Official Announcements Required for Outrageous Multi-Year NHL Salary Deals.

Hey sometimes the anti-experts are right, after all: As most hockey geeks know by now, the ruling that Kovaluchuk's gazillion dollar, multi-century deal with the Devils was a violation of the collective bargaining agreement has been upheld. Just like I thought it would be. Back to the free market he goes, where apparently LA was rumored to have been willing to pay him somewhere in the neighborhood of $85 million. Why? No clue. Nobody is worth that much, especially in a sport where one injury can turn today's superstar into tomorrow's liability.

The rule: Annex 3, Official Announcements.

A3.1 Compulsory Announcements: The following announcements are compulsory for the information to the players, Coaches, Referees and spectators.

1. Goals and Assists.
2. Penalties.
3. End of Penalties.
4. Play Reviewed by the Video Goal Judge.
5. Time-out.
6. Time Remaining in Games/Period.

A3.2 Public Information.

1. Offside.
2. Icing.

But this is the best part: They provide a script for each item, which the announcer must follow, such as:

Goals and Assists:
"GOAL FOR TEAM...(Name of the team), SCORED BY NUMBER..., (Name), ASSISTED BY NUMBER...,(Name) and NUMBER...(Name). TIME..."

Penalties:

"TEAM...(Name of the team), NUMBER..., (NAME) 2 MINUTES PENALTY FOR...(PENALTY REASON). TIME..."

1. The penalty of the visiting team shall be announced first.
2. In a case where the penalized player cannot go to the penalty bench, or in case of goalkeeper penalty:

"THE PENALTY IS SERVED BY NUMBER...(NAME)."

Morals of the story:

The game: So, what happens if the announcer doesn't follow the script? How like hockey would that be to hear the announcer go off on a tirade not unlike that of angry fans snapping at a bad call. "REFEREE (NAME)...is an idiot who should go on back to small-town Canada where he came from and leave the calls to the experts. Kiss my ass...that wasn't holding....it was a little shove, not checking from behind..."

Life: What if every time we committed a penalty in life, we had to listen to our mistakes, bad decisions, regrets and overall stupidity announced on the news or somwhere else where it would be broadcast for all to hear? Would we look before we leap? Would we think before we said any stupid thing that came out of our heads? Imagine if we had our own announcer who reminded us oh, about every three or four minutes, that we just did something we weren't supposed to. We'd save so much money on therapy, life coaches, personal trainers, and all that other crap we do to try and save us from ourselves.

It wouldn't take much for me. The minute I heard "Two minute penalty for the 40-something woman in Corporate America deviating from her fat-free diet with a latte and cookie. That's two minutes for going off diet with carbohydrate, sugar-laden late afternoon snack" I'd move to a cave and live on carrot sticks and vitamin water. Forget about it. I'm too easily humiliated by public displays of stupidity.

Next up: A short vacation and then on 8/13: Annex 4, Duties of the Officials.