No hockey makes one pretty much insane.

Sooooo. It's the offseason officially. Yeah. So when does hockey start again?

Seriously though... I know there's gonna be fun stuff coming up, like the awards, and then the draft, then free agency, but I am so ready for trading camp and games to happen again.

Nevertheless, Thursday night at like 1am, I decided that I was going to look up info about restricted free agents. What I was looking for, I don't know. But somehow I got to reading the CBA.
I have no idea how I got there, seeing I was probably so tired that I just started going from link to link. What can I say, I've always been click happy!

While most of it I didn't really understand or care about, I pulled out the good stuff just like IPB did.
So I thought I'd post the really important points.

• A European player has it's own definition, as in not from North America. (yeahhhh.)
  
• In arbitration, the NHL and NHLPA flip a coin to see who gets to pick off the player list first and then start assigning dates.
• If a player is traded, they get 6 months rent/mortgage paid, and for last and this season, it can't be more than $3,200 per month.
• If a player is traded, their spouse (or Living Companion) and kids get a free flight to and from their new city, or airfare to look for housing then one-way to the new city.
• The only way there can be a game on the day after Christmas is if the travel time to get there is no more than 2 and a half hours.
• Any player who has played 10 seasons or 600 games (or games dressed for goalies) can have a single person hotel room on the road.
• Each team should make 2 tickets available for purchase for each visiting team player, but the max is 50 tickets.
• For home players, there are 2 complementary tickets and then a minimum of 2 that can be bought (supposedly done in the beginning of the season only).
• The tickets should be in the next to the highest price level excluding the price level for luxury suites, club seats and any premium seating, but in no event should the tickets be for seats that are located above the lowest bowl in the arena.
• A player can't endorse any alcohol or tobacco products.
• A player can't loan any money to any league official, including a ref, linesman, etc.

Then the rest was all money and I couldn't focus enough to even read the headers.
So yeah, there's some interesting stuff I never knew. Is it really relevant to know? Not really. I was bored and I'm filling up blog space. Don't shoot me yet!

The Dominator retired again today... this time I think for good. I watched the press conference online just to see what he was going to say. I have to say, I'm not his biggest fan, mainly because of the whole personality issue.
I did LOL when his cell phone went off twice during the conference, he seemed pretty embarrassed.
But yeah, he thanked Larry Quinn for being a friend (cue Golden Girls theme), players like Miro Satan (holy nightmares Batman!), and being proud and supportive of Hasek's Heroes (which made me not hate him soooo much). And then he "thanked fans in Buffalo who supported him when he played for the Sabres, saying they played a role in each save", which is a nice reminiscing point.

But then when was asked about Buffalo, "it was a different time" and then basically left it at that. Whatever, Dom. How can I even like you when you look like this!

No one should ever wear their hat backwards and pose like that. Not drunken college guys, and especially not 40 something year old goalies that I don't like.

And to end the longest blog ever... I found this article from WGR, and it's a great read. It's from Sports Illustrated in 1969, all about how sports teams have been here in Buffalo. This was obviously before the Sabres came to town, and it gives insight into it actually got here via the Knox's. Very good.

Hope everyone survives the heat!