Trophy Error

Ironically, the day after we are in Philadelphia, they manage to win. Well, what are you going to do?

However, I have a somewhat funnier story than that. Do you think that it would be possible for a major sports trophy to accidentally be engraved with the wrong team? I would have answered in the negative, but I would have been wrong. I don't know a lot about NHL trophies, but apparently the Prince of Wales Trophy is given to the winner of the Eastern conference every year. Those of you might remember, the Philadelphia Flyers won the Eastern conference last year. However, look at that photo I borrowed from Yahoo. That's right; the title was given to the Washington Capitals. However, the story gets better. Nobody would believe him, and the Hall of Fame said that the pictures were somehow contrived with Photoshop. It seemed like no other media outlets were picking up this story, but finally one blog picked it up and finally the Hall of Fame admitted that it had made a mistake. This is kind of a big mistake to make however, and as I have learned from the Phillies game, I doubt that Flyer fans will be any more forgiving. The trophy has been corrected though, so hopefully the Hall of Fame will move on.

Trophy Error

Ironically, the day after we are in Philadelphia, they manage to win. Well, what are you going to do?

However, I have a somewhat funnier story than that. Do you think that it would be possible for a major sports trophy to accidentally be engraved with the wrong team? I would have answered in the negative, but I would have been wrong. I don't know a lot about NHL trophies, but apparently the Prince of Wales Trophy is given to the winner of the Eastern conference every year. Those of you might remember, the Philadelphia Flyers won the Eastern conference last year. However, look at that photo here on Yahoo. That's right; the title was given to the Washington Capitals. However, the story gets better. Nobody would believe him, and the Hall of Fame said that the pictures were somehow contrived with Photoshop. It seemed like no other media outlets were picking up this story, but finally one blog picked it up and finally the Hall of Fame admitted that it had made a mistake. This is kind of a big mistake to make however, and as I have learned from the Phillies game, I doubt that Flyer fans will be any more forgiving. The trophy has been corrected though, so hopefully the Hall of Fame will move on.

Contract Interference

It is interesting to think about Ilya Kovalchuk and his rejected contract with the New Jersey Devils. The NHL said that his 17 year, $102,000,000 contract was illegal. I do understand the NHL in some sense because the last five years of his contract he makes under $1,000,000. However, at this point in his career, he would be in his 40s and probably not playing anyway. Therefore, it appears as if the end of the contract is just meant to reduce the average salary for each year. Why does this matter? It matters because the average is what is calculated for the salary cap. This means that the Devils would have a lot more room to operate while retaining Kovalchuk during his best years.

I see why this might be a problem, but I'm not sure if the NHL should interfere. The reason I am concerned about it is because there was an agreement made between the player and team. If it legally put them in violation, I understand interference. However, they did everything by the rules. I don't think that this would become a major problem in the NHL if they would have let this go so. I don't think very many guys would want to stay with the team forever anyway.
Photo  by Mykl Roventine on Flickr