Since I complained in the comments that no one at the Buffalo News would properly address Patrick Kaleta's arbitration, I'll point out that John Vogl did write a nice little blurb about it on Sabres Edge. It doesn't really touch on team-elected arbitration keeping Kaleta safe from offer sheets which was the scuttlebutt floating around Twitter, but there are plenty of good quotes from Darcy Regier on why the Sabres went this way, certainly enough to kill the notion that there were any evil intentions or severe disagreements between the Sabres and Kaleta. Kudos to Vogl.
However, the following day Bucky Gleason hosted an Inside the NHL chat on Sabres Edge. Here's a Q and A from the first fifteen minutes:
[Comment From Millrtime30Millrtime30: ] Did I hear correctly that some team was going to throw in an offer sheet for Kaleta, thats why the Sabres are taking him to arbitration? |
[Bucky:]
| No. He's taking the Sabres to arbitration because he thinks an independent person would give him more money than the standard 10 percent raise. It also leads to a better chance of putting pressure on the Sabres to sign him to a multiyear deal. |
Yeah, let that sink in for a moment.
When someone questioned him later in the chat, this time mentioning Vogl's blog, Bucky backtracked, admitted he'd made a mistake (glory be!) and claimed he'd misread the item. Come on. Here are a just few small excerpts from the blog entry in question, linked above:
The collective bargaining agreement has a clause that allows teams to take players to arbitration, and the Sabres have elected to use that clause with restricted free agent Patrick Kaleta.
"Electing arbitration, it allows us to ensure a couple things: 1) that he’s playing in Buffalo; and 2) that we have a deal in place within the appropriate time frame." (quote from Regier)
The Sabres were the only team to elect to take a player to arbitration.
Oh, there's also the freaking title of the blog: Sabres elect aribitration on Kaleta
So yeah, I'm calling bullshit on ol' Buckster there. He can try to explain it away all he wants (and he tried: See what happens when you don't read the paper for what it says, rather than what you think it says? I made the very mistake that many people make when reading my column. They read for what they think it says, or what they think it implies, rather than what it actually says). I don't believe for one second that he read Vogl's blog until someone pointed it out to him. And he clearly didn't read TSN's report on Kaleta being the only player taken to club-elected arbitration. And you know what, even if he did read it, I'd have to worry about someone who could misconstrue information that was so concisely and clearly delivered.
And this is really my biggest complaint about TBN's hockey coverage when you get down to it. I think there are a couple of talented, informed guys on the beat who also happen to have some semblance of respect for their audience, but those guys are consistenly drowned out by the noise from the ill-informed, condescending voices.
And now I'm putting Bucky back on IGNORE, at least for now. Thanks for indulging me.
3 comments:
Everytime I find an article on TBN that has Bucky's name under it, I skip it. Terrible writing and he always has such negative comments anyways. I can't stand the guy.
I can't hate on Bucky completely, because the guy can write a HELLUVA human interest piece. But when it comes to talking about the Bills or Sabres, I wanna mute the guy.
Phil, believe it or not, I agree with you there. I think part of Bucky's problem is that he's - IMO - miscast as a columnist. I think he's a pretty darn good feature writer.
(Joe, I just complimented Bucky. Are you happy now? :P)
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