How migrants in search of championships hurt pro sports
The problem with giving an athlete all the money he’ll ever need is that he’s going to ask you for something you can’t guarantee – no matter how much money you have. And that’s a championship.
As the Erik Karlsson drama demonstrated last week, when an athlete gets all the money he can command, he’ll want to play where he can win a title. That wasn’t going to happen title-wise in Eugene Melnyk’s madhouse in Ottawa.
Getting a hometown discount, the Senators might have been able to scratch together enough money to satisfy all Karlsson’s material demands.
But Karlsson wanted to win. And the Senators are the National Hockey League equivalent of Einstein’s futility theory. As currently constituted, they’ll be hard pressed to beat the Carleton University Ravens this season.