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x Scugog Cifizen -- Tuesday, July 21, 1992-0 da VIEWPOINTS 4 Cathy Ollitte A More than a year after he was first drafted, hockey's Wunderkid has finally signed his first &niract to play with an NHL team. ~ Eric Lindros will suit up with(5é Flyers this fall. To get hus John Henry on a piece of paper, the Flyers gave up just about everything but the Liberty Bell in the City of Brotherly Love. And some are wondering if the pnce tag is too high for the good of the game. Flyers five players, plus their num- ber one pick in next year's draft, plus $15 mllion cash to the Quebec Nordique for Lindros' rights as a player. Hs five year contract with the Flyers is said to be worth something like $21 mil- hon and included a $2.5 million bonus Just for signing So, without even using a calculator, one can see that the Lindros deal cost the Flyers about $40 million. It's a nice deal for this 19-year old who has yet to play a game in the NHL; never in his hifeume will he have to worry about finances The contract will make Lindros the highest paid player in the NHL. [t will also mean that other super-stars (the proven ones) like Mano Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, Mark Messier et. al. are soon going tw be asking for equal if not better compensation And what about other up-and-coming rookies with a bnght and promising future ahead of them" An agent will say, "look, my client is not as good as Lindros, I'll admit that. But he 1s at least 25 per cent as good as Enc. Ergo, my chent deserves a package worth S10 milhon ™ JK. that's stretching things a tad. but you follow the argument And the logical extension of all this 1s only a very tew of the 21 teams in the league will ever be able 10 afford the mega-bucks needed to S1gN a super-star or even a good prospect Eventually, all the great players are going to end up in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philly (once Lindros 1s paid) perhaps Montreal or Toronto as these are the cies with coffers deep enough to meet the pay-roll. Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, even Quebec with very limited earning poten- tial won't stand a chance against the oth- ers, unless of course they can entice some- body like Bruce McNall to buy the fran- chise and use money made elsewhere 10 SIgN superstars. All of this means the future survival of > the NHL we how it today may depend on whether the League can land a televi- sion contract with one of the "big three" Hetworks in the States. So far, efforts 10 accomplish this have failed. Can hockey compete in the United States (for viewers and corporate sponsors) with football and basketball? One has to seriously wonder about the future of the NHL. If the dozen or so "super stars" end up playing for the five or six teams that can afford their salanes, what will happen to parity? And how long will fans in the "smaller centres" like Winnipeg continue to shell out big bucks for a seat in the stands to watch a team without a super star, or worse, a team with 20 "run of the mill" players earning "run of the mill" salanes? Don't blame Lindros if this scenano comes to pass. He did what he had to do in a dog-eat-dog world where the dollar 1s king Perhaps the league itself must shoulder the blame for not stepping in to put a stop to the "Lindros auction." Surely the gov emors, who are bnght guys and know how to read a spread sheet, must realize what 1s coming down the road As for Lindros himself, true, he has all the makings of a super star, but to make him the highest paid player in hockey before he plays his first game | wonder. Gretzky, who has broken almost every record in the book, doesn't make as much as Lindros And Gretzky, even with a pretty fair supporung cast has not been able to win a Stanley Cup for the Kings And it took Lemicux several years before the Penguins reached the wp Even with Lindros in the hne-up. the Flyers have a long way to go before they can be considered contenders. He 1s going to have some long, lonely nights when fans in in the Spectrum show their impa uence and frustranon The deal may be a good one for Lindros (we think) Whether it 1s a good one for hockey 1s another matter com- pletely. IN CLOSING: Hasn't this been a great summer so far, weather-wise | mean? | can't remember a summer that has been so cold and wet."The experts say it has something to do with a volcano in the Philippines that sent a million tons of ash into the atmosphere If this year is a sign of things 0 come, summers in these parts will come to be known as "two weeks of poor skiing." rs Letters. You gotta love them. I've never seen a community that loves writng letters as much as Scugog. And that's good, because people who have enough get-go (o put pen to paper certainly have it in them 10 care about their neigh- bourhood -- and the global neighbourhood, er, village, for that mater. (Ten years ago | worked for this guy who fancied himself as an 'intellectual' and he was always going around saying "global village" this and "global village" that. World peace and sav- ing the whales were his two hobbies (when he wasn't being unfaithful to his wife). A few months after I met him, he lost