Sidney Crosby and a few other Pittsburgh Penguins took batting practice at PNC Park yesterday. I like to think it was a try-out. Any scouts in attendance were not disappointed.

ClumberKim still thinks it’s a great day for hockey.

ClumberKim thinks it’s a great day for hockey.

Ilya Kovalchuk wants a shit-ton of money to play hockey in the NHL. He’s pretty good. If anyone deserves a shit-ton of money in the NHL, it’s probably him.

The New Jersey Devils have a shit-ton of money to give him.  Hooray!

Problem:  all NHL teams have an annual salary cap. The total amount of the salaries they pay to their players has to be somewhere under $56M US (ish).  Kovalchuk wants $11M a year. That would blow any team’s cap out of the proverbial (frozen) water. But there’s a little wiggle room, because contracts are averaged out over the duration of the contract – so if you pay someone $10M one year, then $5M the next, the average salary hit is $7.5M. So, solution: Sign him to an improbably long (17 year) contract with the annual payouts on a bell curve, so that he gets his shit-ton of money now and lots less later, averaging out to a workable ($6M) annual salary cap hit for the Devils.

Difficulty: Does anybody really believe that 27-year-old Ilya Kovalchuk will play NHL hockey for the next 17 years?  Aren’t most players permanently on the golf course or the coach’s bench by the time they’re 38 or so? My 1-year-old daughter will be old enough to drink (in Quebec, but we’re talking hockey here, so) by the time this contract is up. Who really believes that nearly anyone in the NHL today will still be on the ice? (And if any of them are and they go in to the bar and hit on my daughter I will kneecap them, dirty old men. Oh wait. Tangent.)

Kovalchuck fistbumps for the mega-millions.

The NHL sees this tactic for what it is – complete horseshit and a flagrant end run around the salary cap rules – and, with an incredulous “I don’t fucking think so,” chucked out the first version that paid Kovalchuk $11M in the next few years and less than half a million the last few years. Now, they’re reviewing a new version of the contract, with a 15 year duration and a wee bit more money at the end of the contract rather than 90 percent of it in the first 10 years.

But the real problem is mine: I am seriously not sure who I should be snarking on here.

Do I snark the New Jersey Devils, for offering an NHL hockey player a 17 year contract – taking him through his 44th birthday – with a straight face?

Do I snark Kovalchuk himself, for reportedly threatening to take his puck and flee to Russia? Which, HA.  He’s being offered a shit-ton of money. If he has to take slightly less than a shit-ton, then perhaps he should smile and say, thank you very much, team! instead of threatening to flee to …. RUSSIA. Seriously. What is he going to do in Russia that will be so much better than taking home $11M a year as an NHL player? Hunt bears? Drink vodka? Probably, because I’d imagine he’ll need lot of vodka when he realizes exactly how much goddamn money he left on the table.

This whole “contract” is nothing short of obnoxious. It’s certainly a clever way of getting around the salary cap, by frontloading the thing so much that he’s earning 90 percent or thereabouts of the cash in the first 10 years, with the rest of the money trickling in just like Kovalchuk’s pee as he tries to empty his bladder in the old folks’ home before going in to “practice” in the last few years of this deal while everyone in the rink snickers up their sleeves at the old guy who pulled a fast one on the league way back when.

As much as I despise Bettman, he’s right. These contracts are lunacy and bad faith. If Kovalchuk wants to leave town because he can only get $8M a year as compared to $11M, I won’t shed a tear. We’ll miss his goals, but we won’t miss his sense of entitlement.

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My 5.5-month old son is helping me write this. His favorite sport is the 8-finger keyboard mash, particularly when it results in an alert beep from the PC speaker. I have to watch him though because he’s all over the control and alt keys and frequently brings up previously unknown keyboard shortcut dialogs. “Are you sure you would like to self-destruct your computer?” He and clippy would have been the best of friends.

Hockey is a couple of months away, both NHL and rec style. I have a good feeling I’m going pro this year though!  Keep your fingers crossed.  I have it on good authority that the pros are looking for a lot of 34-year-old rookies.  They just watched and were inspired by that Dennis Quaid movie.

And everything else is kind of blah.  Things are so slow that the Bengals have gone the whole day without an arrest (last check 2 p.m.)!  Talk about a dull sports day!

Oh well, I guess I’ll go back to killing my lawn.  aj[[[ pofeisu 98gea – Oh, and Lincoln says goodbye.

Long time ago. Snow and things.

But the part you might remember is Vancouver’s Olympics. Hockey. Ryan Miller vs. Roberto Luongo. Overtime.  Sidney Crosby dumping it in the net. And an entire nation going completely insane.

Now, I’m not trying to rub that whole Canada-USA thing in. (Although I totally could.)

