophy. A cheap, dirty, and criminal act that has no place in hockey. Luckily for us, the story has another chapter:



Notice how Cooke declines to remove his visor. More evidence that he is a gutless turd.


HM: Arron Asham, Jeff Carter, Braydon Coburn, Riley Cote, Scott Hartnell, Ian Laperrierre, Mike Richards, Daniel Briere

The Coyote Cup

Awarded to the team that has no business being in its current location

And the nominees are:


The Phoenix Coyotes
Let's be crystal clear about this: hockey doesn't belong in the desert. Never has, never will. For all the talk about Phoenix icing a competitive, playoff-bound team this season, the attendance numbers were still awful.
Phoenix finished the season with 107 points--fourth best in the league--and still wound up in the very bottom of attendance figures. They had 491,558 (source: ESPN) total attendance for the season, (dead last; the next-highest was the New York Islanders with 522,168), with an average attendance of just 68.5 percent of their total capacity. This is simply ridiculous. The Capitals, Sharks, and Blackhawks, who finished ahead of Phoenix in points, each had at least 100% average attendance. The Vancouver Canucks, who finished just behind the Coyotes in points, had 102.1% average attendance.

Gary Bettman's favorite justification for ignoring deplorable attendance figures is that if the team finally becomes competitive, the fans will start coming.
That theory falls flat on its face given the facts above.
Even if we accept that Phoenix may not get fans to come to the games until they actually win the Stanley Cup, look no further than Tampa Bay and Carolina to see that the effect does not last.
Both teams have won the Cup in the past decade, yet both have miserable figures: neither can fill much more than 80% of their stadium on any given night. Compare that to the teams that lost the Cup to those two: The Flames and the Oilers, neither of which has been terribly succesful recently, still filled 100% of their respective capacities last season.

Let's talk "Conflict of Interest": it happens when someone is involved in two things that happen to compete with each other. The NHL runs a league of 30 teams. It has to balance the interests of each and every team, with fairness and equality being the goal.
The NHL also owns one of those 30 teams. The NHL has a vested interest in seeing the team they own become successful, at the expense of the other 29 teams in the league. Every owner of every NHL team seeks to make his team more competitive than the rest. In fact, every owner has the DUTY to try to make his team as powerful as possible, and to do so at the expense of the rest of the league (insofar as the league rules and the law will allow).
The NHL and Gary Bettman have a big conflict of interest. How are they supposed to operate the league fairly when they own one of the teams, and are obligated to do everything in their power to see that the Coyotes are MORE competitive than the rest of the league?
Bettman claims this is just a stop-gap measure until someone else buys the team. But that's the problem: no one wants to buy this franchise (not to keep it in Phoenix, at least).

Hockey has not caught on the desert, and even if the Coyotes manage to win the Cup, they will be in the bottom of attendance numbers within three years. They are a cancer on the NHL: Every time a Leafs, Bruins, or Habs fan buys a sweater or a hat, that money is going to NHL Welfare to keep a sick, unsustainable franchise alive. It's time to end the suffering of the entire NHL and put down this sick desert dog.



The New York Islanders
Ahh, the Islanders. I have a feeling they are going to make quite a few appearances in the coming nominations these next two weeks. Perhaps it would be best to present the evidence of bad management and players first, but let's charge ahead.

Going back the last five years, the Islanders have finished 5th, 5th, 5th, 4th, and 4th (out of five) in their division. Their last playoff appearance was in 2007, where they won one game.

OK, so they stink. So do the Leafs; does that mean they should move? Not necessarily.
But let's look deeper:
78.1% attendance last year (27th out of 30 in that regard). Total attendance was next-to-last at 522,168 (right ahead of Phoenix).

Their coliseum is a joke. Readers may also be interested to know that only reason the NHL created the Islanders was to create a bulwark to keep the World Hockey Association out of Nassau. The WHA is dead, so the NHL may need to reevaluate just why they need that team now. But even with that aside, the coliseum is an embarrassment. At 38 years old, it is the smallest and second-oldest building in the NHL (behind Madison Square Garden). To be blunt, the building is falling apart.
Charles Wang and the Islanders ownership have proposed a ballpark, a lighthouse(!), affordable housing units, and a hotel all as part of an ambitious renovation project. They have had to scale back all of these plans, and numerous delays have pushed construction back year after year.
And yet, despite a miserable building and a horrendous team, ticket prices in Hempstead are in the top half of the league, at an average price of $48.84. (Source: http://www.fromtherink.com/2009/3/24/809176/keeping-tabs-on-2009-10-ti)

Charles Wang has threatened that if he cannot get the renovations under way soon, he may move the team. I say: Start packing.



The Atlanta Thrashers
Rounding out our nominations is a team that combines the worst of both worlds: an apathetic market with a mediocre team.
The Thrashers sit 28th in total attendance, and next-to-last in percentage of total capacity (73.4).
Even marquee player Ilya Kovalchuk couldn't draw fans to the games.
Always one to repeat the same mistake twice, Gary Bettman must have looked at the New York Islanders as a model franchise. He saw the team was founded in 1972, and must have also noticed that the Atlanta Flames came into existence the same year. The NHL birthed the Flames because they needed a second team to balance the schedule with the newly created Islanders, and also because the St. Louis Hawks had just moved to Atlanta and built a shiny new arena. "Well heck," said Gary Bettman: "we need a team to balance the league since we just created the Nashville Predators, and we've got a building to put 'em in, who could ask for anything more?" (Market research doesn't seem to be one of Bettman's strong suits; nor is the study of history).
And thus was born the Atlanta Failure, mark II.

