Back to the Ice

Ladies and gentlemen, the first shoe has dropped; Bob Goodenow has stepped down as the head of NHL Player’s Association. Now all we need is Gary Betman to follow him into early retirement, then maybe we can actually enjoy hockey this season. It was pretty obvious that Goodenow would jump ship after being beaten down like a red-headed step child in the labor negotiations. Had he just given in to a salary cap last year at this time instead of just a couple weeks ago, we would have had hockey last season.

So we will have the NHL draft this weekend and the Pittsburg Penguins won the Sidney Crosby sweepstake. Didn’t they just have the last savior of the NHL? It is interesting that will be conducting the draft like your normal fantasy draft, so Tampa Bay will have the 30th and 31st pick even thought Pittsburg get the number 1 pick, their next pick will be the 60th overall. And the draft will be really important for some teams as many have as few as seven players currently signed to their rosters.

And it didn’t take long for Congress to get on the NHL about their drub policies stating it has too many loopholes. The Congress need to understand that, much like basketball, hockey is a sport of agility, something that steroids would actually hurt you instead of helping. Just stick to football and baseball guys (and dolls).

And speaking of baseball, apparently the trade deadline is also this weekend. This has to be the weakest rumor mill since the inception of free agency. The biggest names on the block this year are Danny Baez and some dude from the Pirates. Seriously, this is really sad.

Staying with baseball, Kenny Rodgers finally folded ‘em last night and served the first game of his suspension this almost a month to the day of the altercation. And people wonder way it took so long to get a steroids policy into place. Bud really needs to take a page out David Stern’ playbook and hear the appeal the next day and go, “thanks for the talk, but the ruling stands.” Then he could revoke the all-star appearance to boot, but Bud shows why he’s the biggest push-over in sports.

Lastly, with a win tonight, my Astros can pull into a tie for the wild card. Hopefully they don’t waste some good prospects just to pick up Baez or that dude from the Pirates, as long as the Clemens back is good, the Astros are almost a lock for the playoffs.