But here’s a question: Would you have cared as much if the game was being held at 4 a.m. in Russia instead of prime time in Vancouver?

The NHL is pretending you wouldn’t have. The NHL says it’s too disruptive to shut down for two weeks. The NHL says it’s too hard on their players. The NHL doesn’t want to let their players play anymore.

If you read between the lines, what the millionaires running the NHL are really saying is that they don’t feel like there’s anything in it for them. The pinnacle of sportsmanship, sure, whatever. The real point is, they didn’t get paid enough.  Nobody gave them one red cent to shut down for two weeks with four years’ notice. Nobody gave them a cut on the ticket prices or the merchandise prices or the overpriced concessions. Nobody let them control anything. The nerve.

So the NHL’s stance really is, if you want professional hockey players in the Olympics, if you want the guys we own in the Olympics, then we need to run the show – and you have to pay us for it. Never mind what the players want. You need to line *our* pockets first.  But we don’t want to come right out and say that because that would just be rude.

Instead, the NHL has a brilliant idea:  resurrect the World Cup. Which would take their players out of the NHL for weeks, would be played on the other side of the world, would be hard on the players, and – and this is the crucial part – would allow the NHL to call the shots and reap the profits.   Sure, nobody around the world really cares about the World Cup and viewership for a tournament like this would be lukewarm at best without an entire Olympic juggernaut behind it. This does not matter. We all know Gary Bettman and his penchant for expanding in to areas that have lukewarm support for hockey but great big deep city pockets to build arenas and pay franchise fees. (See: Phoenix). He’d love to charge obscure European cities obscene fees to host World Cup events that will then be played in the middle of the night watched by nearly nobody.

People watch the Olympics. People take time off work for the Olympics. People have Olympic-watching parties with couches and wings and beer. People talk about the Olympics and tune in to games surreptitiously at work. The Olympics is where people watch sports they only watch every four years – hockey included. Yet another tournament isn’t going to give the NHL more exposure.  As much as Bettman would like it to be, hockey isn’t football.  People love the Olympics. And you can guarantee that even if the next Luongo-Miller grudge match is being played at 4 a.m. EST on a frosty Siberian plain, we’ll be tuning in. Because for any athlete anywhere, the Olympics is the pinnacle. The best. If you win there, you win it all. Why steal that from both the fans and the players, just for the sake of profit?

Seriously, Bettman. Go charge another $3 for a bottled water, if you’re that hard up for cash. Leave the Olympics alone.

The Stanley Cup and recently traded Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Brent Sopel and his wife appeared in today’s Chicago Pride Parade on the Chicago Gay Hockey Association’s float.  The Association asked, and the NHL said yes, simple as that. CGHA president Andrew Sobotka told the Chicago Sun-Times:

We are thrilled and honored for them to consider and accept our request. It’s just the news we wanted to hear. For the Blackhawks to do this is amazing. It is wonderful to know everyone is helping to make 2010 a year to break down barriers.

Brent Sopel and the Stanley Cup ride in today's Chicago Pride parade.

The Cup’s travels in its 100-day off-season are always interesting — it was used in 1996 to baptize Colorado Avalanche defenseman Sylvain Lefebvre’s daughter –  so its trip back from the NHL draft in L.A. yesterday was business as usual. Sopel was traded last week to the Atlanta Thrashers, but he and his wife Kelly rode anyway to  honor Brendan Burke, 21, son of U.S. Olympic hockey coach and Toronto Maple Leafs General Manager Brian Burke. Brendan, a hockey team manager at Miami University in Ohio who came out while in college, died in a February car crash. Sopel played for the Canucks when Brian Burke was the general manager.

…With Brendan coming out and then being killed four months later, that was the first thing that popped in my head. I knew Brian personally for years, and I met Brendan a couple of times… any young kid that dies like that is tragic. Nobody should have to bury their children.

It’s tough to deal with stereotypes, Sopel said, and he hopes one days “things will be clear and wide open for everybody.”

Agreed.

Now, I am not foolish enough to believe — as a diehard hockey fan — that hockey equals love and equality, or that all (or maybe even most, who knows) ice hockey players or fans are open and accepting of anyone regardless of sexual orientation.  A parade is a parade. One player’s participation, same thing.  But I do believe in progress when I see it and I am proud — as a diehard hockey fan — that the Blackhawks and by association the NHL showed up to Pride. I’m pleased that the Blackhawks took a hard-fought win that was so supported by Chicago fans to a place where it is sometimes dicey for sports teams to go. And I think it’s cool that there is a Chicago Gay Hockey Association at all, because if people need a place to feel more accepted and safe when they play or enjoy hockey, so be it.

