Saturday, July 3, 2010

Back to the Future

Yesterday was the first day of free agency in the NHL, and the Calgary Flames were expected (by those in the know at least) to be very active. The two major moves that happened however ended up being a blast from the past, bringing in two former Flames, one of which was a major surprise. Picking up Alex Tanguay on a $1.7 million dollar 1 year deal is a low risk proposition, the possibility of which had been hinted at by Ken King at his annual QA session a few days earlier.

Last year, the Flames made a blockbuster deal trading Dion Phaneuf to the Leafs (jury is still out on that one: but it'll likely end up being either an average trade or a terrible one for the Flames long term). This immediately caused Darryl Sutter's sanity to be called into question, but once cooler heads prevailed at the very least the trade did make some sort of sense, especially given the locker room issues. Shortly after that deal however, he traded an under performing (and pending UFA) Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust to the Rangers for pending UFA Chris Higgins and overpaid Ales Kotalik. That trade made absolutely no sense at the time. As yesterday Sutter resigned Jokinen (two years, $3mil per year - way less than his previous contract) the trade now appears to be absolute lunacy. Higgins ended up bolting to Florida, so the Flames effectively gained a player who is very likely to be bought out or play in Europe at $3 million a season in Kotalik in exchange for a useful 4th liner in Prust. I just don't get how Sutter thought that deal could be anything other than lighting money on fire.

Personally, I certainly don't mind having Jokinen back on the team for $3 million/year. He had a rough season last year, and ran really bad in hockey terms (hit an enormous number of goal posts). It certainly wasn't what anybody was expecting, and the media response has been vicious. Hopefully both Jokinen and Tanguay have something to prove and make the media look stupid.

My last two days of poker were something of a blast from the past as well. The "near consistent mediocrity" of June has apparently passed. My Thursday session was awful, but I had a very sexy Friday profiting a little over $2k. Nothing much in the way of interesting hands to post.

Watching Cleo Lemon get absolutely punished in his CFL debut by the Stampeder defense (namely the corners when blitzing) was very entertaining. Even though the Stamps offense choked hard in the red zone they found a way to win. Can't wait for NFL season to start.

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