News from the Ottawa area (Boyle, Giroux), others

[Stephane Richer]

Ottawa\'s Le Droit newspaper had an interesting article on Franco-Ontarian and Ottawa native Dan Boyle recently. Boyle says he was told by Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St-Louis that he would be missed by the Lightning. He adds that Brian Lawton is new at the business dimension of hockey and questions his knowledge. He adds that he feels welcomed by Shark’s. Joe Thornton phoned him about 5 times to convince him into signing with the Sharks and Ottawa’s Doug Wilson, GM of the San Jose Sharks was also convincing and Boyle therefore agreed to waive his no-trade clause with Tampa Bay.
http://www.cyberpresse.ca/article/20.../5163/CPSPORTS(French)

Le Droit also met Claude Giroux who is training in Kanata with Ottawa and Gatineau guys in the NHL. He says that he would be disapointed if he does\'nt make the Flyers team and that it would mean that he didn\'t have a good training camp. He is getting bigger as acknowledged recently by Paul Holmgren in an interview in a Philadelphia newspaper http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...th_Flyers.html

Golfer Anika Sorenstam is in Ottawa for a tournament and admits she would be pleased if part time Ottawa resident and golf enthusiast Daniel Alfredson popped by to say hello. She has never met Alfie.

Also, this seems to make sense…
Unsigned players such as Selanne are waiting for new CBA clauses to be announced in the near future before making their intentions known, according to Eklund. On his Hockey Buzz Daily Buzz blog, he indicates that in the CBA, there is a:

buffer zone that teams have used to sign players over 35 to special bonuses allowed for that age group.Now that is all pretty damn boring and confusing...But suffice to say I am told by several sources that the until the CBA is officially allowed to go on as is, Shanahan and Selanne are going to wait since the bonus structures that would allow the Rangers and the Ducks the extra cap space doesn\'t yet exist...

[ultrawhiteness]

thanks for the boyle/giroux news, stephane!

[superluke]

Man thanks for all the info!As usual you bring us some great info!

I will suggest you to not put to many trust/hope into Eklund the phony blogger!!!

CIAO MON CHUM!!!

[angus]

Boyle is going to have a big season in SJ. Thanks for the news.

[fzusher]

superluke wrote:

Man thanks for all the info!As usual you bring us some great info!

I will suggest you to not put to many trust/hope into Eklund the phony blogger!!!

CIAO MON CHUM!!!

Normally, yes, but on this Eklund is actually legit - just a month and a half late.

Dellapina\'s Rangers blog July 1st

Dellapina is drawing on a Bob McKenzie story that I couldn\'t find, but which he had confirmed with Bill Daly. The relevant clause in the CBA, btw, is 50.5(h).

In essence, a team could sign players over 35 (or younger players with over 400 NHL games who spent at least 100 days on IR during the last year of their previous Standard Players\' Contract; see example below) to a one-year contract padded with performance bonuses, even if those bonuses could take the team over the cap (up to a ceiling, I think 7.5% over the cap, but I might be wrong), and then, should the player in fact earn those bonuses with the team in fact ending up over the cap as a result, the cap overage can be applied against next season\'s cap.

The problem is, the NHLPA currently has an option to re-open the CBA at the end of the 08-09 season, and until the NHLPA declines this option, 08-09 is considered the last year of the CBA. According to the CBA, performance bonuses cannot be deferred to next year during the last year of the CBA. What this means is that when a team signs a player to a bonus-laden contract, that contract must count against the cap to the full maximum amount the player would earn if all the bonuses were attained.

Why Eklund would find this confusing is beyond me, but nevermind that. That\'s what he is correctly referring to.

Example of under 35 player who could get a bonus-laden contract: if Havlat plays at least 12 games this season, but also spends at least 100 days on IR, he would be eligible for a 1-year bonus-laden contract as his next NHL contract despite being only 28.

[Stephane Richer]

Thanks for this Fzusher. Interesting source of information. By the way, don\'t you have a dissertation to write ? Just trying to help lol. Just pulling your leg,I think I know the feeling (you were refering to procrastination in a recent post) mine\'s done (MA) and I believe your\'s is a Phd dissertation, am I correct ?

[fzusher]

Stephane Richer wrote:

Thanks for this Fzusher. Interesting source of information. By the way, don\'t you have a dissertation to write ? Just trying to help lol. Just pulling your leg,I think I know the feeling (you were refering to procrastination in a recent post) mine\'s done (MA) and I believe your\'s is a Phd dissertation, am I correct ?

Yes and yes. Going back to it now. It\'s so easy to get sucked into this stuff ...

[Stephane Richer]

Fzusher said

Going back to it now. It\'s so easy to get sucked into this stuff ...

You\'re back already ? :laugh:

I\'m lucky, I wasn\'t in hockey pools while writing mine. This can really be time consuming stuff, and it\'s not like you\'re not in a thinking mode enough while sitting in front a computer screen. It takes a lot of courage to do what you\'re doing, keep your sight on your goal FZ. I\'m on vacation I feel a little less guilty :laugh: