Hockey. Fed up with it. Disgusted. Barely paying attention to the labor problems because the average NHL player busts his ass for more than a million dollars per year while I bust my ass for a pitiful fraction of that. Shut up you whiny bitches and enjoy your season playing in Podunk, Russia. Hope like hell you don't suffer a career-ending injury there either. If I sound sympathetic towards the owners, it's only a matter of degree. They've done it to themselves with idiot owners (why are the biggest nitwits always in New York?) who wildly overpay for average talent. But you know what? The players agreed to the contracts. I never heard of an owner saying "I'm not going to pay you what we agreed to because you didn't perform up to expectations." Hockey is a business, and the players seem to think that the owners owe them the ability to make a living playing professional hockey for top dollar. I wonder how many owners have secretly admitted that they'd be better off folding their team and being done with the annual ritual of losing money? To the players: the owners don't owe you squat. How do you say "Bend over and enjoy it" in Swedish?

DC Baseball. The Nationals might never be. Boo freaking Hoo. I'm an Orioles fan and it wouldn't break my heart at all not to have a "local" team (transplanted from Canada and known for it's distinct Latin character) move in and take away televised games I actually care to see. Nobody local should be surprised, because it's Washington DC fer pete's sake! What did you expect?!?!?!?! The Nationals were a political hostage from the day they were announced, I'm just surprised their official uniforms weren't announced as orange jumpsuits.

Update before I even posted this: I just caught the briefest radio flash on this so the details might be wrong, but apparently DC is requiring a non-refundable $10,000 payment with each financing plan. This fee will be used to hire private auditors or some such because the District's CFO is out of the country until mid-January. This doesn't make much sense to me as I write it, but the additional up-front money is typical DC gov.

Posted by: Ted at 05:55 PM | category: Square Pegs
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1 In Swedish: kröka över och njuta av den

Just thought you'd want to know.

Posted by: Silver Blue at December 18, 2004 07:56 AM (G/XfQ)

2 WHen Montreal announced that they were moving to DC I figured it was a done deal. Then it kinda wasn't a done deal -- yet. Now it might not be at all! Where in tarnation did these people get their business degrees? Telling someone you're gonna do something before you even know if you can isn't management, it's trashtalk, and it belongs on the field, not off.

That said, the Ex-pos oughta just screw DC and move to Havana. The folks down there will not only actually show up to the games, but the DC government will get to watch themselves being passed over for a frickin' communist hellhole. And Castro (a former ballplayer himself) will have to open the island's "culture" to outside influences, however piddling it'd be.

Grrr...

Posted by: Tuning Spork at December 18, 2004 07:59 PM (lq74+)

3 Thanks SB, I knew someone would know that.

Spork, in January the new city council takes office, and they're decidedly *not* pro-baseball, so this needed to be a done deal before the end of the year. Cropp is running for mayor, and this was an effective way to torpedo current mayor Williams, who should have seen it coming. I don't disagree with Cropp, DC should have private funding for the stadium, and the city agreed to way too much to get the team. Last week it was announced that part of the deal with MLB was that the city picked up all costs for police and security during games, whereas the Capitals, Wizards and Redskins all pay the city for that. It's a bad deal for DC, and the best thing might be for it to fall through.

Posted by: Ted at December 18, 2004 08:53 PM (ZjSa7)

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