his busi- ness and lost his wife and was last seen in an RV setung out to discover America) Anyways, a couple of things in the let- ters column stirred my interest this week. In his letter about waste reduction, Jay Thibent makes the point that if we don't make a concerted effort to reduce waste, we will always be looking for places put our garbage. He's nght, of course, and | think society 1s at a crossroads at the present ume: people are realizing something has to be done about the garbage problem but they're not quite at the point where they 're reducing waste out of habit. There are still 100 many of us chucking everything into the 'ol garbage can, taking the green bags out lo the curb and wasung for the trash man © come along (they re the lucky ones -- there are sull plenty of folks in Scugog who pay high taxes and don't get garbage pick-up, but that's another story) The City of Peterborough did something admirable 1 force people to start reducing the garbage they take 10 the curb: they passed a controversial by-law himiung the number of garbage bags that will be picked up. | was working in Peterborough at the ume and | thought there would be a lot of whining and crying when that by-law was passed Surpnsingly, there was hardly a whimper. MOST reacuon was posiuve I'am suggesung w Scugog Township Council, that they investigate introducing similar legislauon. Yes, councillors have come oul against the proposed landfill sites, but they can do more. Maybe introducing a three-bag mit (and then, in a year, reduc- ing that 10 a two-bag limit, and then, a year later, to onc-bag) would show the Intenm Waste Authority and the provincial govern- ment that Scugog has launched more than Just a Not In My Backyard battle against landfill sites. On a completely different note, the leuer front Jil McIntosh about the cookie story camed a chuckle from me. I've been suck- ered more than a few times by these kind of tall tales, but I can't say as I mind. The cookie thing was mildly amusing, plus the recipe makes great cookies. Like the Hammer says, 'ya can't beat that And my apologies to Jackie Lane for not having any West Best coverage in the paper. The reason it wasn't there, is because I didn't go Satusday night to cover it. Why? Because | was 100 dog tired after getting up Saturday at 5 o'clock in the morming to organize the Fesuval Days pancake break- fast, on the heels of two days and nights of running around taking Fesuval Days pic- tures, to even THINK about going to the dance and waiting around to take pictures of West Best winners. Sorry, it might not be pretty, and it might be whiney, but it's the honést-10-God's truth. But hey, I have no problem telling the world who the GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the contest was: the cutest baby in all of Scugog, my blue-eyed, pink checked one year-old NEPHEW, Cameron Milton. The 'Cameroony' raised more than $500 for Community Memonal Hospital and you can bet his Aunt Cathy 1s proud of hum Congratlauons to all the people who did all the actual fundraising: mommy and daddy, Shawna and Todd; his doung grand parents, and the most organized money col lector this side of Trawna, Aunt Charlene and her buddy "Aunt" Laune To tell you the truth, Jackie, I'm proba bly in big trouble with the in-laws for not covering this West Best thing. It's gonna take some mighty big presents at Christmas tw make up for not putting the Cameroony on the front page in tull colour. I better stan my shopping now Speaking of making mistakes. | make a lulu last week when I mixed up the picture and the wnite-up for Charlote Hale's 'Scugog Citizen" on page mine. That was NOT Dora -- the lovely lady was Debbie Crawford, | dunk. Well, I'm prety sure...oh, who knows. But if I messed up, I'm sure I'll hear about it Here's what Charlotte, who photographs our Ciuzens week after week, has to say about Debbie: Debbie Crawford is a lady who 1s up BEFORE the birds. If Hank's 1s your favounite spot for breakfast, Debbie 1s a good part of the reason. For the last three years, she's been the cook on the moming shift. The girls say she's not even grouchy at 5:30 a.m. Debbie plays baseball for fun so when she ran into Dave Winfield, she did the logical thing, shook the man's hand! | | | t | -- SNAPSHOT OF THE WEEK 4 SeuG606 CITIZENS s-- id tsi The apple of his moth- ers eye...and can you blame Dadene Hiozan for thinking her little 'elf' Dillan is the cutest baby in the whole world? As a matter of fact, hil Dill placed second in the 'West's Best Baby' con test organized by the Scugog Chamber of Commerce and held during Festival Days Dillan'the Dynamo raised $249 for the Chamber! Way to go. If you have a snapshot you'd like to share, , send It to the Scugog Chtizen, 36 Water St., Port Perry, Ont., LOL 1J2. You could win 'Snapshot of the Year and win a great prize! A Meet Mike Van Kessel and Lee Honey. You'll find them toss- ing wood in the lumber yard at Cashway. Mike is an outdoorsy kind of guy: fishing and camping and four-wheeling up north ard his idea of fun. Country music is Mike's favourite. When he's not at work in town, Lee helps his Dad out on the family dairy farm Lee hopes to become a policeman after finishing school