Ss. Moats,

 

Kesler in, Raymond out?
With Kesler signed, will the Canucks ditch Raymond?

Neon Raymond

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

ast week, I wrote an article
| extolling the benefits that

the Ryan Kesler signing will
bring to the Vancouver Canucks.
Each of those reasons are still true,
and locking up the heart and soul of
the U.S. Olympic team and perhaps
the Canucks’ best overall player for
the next six years at $5 million per
year should prove to be an excellent
move by GM Mike Gillis. However,
the signing, as great as it is, does
raise questions about Vancouver’s
increasingly precarious salary cap
situation.

Next year, the Canucks’ have
eight forwards, five defensemen and
one goaltender signed, excluding
prospective rookies like Cody
Hodgson, Cory Schneider and Michael
Grabner. They’ll be paying those 14
players that they have signed and
sealed for next season a total of $45.8
million, which leaves them just under
$11 million, assuming that the salary
cap hovers around the level it is now
($56.8 million).

Now, from the glass-is-half-full
perspective, most of the money being
paid to those players is committed
to the team’s core, like the Sedins,
Roberto Luongo, Alex Burrows and
now Kesler. However, one name not
among that group that really stands out
is Mason Raymond.

Raymond is slated to become
a restricted free agent this summer
and judging from the breakout
campaign he’s had this year, he’ll be
due a significant raise as his current,

18

 

$850,000 per year entry level deal
expires. So far this season, Raymond
has chalked up 22 goals, as has been

a strong supporting cast member on

a Canucks team that is second in the
NHL in goals and has produced, for
the first time in 17 years, six 20-goal
scorers. Raymond, one of the team’s
fastest skaters, has also proven himself
to be a key member of the penalty kill.

To put it simply, it would be really
crappy to lose Raymond to an offer
sheet Gillis is unable to match this
summer. Now, if Steve Bernier is worth
two million dollars, there’s no question
that Raymond is more valuable than
that, but if the numbers go too high,
Vancouver won’t be able to retain
him with so little money available.
Remember as well, that $11 million
the Canucks have to spend also has to
factor in the futures of Willie Mitchell,
Pavol Demitra, Kyle Wellwood and
Shane O’Brien.

What could realistically happen
is the Canucks will walk away from
Raymond, who is almost sure to garner
an offer sheet from a competing team,
take the draft pick compensation and
go with rookies Hodgson, Grabner and
possibly Jordan Schroeder. That would
mean Demitra and Wellwood won’t be
back either. All three of those bright
rookies have big futures and most
importantly, they’re on entry-level
contracts, which means they’re dirt
cheap.

It’s a shame that parts of this team
may have to be broken up next season,
but unfortunately, in a salary cap
world, that’s the way it is.

 

 

By Garth McLennan, Sports Editor

American Gladiators has gone into
the history books as one of the icons
of the 1980s, and like Rocky, Mike
Tyson and the entire Edmonton
Oilers franchise, once that decade
came to an end, so too did the
success of the show. So that brings
us to the eternal question: is it a
sport?

There’s no doubt that American
Gladiators was an entertaining
show (or at least, it was before
Hulk Hogan got into it), and that
many of the games required a ton of
athleticism. Seriously, do you have
any idea how hard it is to roll around
for minutes at a time in a giant steel
hamster ball? Well, neither do I, but
I’m assuming it isn’t easy.

Most of the games in American
Gladiators usually involved a mix
of regular sports (mostly football)
and something Indiana Jones would
have had to fight through in Raiders
of the Lost Ark. Take “Hit and Run”
for example— you run across a
wobbly suspension bridge while
the gladiators throw bags of sand
at you...it’s cooler then it sounds.
Or what about “Powerball,” sort of
a cross between U.S. football and

basketball, which was always an
American Gladiators staple?

Beyond the fact that almost
all of the AG events have roots
in traditionally athletic activities,
there’s also the small part of having
to get past a number of freakishly
huge, often chemically enhanced
“Gladiators” who always seem
really pissed off and don’t seem to
worry too much about the health of
the contestants.

On the other side of the coin
though, I would compare American
Gladiators, on some levels at least,
to something like the WWE. I
would definitely classify those who
compete on AG and professional
wrestlers as athletes, but the appeal
of both shows on the whole is based
far more on the showmanship and
unique nature they bring to the
screen then on the athleticism of the
performers (that’s another thing; AG
contestants, again like wrestlers, are
just as much performers as they are
athletes).

THE VERDICT:

So American Gladiators is action
packed, it’s entertaining and it has
athletic elements involved in it, but
unfortunately, it isn’t a sport.