And I just, in general, dig hockey fans. There’s my bias, right there. And to be fair to baseball, the Cubs had a float too, featuring Hall of Famer Ernie Banks and the “Go Cubs Go” theme song, so “Go Cubs” for a day, also.

I’m not saying it’s okay that it’s sometimes dicey for sports teams to go anywhere, either, but the last time I wore rose-colored glasses was sometime back in the last millennium. I understand reality. The Blackhawks were photographed celebrating the Cup win in front of a whiteboard that said Flyer Chris Pronger “is gay,” after all, shortly after the Tribune put him in a skirt and called him Chrissy. (Which really means they were calling him a woman, to be clear, which makes it offensive as well as ill-advised and no I am not sharing either picture here. The link is your friend.)

I know that there are no openly gay players in the NHL, or the NFL or the NBA, for that matter.

Are there gay players in the NHL? Probably. Definitely? I don’t know. I don’t care. And I say that with love for my team (hello, Washington Capitals, I’m kind of proud I got this far along in a post without mentioning you,) other players who impress me and a sport that makes me crazy and that I love all the same. And I can honestly say that I don’t care very much about their personal lives as long as they’re not doing anything really off the wall, in which case I’ll pay attention because, well, what would I write about?

But if a hockey player did come out? I’d so support him for saying out loud who he was and how he lives his life. Why not? And beyond that, I would wish on him no kind of discrimination or fallout from his choice to speak up. I would know he would get it, from some places and people, but I would not wish it for him and I would be sad if he did.

And if he were a Washington Capital and helped to win us a Stanley Cup? I would care even less about his personal life, just saying, but I’d be, somehow, prouder of my team.  It’s a little complicated that way, I guess, but just as today I say “hell yeah” to the Cubs and the Blackhawks, to Brent Sopel and Ernie Banks, to the National Hockey League and to Major League Baseball, I’d say it to him too.

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Photo available under Creative Commons from Flickr user Jasmined.

I’ve lived in Chicago most of my life. I was in high school/college when the Bulls won their six championships. I went to the last Bulls rally in Grant Park. I watched all the celebrations in the streets after each championship. I was so jealous that I was young and not of drinking age and couldn’t party in the streets.

So when the Blackhawks were one win away from winning the Stanley Cup, I made sure I was out in a bar to watch the game so that I could celebrate, if the situation presented itself.

I think I made the right decision.

Last Friday was the parade and rally for the Hawks. I took the day off (I had to ask my boss, the Flyers fan, for permission) and headed downtown.

As I said, I went to the last Bulls rally. I know what those kinds of crowds are like. I’ve also been to the Taste of Chicago in the summer when more than one million people show up. But this? This crowd for the Hawks parade was nothing like I’ve ever seen. IT WAS INSANE.

I attempted to make my way to the rally point, about 2 ½ hours before the actual rally. That was a futile attempt. There was just too many people.

I finally parked myself at the corner of Washington and Wabash and figured I could at least see the parade from this vantage point. And that was better than nothing.

The buses were late leaving the United Center. (Rumor has it one Patrick Kane was a wee bit hungover and overslept.) I was the hero of my corner, following the updates on Twitter, knowing exactly where the buses were. Everyone thought I had an inside scoop. Social media FTW!

Finally they made it. It was AMAZING! I took as many photos as I could.

Kaner and Jonathan Toews were on the last bus with Lord Stanley’s Cup. (Twitter also told me this.) So I was all set and ready to take some photos as their bus approached.

Kane chugged from a champagne bottle and sprayed the crowd.

Finally, the Cup! The crowd erupted! I think this is the best photo I’ve ever taken.

After the final bus, the crowd filled onto Washington and followed the buses to the rally point. (I admit, it was like 95 and humid and I hate crowds, so I called it a day.) The entire city was a sea of red. It was an amazing sight.

The City of Chicago estimated over 2 million people came to the parade and rally. (In relation, the White Sox only had 350,000 people at their parade in 2005.) A lot of people think this is a gross overestimate. But look at these photos:

I was there. I believe it. It was the single most insane thing I have ever been a part of. And I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

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Kristabella is spending the rest of the summer stalking the Cup, hoping to kiss it, or a Hawk. She blogs here.

This happened in Game 1, but this is the idea.

Seriously, by the time June 9 hits, still having NHL hockey going is beyond ridiculous. Hockey is played on ice. Ice is long gone in most parts of Canada by mid-June. So maintaining the season this late feels surreal,  watching games in short sleeves instead of parkas and drinking margaritas instead of beer. But, given Bettman’s penchant for expanding the hockey league in to sunbelt cities where the only ice they know is in drinks and not on the ground, I guess he prefers it that way. It didn’t help that the NHL inexplicably dragged out the final series, delaying Game 1 by 5 days, delaying Game 6 by 4. Even A 7 game series could have been done a week ago had the games been scheduled normally. Instead, we all sit around and look awkwardly at each other when we realize, there’s a game on tonight? Still?

