Well the topic I find most interesting today is the apparent (yawn) lockout by the NHL franchise owners. Not that I really follow sports but this story kind of caught my attention a little late, so from what I gather the NHL commissioner wants to impose some new payment scheme designed to help the ailing NHL franchises that are losing money. Under the recalculation of revenue the average players salary drops from 1.83 million to only a mere 1.3 million per year... pardon me while I lower the heat to keep gas costs down (actually heat is included in my res but couldn't think of another good example). Now while I'm of the opinion that sports players in general are among the most grossly overpaid people in the world that doesn't mean I give the owners a passing grade either. I've always wanted to know EXACTLY how much are these teams taking in and what exactly are they spending it on? Interestingly enough that is one of the beefs the NHL players association has, they were able to look at the books only after signing a non-disclosure agreement. Of course that could just be a ploy, since a lot of companies don't have books open to the public. That said, I really wonder how much of the revenue goes directly to the owners of these teams and how much goes back into the franchise? Its not beyond the realm of possibility that the franchise might be paying for lavish lifestyles of the owners a la Tyco (ice statue of Michelangelo's David that urinated Vodka).
Bah, the whole system reeks of corruption top to bottom, anytime money is involved everything can go to pot. Actually that's an idea to end the lockout, put the players and owners in a small room filled only with happy weed, matches and bongs. Then the lockout would be over real fast, heck the owners might try playing on the ice, just have to make sure to install a burger stand by each team bench (okay I'll stop with the silly weed jokes). That's about it for now