Free Agency

And now, an entry that I've been trying to write for about two weeks now, detailing some of the moves in the NHL since players contracts expired on June 30th. The Calgary Flames moves for Jay Bouwmeester have been detailed already, but they've been stocking up on depth forwards like there's going to be a long shortage of them, or possibly a trade is in the offing. Nigel Dawes arrived from Phoenix today and his former Rangers colleague Fredrik Sjostrom arrived a week ago. They also went goon shopping in signing former Ottawa enforcer Brian McGrattan. But what of some of the other players around the league?

Mike Cammalleri
Last season's Flames top scorer signed for Montreal for $6m a year. This is more than the Flames were ever going to pay him. Yes, he scored 39 goals last season ,but he's a streaky scorer not overly physical, under six feet tall and not much use in his own end. He'll fit right in in Montreal then. Verdict: overpayment. Honourable mentions to the signings of Brian Gionta and Scott Gomez for a combined $11m a year.

Marian Gaborik
Moved from Minnesota to the New York Rangers for a mind boggling $7.5m a season. He missed a combined 99 games to injury in the 2006-7 and 2008-9 seasons. Signing someone made of glass and piano wire to that sort of contract is far too much, but Rangers GM Glen Sather has form on that front I'm afraid. Verdict: overpayment

Marian Hossa
Two years running he's been on the losing side in the Stanley Cup Final. This would appear to mark him down as something as a jinx, particularly this year where the joke went 'Hossa' is Slovak for 'invisible'. He signed a front-loaded contract which works out as a salary cap hit of $5.23m year, though this means $7.9m a year for the first 7 years (by which time he'll be 37) which I think is not bad for a player of his ability, but it causes horrible problems this time next year. Having to sign Toews, Kane and Keith to new contracts next summer means they can't possibly keep all three of them with $40m committed to 10 players (cheers Stu!); probably the reason GM Dale Tallon was fired this week. Verdict: not necessarily overpayment, but say bye bye to one of Toews or Kane this time next year.

Alex Kovalev
Moved from Montreal to Ottawa, ostensibly to replace the then departing Dany Heatley. But then Heatley refused to move to Edmonton, thus sending them over the salary cap. Replacing one lightweight floater with another is hardly likely to shake the Senators out of their post-Stanley-Cup slide. Verdict: possible overpayment, but certainly not the player they need.

Martin Havlat
Left Chicago to sign for Minnesota for $5m a year for 6 years. Played a starring role in Chicago's first two games against Calgary in the playoffs last season, and twittering darkly about the goings on in the Chicago front office. The Wild get their replacement for the departing Gaborik, at a reasonable price. Verdict: good deal.

Nikolai Khabibulin
The Russian goalie leaves Chicago for Edmonton, which is somewhat odd seeing as Dwayne Roloson did so well for them last season, though possibly being 39 years old means the powers that be think he's coming to the end of the road, refusing to offer him a 2 year deal. So, they replaced him with.....a 36 year old. Yes, he might have an awesome record against the Flames, but they must play 76 games against other sides. Just another demonstration of the joined-up thinking from the gong-show further north. Verdict: $3.75m a year is not so bad in and of itself, it's just a pointless signing.

Chris Pronger
Beloved in these parts for leaving Edmonton because his wife didn't like it there, he was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers from the Anaheim Ducks for Joffrey Lupul, Lucas Sbisa (Philly's first round draft pick last season) and a first round draft pick. Pronger is a supremely hard defenceman, but also dirty with it. He'll fit right in in Philadelphia, but the club have been fleeced here in signing a 34 year old for $7.6m a year, in addition to what they gave up. Even the far-more-talented Scott Niedermayer doesn't make $7m a year! Verdict: gross overpayment.

Francois Beauchemin and Mike Komisarek
Another Duck d-man on the move is Francois Beauchemin who missed a large portion of the season through injury, before coming back down the stretch. The Ducks' upturn in that time. was no coincidence. I wouldn't have minded seeing him here had Bouwmeester not signed. All-star (ha!) Komisarek was at Montreal last season but has decided to leave. Both players signed for Toronto, who have now (whisper it quietly) got a reasonable defence with the two players discussed, plus Luke Schenn and Tomas Kaberle. If only their forwards weren't such rubbish....Verdict: good deals!

I'll maybe add a few more as the close-season develops.

