THOSE WACKY ISLANDERS... WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO?

From the "Uh, Ok" department comes words that New York Islanders gave goalie Rick DiPietro the longest contract in NHL history -- a 15-year, $67.5 million US deal. Why? Apparently they even talked about it last summer -- DiPietro mentioned to owner Charles Wang last summer that he'd like to spend the rest of his career on Long Island, so Wang said, "Then you shall."

Said it before and will say it again: Wang may be a pawn of NBA commissioner David Stern, who is using him in a fiendish plot to make New York's other completely fubarred sports franchise, the New York Knicks, look less batshit by comparison.

Maybe there's a logic behind this here that just isn't apparent, but generally NHL teams don't give an underachieving goalie a 15-year contract SIMPLY BECAUSE HE ASKED NICELY. (Newsday's take was the deal is "silly, but not horrible.)

More than half the respondents to one online poll are saying this is proof Wang is crazy. Here's the best talkback comment left at Newsday:

Signing an OK 25 year old goalie to 15 year contract ?!?! sheeesh, people thought I was stupid.
Submitted by: M Milbury

So here's the recent timeline. Wang hires a well-regarded hockey man, Neil Smith, as his general manager, and fires him less than two months later. He replaces him as GM with the backup goalie, Garth Snow, which instantly improved the Islanders since it meant Snow would no longer be playing for the team. It also led to my friend Neil Acharya inventing a new verb, garth snow, as in, "Hey, garth snow me a coffee."

Now the Islanders hand the longest contract in history to a goalie with a career losing record and a rather unsparkling 2.85 goals-against average. Sure, maybe some greater hockey mind can explain how it makes sense to secure DiPietro's services until the year 2022. Let's concede that.

Hockey fans' hearts go out to the Islanders' remaining fans... both of them.

(UPDATE: HockeyBuzz is reporting that the NHL may not approve the deal, but if that's the case, this would probably be the first time HockeyBuzz has been right about anything.)

Related:
Big splash, but don't expect Cup (Mark Hermann, Long Island Newsday)
Garth Snow This To All Your Friends (July 20)
Snow Job On Long Island: Is This David Stern's Handiwork (July 18)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.