Tomas Kaberle has been on the trading block for months, peddled harder than a Slap Chop at a garage sale, yet he says of the Toronto Maple Leafs, "I love this organization."
The Calgary Flames are $2.35 million over the salary cap and have eight defencemen on one-way deals, while division rivals and one-time financial fat cat Colorado still has a whopping $21 million in cap space.
And while Mike Modano is skating around in a (gasp) Detroit Red Wings jersey, four-time Cup winner Kirk Maltby signed a two-way deal and is looking at starting the season in Grand Rapids.
Yep, this new cap world is turning out exactly as we expected…
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Twitter Quitter
Dan Ellis was the NHL’s Hart Trophy Tweeter. Then he went on Twitter about how stressed about his money these days, not long after signing a two-year, $3-million deal with Tampa.
Now, it’s all over for Ellis on Twitter, who was mercilessly pounded out of cyberspace by the various smart-guys who inhabit the Internet.
Talk about a beatdown, this was a prime example of a segment of internet users who tend to be quiet when a guy like Ellis is happily twittering on topics that are interesting, yet neutral. But the moment he enters into a controversial area they pounce, and pounce hard.
It’s a tough neighbourhood out there — no one knows it more than this columnist. The anonymity provided by pseudonyms and the lack of accountability emboldens certain posters, making them downright ignorant at times. (Not the sportsnet.ca posters, of course.)
Clearly, Ellis no longer wanted to play in that harsh sandbox, and exercised his right to walk away. For that, all hockey fans are poorer.
His final post?
@33dellis: "Peace out twitter!"
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Portage and Maimed
Is it a coincidence that the team that lost fragile quarterback Buck Pierce this past weekend is toying with Jesse Lumsden? Or did the Winnipeg Blue Bombers head trainer lose a bet?
The Blue Bombers are seriously talking about signing Lumsden, who hasn’t played since he injured his shoulder in Game 1 of the 2009 season. A nicer young man we’ve seldom met, but how he is going to help the 2-7 Bombers after all this time away from the game is beyond us.
Pierce is a tragic enough figure on his own, having endured nothing but injuries since he joined the CFL in 2005. He was having a decent season, despite losing four games to injury, but once again found himself behind a microphone this week wearing a sling on his dislocated elbow, answering questions about what could have been if only his body could hold it together.
"You do. But for how long?" he asked. "How long do you beat yourself up about that? How long do you think 'what ifs,?’ What if I could stay healthy for a season?"
Long enough to get back into the lineup and hand the ball off to Lumsden, we’re guessing. What a QB-RB tandem that would be.
They could injure each other on a hand-off.
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Congrats! You’re Fired
The Edmonton Eskimos released offensive-lineman Calvin Armstrong Wednesday on the same day his wife was giving birth to their first child, a sign of the times as a proud organization endures perhaps the lowest ebb in its history.
Here is a guy who wakes up on the day his first child is to arrive by C-section, and his employer cans him. That will teach Armstrong to walk away from his quarterback, even offering a dismissive wave we are told, after Ricky Ray fumbled the ball in Calgary Monday.
There are depths that will be left un-plumbed by this Eskimos team in 2010. It is an organization that has skated for too long on poor drafting, bad trades and awful recruiting by ex-GM Danny Maciocia. Finally the chicken came home to roost — in fact, the Esks have a dressing room full of them.
"Our organization, it’s a sick organization right now," guard Aaron Fiacconi told the Edmonton Journal. "We’re troubled."
Armstrong was signed by the Toronto Argonauts today.
