Ss PonTS.

Athletes Make Bank

 

By Josh Martin, Sports Editor

fter what seemed to take
forever, NHL hockey
sensation Ilya Kovalchuk

has signed a 15 year contract with
the New Jersey Devils that is

worth $100 million dollars. With
such a long contract, Kovie will be
financially secure for a little north of
400 years. It was a bit of a hard time
for the deal to come through with
both the NHL and the NHL’s Player
Association disputing and negotiating
the contract, but at the end of the day
he is now a New Jersey Devil for
quite likely the rest of his career. The
Russian gunner will be averaging
$6.7 million for the next decade and
a half which puts him among the
highest paid players in the NHL. The
key thing to this particular contract
is the fact that it is so long in term
which is good in a sense of financial
protection for Ilya that will help him
later in his career when he may lose
the skill he possesses presently in his
game at such a high level.

Usually, NHL contracts
have a significantly shorter length so
that when the contract is up a new
contract can be negotiated based on
the player’s skill set that they have
demonstrated throughout the years.
Last season, Vincent Lecavalier
was sitting at the top of the chart
making $10 million a year while
Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and
Alexander Ovechkin were tied for

18

second place with $9 million.

When you look at these
guys who are earning the top dollar
in the NHL you think, ‘oh man,
that’s a ridiculous amount of money’,
and it is, however, athletes in other
sports are making even more. Alex
Rodriguez for example is a MLB
player on the New York Yankees who
is the highest paid athlete in terms of
base salary in the world.

“A-Rod” brings home a
whopping $33 million in a single
season. Now that is a huge chunk
of change. However, there is one
athlete that no one can beat out in
terms of money, and that is pro golfer
Tiger Woods. Woods makes $105
million in endorsements alone per
year, plus the $22.9 million he makes
in his salary, adding up to a total of
$127.9 million (or at least, that was
how much he was earning prior to
his recent extra-marital affairs that
tarnished his image and caused a
number of his sponsors to drop him).
Now, what I really want to know is
what would you do with that kind
of money, why would you need that
much, and where would you put it?
Tiger Woods has made close to $800
million in total earnings over the
course of his 13 year career. It looks
as though Tiger will become the first
billion-dollar athlete ever, within
another a couple of years from now
and the real kicker is that he is still
only 34 years old.

 

By Josh Martin, Sports Editor

h yes! What seemed to be a
O« ending losing streak

is finally over. The BC
Lions snapped a seven game losing
streak in an unlikely win against
the Montreal Alouettes on Friday,
September 3 to finally surpass their
only win with another one increasing
their record to 2-7.

The score board at the end
of the night read a 38-17 victory
in favour of the ever so relieved
Lions. The Alouettes were without
starting quarterback and franchise
cornerstone Anthony Calvillo,
who was sidelined due to a bruised
sternum, and also did not have their
second stringer, Adrian McPherson.
So it was up to young guy Chris
Leak, who was starting his very
first CFL game, to carry Montreal.
However, it wasn’t the greatest
start for Leak as he struggled early
and threw two interceptions while
fumbling once and in the third
quarter injured his leg on a play and
was replaced by fourth-stringer Ricky
Santos.

Santos did well enough,
throwing a couple of touchdowns
but it was now too late for the top
team in the East Division, and
the defending Grey Cup champs,
as the Lions were already ahead
by a large margin. Casey Printers
started for the Lions and threw big
touchdown passes to star receiver

Lions Finally Get One

Geroy Simon and Steven Black
while Paul McCallum came up big
with three huge field goals on three
attempts. Printers was forced to leave
in the fourth quarter when he was hit
awkwardly, so Travis Lulay stepped
in for the remainder of the match.

McCallum surpassed Dave
Cutler’s 2,237 career points and
moved into seventh place of all time
in the CFL while Paris Jackson made
an achievement as well, becoming
the ninth all-time best in receiving,
passing the 5,000 yard-mark. This
big win for BC was long overdue
and couldn’t have come any later
than it did or things would have
gotten a lot worse for the team, and
changes would have had to been
made because of such a brutal losing
streak.

In their nine games remaining,
the Lions will be up against every
team in the CFL except Montreal.
With two games against the
Winnipeg Blue Bombers and one
against the Edmonton Eskimos, the
Lions will have similar competition
as all three teams share the same
season record. It will be an
opportunity for the Lions to pounce
on too win important and easier
games than the other opponents
they will face. Hopefully they can
generate some kind of momentum
from their big win against the Als
heading into the rest of the season
and with nine games remaining, turn
their season around.