Can you guess what I saw from the quote last night?
Saturday, August 19, 2006
"That's it! I've had it with these mother****ing contract negotiations with mother****ing Nikolai Zherdev!"I gave in. I had to! The hype, the Internet phenomena, the hilarity of the whole premise. How couldn't you get drawn in to going to see such a movie!? And believe me, getting me to see a movie takes the moving of mountains, especially when there is no one to go and see it with (alas, all my friends in Columbus are gone for the summer).
In case you haven't realized what I am referring to yet, it's Snakes on a Plane. I don't care if it means I'm some Internet sheep, or meme follower. This was the best money I've spent on a movie since ... well, who knows how long ago!
I originally wanted to talk about some non-hockey things to pass the time, and SoaP was the perfect thing to touch on. But then sometime around midnight last night, while checking the CBJ website as I religiously do, I noticed that Michael Arace from the The Columbus Dispatch once again had gotten a scoop on the Nikolai Zherdev negotiations.
(As a sidenote, I have to admit that sometimes it can be a little depressing that I seem to have to live off of what the real beat writers are able to get with their connections. Ah well ... such is the life of a blogger, right?)
The skinny on what Arace reports is that the time table for the deal with Zherdev has apparently shortened greatly. Further, now there's word that Zherdev will either take a respectable one year deal, or the 3-4 year long-term deal he was originally looking for. I have a bad feeling that if the one year deal is what happens, that'll be his last year in a Jackets uniform unless some good will happens between him and MacLean, as well as whether or not the team makes progress towards the playoffs. Why stay after a lousy year, after all.
I still am frustrated with MacLean's decision. Could this very well be his conscience getting to him over all the money he's tossed around previously with other players, except this time the general concensus is that Zherdev really is worth the long-term contract?
What really bothers me about this is, as I stressed in earlier entries, there is no one that MacLean could use in the system to help take over for Zherdev. And right now, none of the players on the market are either being reported as being courted by the Jackets, or even interested.
So what do you do? Hell, maybe MacLean has something hidden under his sleeve if Zherdev walks and plays in Russia this season. You can never really tell with him.
