G Garrett Zemlak (Saskatoon, Prince Albert, 2006-10) signed a one-year contract with the Braehead Clan (Scotland, UK Elite). He had a 4.33 GAA and a .890 save percentage in 54 games with the Fife Flyers (Scotland, UK Elite) last season. With the Flyers, Zemlak won UK Elite League Fans Favourite Award, Fife Flyers Mirror of Merit Award, Players Player, and Player of the Year.
The Clan, who play out of Glasgow, recently named F Jordan Krestanovich (Calgary, 1997-2001) as player/head coach. Krestanovich, who was captain of the Clan last season, had with 29 goals and 40 assists in 50 games. . . .
F Lee Goren (Saskatoon, 1995-96) signed a one-year contract with Pelicans Lahti (Finland, SM-Liiga). He had 11 goals and 28 assists in 51 games for Skellefteå (Sweden, Elitserien) last season.
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Renaud Lavoie, who works for RDS, which is the French-Canadian equivalent of TSN, got the ball rolling Friday night when he was the first person to report parts of the offer the NHL has made to the NHLPA as negotiations on a new CBA get serious.
The most contentious issues, it seems, will revolve around the percentage of hockey-related revenues that will go to the players, as well as the definition of hockey-related revenues, or HRR as they are referred to in many instances.
The CBA that is in force now, the one that was negotiated as the NHL sat out the 2004-05 season, gives the players 56 per cent, with the owners getting 44.
According to Lavoie, the NHL has suggest that change to 46 for the players and 54 for the owners.
That’s right. From 57-43 players, to 54-46 owners.
Sure, it’s only the beginning of negotiations, but you have to think the owners were delivering some kind of a message with that.
According to Lavoie, the NHL offer also would make players eligible for unrestricted free agency after 10 seasons; right now, it’s seven seasons or 27 years of age. The NHL also wants five-year entry-level contracts; they now are three years in length. And the NHL wants to get rid of arbitration.
Lavoie also reported that the NHL offer would put a maximum length of five years on contracts. In other words, no more 13-year deals for the likes of defenceman Ryan Suter and forward Zach Parise.
Larry Brooks of the New York Post later reported that the NHL also wants to get rid of signing bonuses.
Yes, it’s early. Yes, the CBA doesn’t expire until Sept. 15 which, you should know, is only two months away.
But if the NHL is at all serious about taking a healthy chunk out of the 57-43 advantage the players now have when it comes to the shares of HRR, numbers that were negotiated by the players, well, you can forget about training camps opening in mid-September.
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Chris Wallace was a quarterback. He now is a writer.
Here are three paragraphs from an essay he wrote for the Paris Review:
My second serious concussion came in my junior year at Weber State University, during a home game against Humboldt State. We were up big in the fourth quarter, but, instead of “protecting myself” as I’d been coached, I went full-Elway in a scramble toward the end zone, diving over a defender just as I was hit from the side and helicoptering down to the one-inch line. I handed the ball off to our fullback the next play, and, after he scored, walked to the sideline where the trainers flocked to check me out. Of course I was all right, I said, “Thith game ith outh to looth.”
I didn’t notice the slur or the daze, but I did see the look of recognition in the eyes of the head trainer. I spent the weekend with the trainers (being “monitored”), but I don’t remember getting a CAT scan. As in high school, after the North Torrance game, I sat out practice until a doctor had cleared me for contact. I was still a “game-time decision,” meaning the doctor would have to clear me further, for violent combat, essentially. He did, and we went on to beat the stuffing out of Idaho State, I think it was.
But a year later, having pulled a Kerouac and quit the team to become an artist, I was in Austin, Texas, and romancing the idea of suicide.
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Wallace’s complete essay is right here.
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And right here is another good read. Rick Reilly of ESPN really brings it on Joe Paterno and the Penn State mess.
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