Tuesday 25 June 2013

Paid To Do Nothing

I'm not sure what everyone else was doing tonight, but I had my first official meeting tonight as a Member of the Board for the UMFM radio station. I know - how the heck did they let Teebz onto the Board of anything? I asked myself the same question, but it actually was pretty interesting and I feel confident in this group's collective abilities in making the station bigger and better than what it currently is. That being said, there's another guy on this planet who officially became the Chairman of the Bored today as the Philadelphia Flyers finally did what was expected in cutting Ilya Bryzgalov loose.

If anyone had told me that I could receive $23 million not to work for someone by simply performing poorly at my job, I would have given a much better effort at becoming a professional athlete. Ilya Bryzgalov's payout to the tune of $23 million will now allow him to seek employment elsewhere outside the city of Brotherly Love. Expect the phones of GMs in Russia to begin ringing once he is officially bought out tomorrow.

For everything that Bryzgalov said about not being involved in the business side of the game, it's pretty crazy to think that he basically ended his NHL career through his rantings about the "humongous big" universe on HBO and through some rather horrendous play in the Philly nets. If that doesn't really make him wake up and smell the roses, I'm not sure what will in terms of cluing him in to the business side of the game.

In his two seasons with the Flyers, Bryzgalov put together a 52-33-10 record - decent in terms of a 54.7% winning percentage. He was over .500 in both seasons, but his record deceives as his undoing were the other numbers. His 2.61 GAA wasn't very good, and his .905 save percentage left something to be desired. When it really mattered in the playoffs, Bryzgalov's GAA ballooned to 3.46. Clearly, the bloated contract that the Flyers gave him was based on past performance that he could not and was not able to reproduce.

So now the Flyers will pay Bryzgalov not to play for them to the tune of $23 million over the next 14 years. He'll be 47 when payments stop. That's a pretty sweet severance package for not doing your job very well. And it's not like any other team is desperate enough to bring him into camp to compete for a job after watching his play and interviews over the last few years. In fact, outside of a few KHL teams, I can't see him finding a job anywhere on the planet in hockey after some of his outrageous comments and his insanely frustrating netminding.

I guess if he's really looking for a job, there's always hope that he could be the next great cosmonaut in the path of Yuri Gagarin. After all, that "humongous big" universe still needs a great deal of exploration done.

Until next time, смело идти туда, где никто не бывал!

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