In North America, you gauge your success as an athlete by the amount you get paid compared to your peers. But you're also judged by your ability to attract endorsement contracts.

In Basketball, the greatest like Michael Jordan, Magic, Bird, were tied to Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Hanes, some of the biggest names in the corporate world.

In Football, it's no different. According to CNN, Peyton Manning made $15M last year, a season in which he did not play a single down. His list is impressive as well, including DirecTV, Pepsi, and MasterCard.

How about hockey?

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Welcome to the third and final part of this series.. In part one, I pointed out what I consider to be some of the biggest issues with the NHL's current supplemental discipline system. In part two, I illustrated the framework for how I'd like to see supplemental discipline handled. In this segment, I'll outline some of the behind the scenes, fine print-type tweaks to the CBA that I'd like to see implemented in place of the current system. Is my suggested system perfect? No. Will any of it be implemented? Ha! Not likely. But I think it'll help with a lot of problems in the current system and it's a pretty good starting point. So let's get started, shall we?

As it stands currently, NHL teams rarely feel the consequences of a player being suspended. Sure that player misses a few games, but outside of a handful or two cases per year where top players get suspended, teams can usually call up an adequate replacement from their AHL affiliate and carry on with business as usual. For every suspension given to a guy like Duncan Keith or James Neal - losses that truly hurt the team - there are two or three suspensions given to an easily replaceable player like Arron Asham, Matt Carkner or Byron Bitz. When players like this get suspended, teams can carry on without missing a beat. More often than not, the team barely feels any consequences from a suspension. I intend to change this and after the jump I'll explain how.

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On Monday, May 7 the NHL announced that it had reached a tentative agreement to sell the Phoenix Coyotes to a group led by former San Jose Sharks CEO Greg Jamison. The NHL and Jamison will continue to finalize the deal while Jamison negotiates with the city of Glendale on a lease agreement for Jobing.com Arena. The deal depends on reaching a favourable lease agreement, of course, but the NHL and Gary Bettman said all the right things at the press conference and it all sounded very positive.

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Both my teams are out of the playoffs (Canucks, Jets) and with all the remaining series being a test of wills, defenses and who can block the most shots, my mind is starting to turn towards....

you guessed it....

useless fan polls and discussions. Today's topic of choice: Sports jerseys you wouldn't want to wear (after the jump):

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BREAKING NEWS: Claude Giroux was given a 1 game suspension by the NHL for a hit on Dainius Zubrus during the 2nd period of last night’s game

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) May 7, 2012

Claude Giroux will miss an elimination game! Colour me shocked! The NHL actually suspended a star player leading up to a big game! I thought the hit deserved a couple games, but honestly I didn't expect it. Now the real question is: If the Flyers win game 5, do they keep Giroux on the bench for game 6? :)

What's your take on the suspension? Was it fair? Too harsh? Too lenient?

Let us know what you think.

Brendan Shanahan's video explanation is available after the jump.

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On Wednesday, the Calgary Flames announced that they signed Roman Cervenka, formerly of the KHL's Omsk Avangard, to a one year, $3.775M contract. Cervenka led his team in scoring in both 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 and led the KHL in goals in 2010-2011, but this deal has been met with a fair amount of skepticism. The biggest (and only major) reason, as far as I can tell, is the cap hit.

Critics of the deal are quick to point out that $3.775M is a lot of money for a guy who has a grand total of 0 NHL games under his belt. I think we all need to take a step back and settle down though. The contract is well worth it and after the jump I'll explain why.

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No Radulov or A Kostitsyn for NSH tonight.

— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) May 4, 2012

Well, it is official Rad and Kos will not play tonight. I am not sure if this is the right move. I don't really understand how replacing a 1st line player with a 4th line player is an upgrade. With or without Rad and Kos, a loss leaves the media a ton of ammunition for tomorrows columns. A Nashville win probably means we have to shuffle through a few dozen articles saying hard work trumps talent.

Is this the right call?

Welcome to part two of what will likely be a three part series, mostly so no one article drags on for an eternity. In part one, I pointed out some of the biggest issues with the NHL's current supplemental discipline system. In this segment, I'll outline the system I'd like to see implemented in place of the current system. Is my suggested system perfect? No. Will it be implemented? Ha, of course not. But I think I think it'll help with a lot of problems in the current system and it's a pretty good starting point. So let's get started, shall we?

As I mentioned in part one of this series, some of the biggest issues in the current supplemental discipline system are vagueness and a widespread lack of criteria and subjectivity. So first things first, to combat some of the subjectivity and any potential biases in the current supplemental discipline system, suspensions will no longer be determined by any one individual. The new system will use a panel of 3-5 individuals made up of independent arbitrators and former officials, players, coaches and managers. In order to minimize Campbell-esque biases, the one caveat is that each of these individuals must have never worked with or against anyone currently playing or coaching (or managing, if for some reason a manager needs to be suspended) in the NHL. As far as I can tell, Jaromir Jagr's debut in 1990 is the oldest debut of any current NHL player. Thus, in addition to independent arbitrators, any former official, player, or coach must have retired prior to Jagr's debut in order to be eligible for the panel. While this excludes recently retired individuals from the supplemental discipline committee, there are still hundreds - if not thousands - of individuals that fit the bill. Hell, some of them might even be looking for something to do and some of them could probably use the extra cash.

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With all of the violence and inconsistent suspension rulings handed down this season - and in particular in these playoffs - the NHL's supplemental discipline process has once again received a lot of attention. Nobody seems particularly happy with the current system; not the fans, not the players, not the coaches and GMs, not the media, just nobody. Most recently, Raffi Torres received a 25 game suspension, the longest suspension in playoff history, in a ruling that is widely considered to be using Raffi Torres as a scapegoat and/or "sending a message".

In light of the controversy surrounding the NHL's supplemental discipline process, I figured I'd take a crack at fixing it. I will first attempt to identify the major sources of problems and areas where the current system of supplemental discipline can be improved. In part two, I will outline the system I would like to see implemented. I don't expect these changes to be implemented any time soon (or ever, really), but a guy can hope, right?

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I recently lived in Hong Kong for almost a year. This was sent to me the other day by a friend of mine. It's a clip about the violence in this year's NHL playoffs produced by Next Media Animation, the Taiwan-based animation division of Hong Kong's Next Media. I thought it was pretty funny and just wanted to share.

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