The NHL Trade Deadline came and went at 3 PM ET on Monday, an event which was vaguely reported in the United States, at least in hockey hotbeds like Columbus and Nashville, and remained, for what must be the 20th straight year, an insufferable, omnipresent media shitshow in Canada, doubly annoying considering the low volume of activity on Monday. The best player on the market, Rick Nash, wears No. 61, which is a stupid number, and plays for a stupid team with a stupid name (Ohio’s Civil War tradition is a fine one, but most folks don't know what a Blue Jacket is; the organization may have been better served naming itself after Cleveland's departed Barons). And he didn’t even get traded. Hockey trading is a little sad compared to baseball’s offseason flurry or the NBA’s hot stove season—which might be more exciting than its actual season—in that you realize that hockey players with $1.5 million salaries are considered well-compensated. It’s a hell of a number for a year’s work, but is pretty meager compared to, say, a middle reliever’s salary.
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Spring Training is, of course, in near-full bloom, with pitchers and catchers having reported before Valentine’s Day, but that’s barely news compared to what happened on Thursday regarding Ryan Braun. Braun, the reigning National League MVP, tested positive for “performance-enhancing” drugs in December, and last week successfully overturned his 50-game suspension on appeal. He’s the first player to win on appeal, and whose positive test results of this kind were leaked—had they not been leaked, this would not have been news—two factors that make for an entirely new situation. Reaction to the verdict has been mixed: MLB has stood by the process but “vehemently disagreed” with the verdict, and (unnamed) Mets players compared him to OJ Simpson, which is never a good thing. There’s the argument that it was a triumph for due process—it’s a good one—but he got off on a strange technicality involving a guy keeping his urine in his fridge. The whole ordeal will be looked into sooner rather than later.We’re still not sure at this point how the information got out, or what the test came up positive for; if it was indeed some sort of superdrug or just a poppy-seed muffin or human error. It’s a bit of a copout to not form an opinion on this, but there’s so little information available regarding the specifics, there’s no way for anyone to come to a reasonable conclusion regarding his innocence or guilt. We know a bit more about the testing process now, but not enough to gauge confidently whether steroids affect baseball performance. Still, it should be mentioned that Braun is facing an additional 75-game suspension for his Affliction clothing line, or at least he should be.NBA:
The NBA All-Star Game has been covered already in these pages, and, aside from Kobe Bryant breaking his nose (!), it went as planned: dunking, three-pointers, a halftime show that resembled Tron and featured Chris Brown :( Unfortunately for fans of pageantry, this past weekend’s Dunk Contest was especially bad, despite the involvement of both a redhead and Cedric Ceballos. One would think that the NBA would lean onto their stars to involve themselves in the Dunk Contest—this one was the least interesting since a white guy on the Clippers won—but the prospect of LeBron James breaking his nose trying to dunk over, say, Star Jones is enough to give any sports executive indigestion.@samreiss_Previously – February 13, 2012