Chicken Feed

Boris Johnson is in the news again. In case you haven't heard, he described his combined London mayoral salary and News of the World column income of £390,000 as "chicken feed" Boris is rich pickings for the media with all the supposed buffoonery, and his appearances on Have I Got News For You are never less than entertaining; personally, I can't believe an old Etonian and graduate of Balliol College Oxford is that stupid and it's all a carefully crafted act.

This weekend's error is still something of a Freudian slip in that however media friendly the new, touchy feely Conservative Party appears to be, they are at best as cynical with the media that New Labour were; and at worst still the party run by the select few, for the select few. What's worse is, given their leads in the opinion polls, that the British electorate seems to be falling for it. Cynical publicity stunts like 'Dave' Cameron's cycling to work on his bike to boost his green credentials while his chaffeur drives his suitcase behind him in the car might fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of them. Have people forgotten 18 years of Conservative rule that quickly?

Pests

And here's another saga come to an end. About 2 months ago building management here at Beige Towers decreed that since someone upstairs somewhere had reported a bed-bug infestation, they would be inspecting all flats on floors 3-5. This meant moving all the furniture away from the walls and other inconveniences; nothing happened thereafter so I figured all was well.

Some weeks later a letter is shoved under my door at 9pm on a Sunday night telling me pest control will be spraying my flat on Tuesday....please remove everything from the bedroom barring mattress and bed frame, move all furniture away from walls, clear shelves etc. Fine. Here's the scene of all my clothes in suitcases in the kitchen, with the DVD tower (still alphabetically organised!), and the view in the other direction:


Four weeks after that, I got another notice asking me to, for the third time, move all the furniture for a "follow up". I thought "sod that" but after reflecting on the fact my rent is now reduced as compared to my first lease, did as I was told. For the third time there was no note or letter indicating the outcome. I put all the furniture and objets d'art that adorn suite 303 of Beige Towers back in their place for the third time. I got home on Monday night to be greeted by not one, not two, not three but FIVE letters from building management - dated June 25th!!! - asking "has the work been completed to your satisfaction?" All are exactly the same! Whether the work has been done well or not, I'm certainly not satisfied with the pointless waste of paper!

You Come Over Here, Taking Our Money...

Another saga came to an end today; my first brush with the Canadian taxman. You'll remember (or perhaps not!) my description of filling out my tax return. To cut a long story short, my electronic payment did not end up 'in the right box' in my account with Revenue Canada (their fault, not mine). About a month ago, a letter duly arrived saying "please pay up or we'll banish you to live in Yellowknife for ten years". The telephone number I was supposed to ring, was, in the style of most government institutions, permanently engaged. A call to another number ended up with me being square with the taxman. Better still, he owed me money seeing as I had overcalculated how much I should pay! The cheque arrived today. Victory!

Dont Get Mad, Get Even

Another example of how a Canadian goes about something compared to an American, or someone from Britain. Halifax musician David Carroll was travelling from Halifax to Nebraska via Chicago's O'Hare airport, along with his band, the Sons of Maxwell. On the tarmac in Chicago, they could see United Airlines ground staff throwing guitar cases into the plane; sure enough, on landing his guitar had $1200 worth of damage done to it.

After nine months of being passed from one agent to another, and United's resolute refusal to accept liability or pay for the damage, he decided to get even. The result is the video you see below. After more than 2.3 million hits on YouTube, inside a week, and the subsequent negative media exposure, United have climbed down and are now talking to him. Nicely played sir! An American would doubtless have resorted to lawsuits galore, while a British response might have been similar to the "London Underground song" (Seriously, don't google that if you're easily offended. Bad language ahoy!). Whereas the Canadian is unfailingly polite and gets the job done.

Cheer Up Brian Burke

Given today is the first day of free agency, players are moving left, right and centre in the NHL right now. I'll write later on about the winners and losers, but first an amusing tale about the Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke:

"Having flown overnight from Boston to Frankfurt, according to sources, with bold, ambitious plans to make a face-to-face offer to Henrik and Daniel Sedin today in Sweden, the Maple Leafs GM was thwarted in the final minutes before the free agent season opened when the identical Swedish twins signed new five-year deals averaging $6.1 million per season just before noon EST with the Vancouver Canucks"

ahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

The gift that just keeps on giving. Brian Burke, I salute you!