I am usually not a pot stirrer, but in the depths of the dog days of the hockey summer and armed with legitimate ammunition, let me ask this:
Which is most ridiculous?
--That the Flyers committed to spend $28M for player NOT to play for them in the future when they bought out Danny Briere and Ilya Bryzgalov? But don’t worry the Bryzgalov buyout is spread over 14 years which means that when you average it out each and every one of an estimated 23,000,000 Flyers tickets sold from now until April of 2027 will have a $2 Ilya Bryzgalov tax included in it.
--That the Flyers committed to 7 years of Chris Pronger to start when he was 36 years old and finish up when he was nearing 43 years of age? At least they frontloaded the deal such that they could pay a nice $15.2M chunk of it during the 2 years and 63 games that Chris Pronger played during the contract. For Flyers fans who were in attendance during the 63 games that Pronger played on this contract, they can figure that about $27.50 of their ticket price for those games went to cover the $550,000 per game cost of Pronger’s contract.
--That to make the numbers work for the Bryzgalov signing, the Flyers traded away up and coming stars Jeff Carter and Mike Richards who would go on to win the 2011 Stanley Cup in Los Angeles?
--That the legalese of the new CBA has such gaping loopholes that do nothing to hold NHL GMs accountable for horrible contracts and offers free passes (“compliance buyouts”) that make it possible for teams to overspend the cap and just yell out “Mulligan” while writing a huge check or 2 to start over?
--That for highlighting the details of this situation and tossing in a bit of sarcasm for fun more people will call me an idiot in the comments to this blog than Paul Holmgren?
--That Paul Holmgren still has his job. Is there any other position in the world where you can be responsible for huge amounts of money, mess it up this badly and still get paid to do more of it?
--That Flyers fans seem to be largely okay with this situation that has become the norm? Would someone from the Flyers’ faithful please step up and start a campaign to have thousands of season ticket holders drop off wrapped calculators at the arena and directed to Paul Holmgren’s office come holiday season?
Ron Hextall knows…
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