Toronto Star writer and guilty conscience of every Canadian hockey fan came back from his vacation today, just in time to pen a blog post on how an independant arbitrator would uphold Ilya Kovalchuk's 17-year, $102-million contract.
"Most don't expect that [arbitrator Richard Bloch to uphold the NHL's decision] to happen," Cox writes, "and instead it's likely Ilya Kovalchuk will officially become a New Jersey Devil, with his controversial 17-year, $102 million deal approved."
I fail to comprehend who "most" is referring to. If Cox has an extensive list of labour lawyers and union experts to quote and draw his conclusions from, well, all the best to him. The thing is that he doesn't, and his source list is likely made up of ex-players and former agents--former agents for a reason--who have read the NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement as extensively as we have, and have no more insight into the matter as that braindead co-worker.
Using an all-encompassing term like "most" without quoting sufficient sources is what seperates real journalists from schmos who, already having made a career, just mail in every column and offer no differing opinion than the majority of 7pm-10pm sports fans.
That being said, in the unlikely event that Bloch does not overturn the NHL's decision, we're told by Cox, in the same column, that "it's believed the Los Angeles Kings would be first in line to try and sign him," even though Dean Lomardi, General Manager of the Kings says that his team "weren't in the the ballpark" with the deal that the Devils initially signed Kovalchuk to.
Toss in a couple of Tomas Kaberle rumours, also with no substantial evidence to back up his claims, as click-bait, and you have your typical Damien Cox column, including a close-to-but-not-exceeding-400 word count.
So, an hour or so after Bloch decided to prove Damien Cox wrong, Cox came out with an apologetic response piece, explaining the ramifications of this whole thing. Reading is not reccomended.
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