Oh, and did I mention just how bad their ownership is? Lawsuits galore, infighting, and bickering over management have been the norm ever since the team was born.

To round things off, the Thrashers have made the playoffs once in their ten years of existence. They failed to win a single game.


HM:
Tampa Bay and Carolina

The second annual Kovy Awards!

I was trying to wait until after Ilya Kovalchuk's hour-long special to announce where he was signing, but it seems he's taking his sweet damn time.
So to relieve the boredom, I am pleased to present the second annual Kovy awards, where we get to harp on some of the more dubious achievements of the past year.

The awards are as follows:

The Rangers Memorial Cup
awarded to the league's most overrated team

The Alexandre Daigle Memorial Trophy:

awarded to the league's most overrated player

(Not to be confused with the most overPAID player)

The Alexei Yashin Memorial Trophy:
awarded to the league's most overpaid player

The Jerry Seinfeld Award:

awarded to the most obnoxious, asshole fans in the league

The Barry Melrose Award:
awarded to the league's most obnoxious douchebag broadcaster

The Mario Tremblay Memorial Trophy:
awarded to the league's worst coach

The Gary Bettman Trophy:

awarded for the league's worst management

The Gorton's Fisherman Memorial Trophy:
awarded for the league's worst uniform

The Claude Lemieux Trophy:
awarded to the league's biggest pansy for acts of cowardice and gutlessness

The Coyote Cup
Awarded to the team that has no business being in its current location


Submit YOUR nominations in the comments section! Award nominees will be announced starting next week. Winners will be announced some time thereafter.

No Koivu for you!

Yesterday was looking like a good day. No big signings, but no bad ones either. I like getting Auld: he can back up Price, not get in the way, and may even get a win here and there. We kept Boyd, and got rid of Kostitsyn.

And then the news came that Saku Koivu had already signed on for two more years with the Ducks, while almost simultaneously, we found out Scott Gomez was pouring salt into the wound: He will wear #11 next season.

Let me make sure I am crystal clear on this:

The Habs traded for Scott Gomez, his 7.357 million dollar contract, and his complete postseason uselessness, casting aside Saku Koivu's 2.5 million dollar price tag, his leadership, and his production, for an equally productive player at three times the cost.

Let's talk stats:

Saku Koivu had 19 G, 33 A, and was a plus 14 last year with the Ducks; the previous year with the Habs he had 16 G, 34 A, and was a +4.

Meanwhile,

Scott Gomez had 12 G, 47 A, and was a +1 last year with Montreal.

So basically Scott Gomez has similar stats and less leadership, at three times the price compared to Saku Koivu. And he has the temerity to wear the number of the recently departed captain? (A captain, by the way, who has yet to be replaced.)

While the sting of Koivu's departure still resounds with the emptiness of the Captaincy, Scott Gomez has taken on his number. This brings into stark relief the fact that Gomez essentially replaced Koivu, and that it was a bad, bad move.

A lot has been made about Montreal just doesn't have a lot of money to throw around during free agency. Perhaps Montreal could do with that extra five million they're spending for NOTHING on Gomez.

Count me among the official detractors of Scott Gomez. Until he starts having 80-point seasons, he is a waste of money. For the time being, I will continue to say: To hell with Gomez, and the people who brought him to Montreal.

Free Agency special report!

Breaking News:
The Toronto Maple Leafs have signed yet another douchebag, giving them a near-monopoly on prickish assholes in the NHL. Colby Armstrong is the latest giraffe-turd brain to join the team of bitch-asses.

When asked to comment, GM Brian Burke said, "That's just how we roll. I'm a card-carrying fuck-knuckle prick, so naturally I'm inclined to sign players of equal ass-baggery. We fully believe Colby will be a valuable addition to our squadron of flying fuck-tards."

Armstrong is only the latest in a long line of jackalope-asses who will have had the honor of wearing the fabled Blue and White that so many whore-biscuits have worn before. Previous legendary prick-faces included Jason Blake, Darcy Tucker, Michael Peca, and Ed Belfour.

"We haven't had what it takes to be world-class champion assholes," said Brian Burke. "We missed out on Matthew Barnaby and Sean Avery. This move is the first step to our return to the top of the league of galactic douchemonkeys."

Burke gave no hint as to whether he plans on eventually signing Maxim Lapierre.

Hooray for Russia!

I was expecting Four Habs Fans to pick up this story, but since they haven't, I view it as my duty as a Russian descendant to point out just how hot this recently busted Russian spy is.

Qualifications:
Russian accent: check!
Red hair (I don't care if it's fake): check!
Smoking hot: check!







































































Count me enthralled.
Oh, to my wonderful, wonderful BoK, I love you, and would still choose you over treason.