Colin Wilson got a raw deal.
First, the former BU hockey superstar lost out on the Hobey Baker award to teammate Matt Gilroy. I love Gilroy just as much as any other BU hockey fan, but saying one of those players is better than the other is like trying to decide whether Harvard has more pompous students than Princeton: at some point, it’s just a wash.
After Gilroy and Wilson led the Terriers to the NCAA championship in April, both decided to enter the National Hockey League. Wilson, who chose to forego his junior season, went to the Nashville Predators who drafted him seventh overall in 2008. Gilroy, because of the NHL’s complicated draft rules, went undrafted but signed as a free agent with the New York Rangers.
Granted, Wilson’s signing bonus alone is almost $90,000, so don’t feel too sorry for him. But the penalty for the rich contract will be playing in Nashville.
The Predators have never made it past the quarterfinal round in the NHL playoffs since they entered the NHL in the 1998-99 season, and everyone in Nashville would rather catch a NASCAR race than go to a Predators game.
Wilson will have to be patient while the Predators rebuild. He may start off playing for Nashville’s AHL team, then hope that the Predators executives make good personnel moves to make the team competitive. For a guy who’s not used to losing, that may be difficult.
Countless players in every sport have gone from can’t-miss college studs to professional flops. Players aren’t free of blame ‘- they ultimately control their own careers ‘- but no one likes to lose, and a negative environment hurts a player’s chances to get better. Guys like Randy Moss and Chicago Cubs third-basemen Aramis Ramirez have made themselves into all-stars after escaping the black holes of Oakland and Pittsburgh.
Gilroy, meanwhile, signed a two-year contract with the New York Rangers, who pushed the Washington Capitals to seven games in the quarterfinals of last year’s playoffs. They’re just a player or two away from being a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. Gilroy delivered a typically solid performance in the preseason that BU hockey fans have come to expect. The New York Daily News said Gilroy’s potential roster spot with the pro team is now ‘his to lose.’
The NHL’s strange draft rules made it possible for Gilroy to immediately sign with a good team. But why should this be confined to hockey? In every other business besides sports, the best companies can sign the best amateur talent.
The reason every professional sports league allows the worst teams to get the best amateur players in the draft is because they strive for parity. It’s a nice idea to think that every team has a chance going into the season, but it rarely works.
Five teams have dominated the NBA since the early 1980s. The Lakers, Celtics, Bulls, Spurs and Pistons have won an amazing 26 of the last 30 NBA titles. The Red Sox are the only MLB team to win multiple championships since the end of the late 90s Yankees dynasty, but the Evil Empire’s $423 million offseason may change that in the coming years.
The NFL is the only league that has shown parity can actually work. But there are still inept franchises that find ways to mess up the high draft picks they get.
The Detroit Lions took wide receivers in the first round of three straight NFL drafts from 2003 to 2005. None are still with the team.
Oakland Raiders boss Al Davis took kicker Sebastian Janikowski in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft, then died, came back to life, and drafted obscure wide-out Darrius Heyward-Bey seventh in last year’s draft, three spots ahead of all-everything Michael Crabtree from Texas Tech.
Why reward teams like the Raiders and Lions with top-10 picks when they’ve failed year after year? Why not let every player coming out of college do what Gilroy did?
Giving teams like the Raiders, Clippers and Grizzlies top-10 picks in every draft is like giving AIG executives a bonus year after year after year. Terrible teams only become playoff contenders when a game-changing player like Lebron James or Peyton Manning comes along.
The salary cap is the primary equalizer in professional sports anyway, not the draft. The reason small market teams can’t compete in the MLB has nothing to do with the draft. It’s because teams like the Minnesota Twins or Oakland A’s can’t afford to keep their talented players.
The NFL is the only league that has truly achieved parity because the salary cap has kept free agent contracts from getting too ridiculous. Last year’s Arizona Cardinals team that went from last place to the Super Bowl was a great story. But leveling the playing field is not worth the price of giving talented players to teams like the Bengals and Raiders when good teams could be getting better.
The lack of parity is exactly what makes college sports so special. We don’t give the Merrimack hockey team the first choice of whichever high school prospect they want. The top talent generally gravitates to the top programs.
Rivalries like BU-BC in hockey or Duke-North Carolina in basketball are great not just because the teams and fans hate each other, but also because the best college players in the country are competing on either side.
We prefer to watch those games instead of Akron vs. Kent State or Predators vs. Panthers because we want to see the best players play as hard as they can. That’s what sports are about.
Why not let Colin Wilson lace up his skates for a team like the Bruins or Canadiens? Wouldn’t that enhance those already-great rivalries?
Instead, Wilson is stuck in Nashville. For at least a couple years, he’ll be playing with less talented teammates as part of a ‘rebuilding’ project. This isn’t ‘parity.’ It isn’t ‘fair.’It’s just watering down the games.
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Wow, that is pretty funny. Have you ever been to a Nashville Predators game? Have you ever been to Nashville…or out of Boston for that matter? Yeah, didn’t think so. Nashville has a very solid passionate group of fans who stepped up and saved this team when EVERYONE thought they were gone a few years ago. Nashville fans are just as passionate as other hockey fans throughout the league. <p/>EVERY league has the same drafting order. Teams with the worst record draft first. How does that equate to “strange draft rules” <p/>If Wilson is the god that you obviously have a man-crush on, maybe he’ll be awesome enough to lead the Predators the way that Sidney Crosby led the Penguins. In order to do that, he’ll have to MAKE THE TEAM first. Yeah its obvious that Wilson has some talent, but Nashville has a very strong crop of young players that have done enough to make this team out of camp. <p/>By the way, the Nashville Superspeedway doesn’t even host a Nascar Sprint Cup event…so shed that stereotype too. <p/>Maybe you should come to Nashville for a game or two this year if your boyfriend makes the team. You’ll realize it’s a pretty awesome city.