To be fair, I stopped caring a whole lot about hockey after Montreal was eliminated by Philly. That sweetheart season was over and I rejoiced the ability to regain control over the remote. But I did tune in for the end last night, and there were a few moments that put a smile on my cynical (if sleepy) face.

Moment One: Wunderkind Jonathan Toews, 22, Olympic Champion, World Champion, Conn Smythe winner and now Stanley Cup Champion, hoisting the cup in front of his ecstatic parents. I used to believe this trend of giving Captaincies to kids who can’t even grow a beard was just a way to mollycoddle this new generation of Precious Snowflakes. Then I started to follow Toews, who is cut from a different cloth than other punk Captains. He just plays. Works hard. Doesn’t seek the limelight, doesn’t whine, just .. plays.  And wins Stanley Cups. That’s a kid who deserves to be a role model. That’s a kid who has a long career ahead of him. That’s a kid I like. 

Then, Moment Two:  Seeing Toews hand the cup directly over to no-longer-cursed Marian Hossa, the player I’ve been all crushy on since he joined the Senators back in the mists of antiquity, the player who’s been in the Cup final three years in a row, the player who took so much flack last year for jumping to Detroit only to see them lose to his former team.

Marian Hossa with the Stanley Cup

He faced lots of accusations of being a Cup Chaser – as if he somehow predicted that Detroit and Pittsburgh would meet in the final two years in a row – but given that he’s signed with Chicago for the next 11 years, he seems to have been rewarded for his loyalty. 

And finally, Moment Three:  Putting the 2009-2010 season to bed, already. Hockey in June might bring an occasional tear to my eye, but mostly, it makes me wonder what the hell the NHL is thinking. I’m Canadian. I love hockey.  And by June, even I don’t care.

That said, sincere congratulations to the Blackhawks and the people of Chicago, who I’m sure will joyfully sweat their way through Friday’s victory parade. It’s finally summertime, hockey people.

Shannon is an Ottawa blogger who writes about politics, parenting, sports and the environment (among other things) at ThreeSeven and EcoChick. She is @zchamu on Twitter.

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We love our sports teams. We drink when they lose, we drink when they win. And when one of our hometown teams makes it to the championship, the whole city celebrates.

And how do we celebrate? We dress up our many statues around the city.

Our standby is the lions outside the Art Institute of Chicago. They get dressed up for everyone.

We also dress up the famous Picasso statue in Daley Plaza.

And then depending on which team is on a championship run, we get creative.

Please tell me, is this normal in any other city?

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Kristabella is a Chicago blogger with a drinking problem. She writes here.

And then I find out that my least favorite team in the NHL is bringing in hundreds of Pittbsurgh-area college students to flush 400 toilets simultaneously in their new arena. And I smile because this is ridiculous and things just seem a little brighter for a minute.

The Pens shut down the Igloo after their last game against the soon-to-choke Habs in the year of our Lord aught-nine when dinosaurs roamed the earth it feels like so damned long ago last month. June is a new day in western Pa. arenas as they ready the Consol Energy Center for Crosby and company’s next big season.

They just need to find out if the toilets work, and rather than send poor facilities dudes tediously from restroom to restroom, they’re going to bring in 250 area college kids for the June 10 Student Flush. 150 other construction folks and who knows who else will be on hand to help check the plumbing.

“I don’t know that anyone has ever done a promotion around the required simultaneous flushing of the toilets in a new facility, but we thought we could have some fun with it,” Pens Presidents David Morehouse said on NHL.com. “Students make up such a large part of our fan base that we thought we’d offer them a chance to participate and help us out. People probably don’t even know that this is a requirement, but you have to do it once in every new arena.”

I shudder to think what happens if you flush 400 toilets at once and the pipes burst or whatever happens when water systems fail, so I can see how this is a good thing to check out. And you know, it’s summer, so what are these kids doing anyway?

Members of the popular Student Rush ticket program had to send a text in hopes of being chosen — a toilet raffle, if you will, maybe even a crap shoot. Chosen flushers will receive a “Student Flush” t-shirt with the name of a current or former player on the back, pizza and Snapple.

And as this video indicates, the Student Rushers enjoy pizza.

No word on if they will be permitted to christen these brand new toilets before they flush them.

Pens announcers and the Iceburgh mascot will be on hand, but I’m thinking if they’re going to have them flush toilets they could at least pull Sid off the golf course to make an appearance. This seems like something that the captain ought to take for the team.

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. . . .

Laurie hopes the toilets work at Heinz Field in January.