As the saying goes… “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink…!”
Antti Niemi, the 26-year-old Finnish goaltender was led to many office play-off pools around Canada and The United States last season and he did take a few sips from Lord Stanley’s Chalice thanks in most part to Dale Tallon.A few sips will keep you going for a few miles in the free agent desert but as Niemi found out – perhaps mistakenly so,not drinking it all in can lead to a rather abrupt death.
A rookie at the beginning of the season,he held in his hand a pay cheque of $826,875 U.S , the Hockey equivalent of a one scoop ice-cream cone.When the season ended and his teammates travelled over the world hoisting The Cup, Niemi was in a position to buy the ice cream parlor and receive two scoops for free! Instead, he wanted the franchise, the cones, banana splits, fudge brownies a la nutty framboise, the mops, the sixteen year old waitresses…all at no cost. Now he will have to settle on owning a franchise in a city where the bananas may be rotted, the fudge brownies are just plain nutty and the waitress’ hair looks like the head of a mop.
The arbitrator granted him 2.75 million a season because he was good at licking cones and that amount placed him in the company of other goaltenders with comparable slurping skills. The problem is that some of these guys have licked not just one side of the cone – they have licked both sides and some are onto their fourth and fifth cones. Niemi, nor the rest of the ice cream parlor owners do not know if Antti can finish the cone he has, let alone start a new one. Steve Penney, that ‘answer to a trivia question netminder’ who finished his half of the cone faster than Lindsay Lohen was released from jail would have been handed an entire block of parlors had he played in today’s NHL . The Montreal Canadiens soon discovered that Mr.Penney could not only ‘not’ finish his cone – he slipped on the bananas along the way.
Steve Penney did not have the team in front of him that Niemi had nor would Niemi have next season if he had stayed with The Hawks as no fewer than eight players have left Stan Bowman’s squad.Would Niemi’s sophomore season be worth the 2.75 million?Even if The Hawks retained all of their players, Niemi could be Milli without Vanilli.If he decided that his co-workers at Le Olde Illinois Shoppe were more important than an extra pair of expensive earrings and that it was to Chicago where his loyalty should remain…there is still no indication that this little Finnish puckstopper was worth 2.0 million a year.
Based on all of this, Carey Price has just gained an affection for ice cream cones. Price’s rookie season was better than Niemi’s and although Price slumped for a season and a half – his play the last portion of the prior season was very admirable .Had Halak not played like his life depended on every save, Price would have carried The Habs into the play-offs jus as well.Price never arrived in his ‘zone’ – it’s difficult to do when you are not playing more than two games in a row.
In the wild and wacky world of sports salaries, Niemi lost his pals,will probably play like a 1.5 million dollar guy this upcoming season and Price will earn between 1 and 2 million and play like a 2.75 Antti Niemi.
Perhaps the Habs will relive The Penney years and take on Niemi – at least they know that one half of the cone has been eaten and after packing his bags and leaving The Windy City, Antti should be hungry.Too bad fellow Finn Saku Koivu left…he could have taught Niemi to say ‘Creme Glace!’