Selfish behavior is nothing new in sports, but in this rather strange summer, it appears that the players have taken an ugly turn for the worse.
From the carnival show of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh signing together in Miami to unprecedented fanfare and coverage, to the ongoing saga of Brett Favre's retirement drama, it has been a bizarre offseason in both basketball and hockey. But one of the players who has garnered the greatest attention, and been the most tiring, is Ilya Kovalchuk.
The drama surrounding Kovalchuk didn't begin with him becoming an unrestricted free agent this offseason, it started when Atlanta GM Don Waddell attempted to resign their star player for an enormous sum. Shortly after the trade, Waddell released a statement on why he eventually ended up trading Kovalchuk to the New Jersey Devils.
"Ultimately, we offered Kovy more than $101 million over 12 years, which would have been the highest contract signed by an impending unrestricted free agent in the history of the league," Waddell wrote in the statement. "If accepted, this contract would have been the second highest offer ever to any NHL player. We a ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Nathan Cole
Ilya Kovalchuk: The Ugly, Selfish Side of Sports, Pt. 1
August 11th, 2010 by Nathan Cole Leave a reply »
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