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Friday, November 3, 2000
No apologies, no sympathy
By George Johnson
Special to ESPN.com
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OK, so Alexei Yashin didn't slink back to the Ottawa Senators. He wasn't contrite or apologetic or even remotely humbled.
But he'd been beaten. And he didn't even give us the satisfaction of admitting it.
He was Alexei Cash-in. In all his defiant, petulant, smug, sulky, the-world-done-me-wrong arrogance.
|  | | Alexei Yashin, right, and Mark Gandler, lower left, have generated a lot of negative publicity in the last 15 months. |
Well, what did we expect, after all. Sincerity? Honesty? Even a modicum of class? Instead, he just sat there, self-important and pompous, as ridiculous in his return as he'd seemed in his absence.
But take heart. He didn't get his extortion money. He didn't get his holdout-forced trade. He didn't win in the court of law -- and got creamed in the court of public opinion.
The world -- regardless of that irritating stance at his "comeback" press conference -- is a sunnier place because of it. And even if Yashin's stay in Kanata is a mercifully short one, and he and his warped sense of self-righteousness are summarily dispatched to, say, L.A. to become poor Dave Taylor's headache, he's been forced to trudge back to Ottawa. That much we can all embrace.
Sens' owner Rod Bryden had said it would be so. And, God bless him, the man stuck to his guns through this monotonous saga.
Clearly, Yashin wants to be traded. Now. So keep him around the whole year. Take the "C" away -- not that it'd matter to him in the slightest.
This guy's the runaway winner of the Pill of the Year Award from the Canadian Pharmaceutical Company.
He left because of money and returned for the same reason -- because there is no other league that's remotely capable of forking over the kind of scratch he feels he's worth.
Figures.
For what happened Saturday, many will feel a sense of justice being served. Certainly the Senators, naturally the fans and quite probably his teammates, whom he has let down in such a cavalier fashion.
Why, if he had just decided to try and subsist on what the Senators were obliged to pay him last year -- roughly 15 percent of the entire team payroll -- right now, he'd be in line for a monsterous raise and perhaps received the trade he's been seeking.
Instead, boxed into a corner, nowhere to turn, he's back and still faces a $1 million lawsuit by Bryden for the money lost due to his illegal absence last season.
So, all of Yahin's threats, his arrogant defiance, his legal posturing got him what, exactly? A year training with the Kloten Flyers of the Swiss Elite League. Well, now wasn't that worth everybody's time?
When Justice Douglas Cunningham ruled in Ontario Provincial Court this past week that arbitrator Lawrence Holden had not overstepped his authority in ruling that Yashin did indeed owe the Senators one final year on his contract -- be it in 2000-2001 or 2010-2011 -- for the absurd pittance of $3.6 million, he left the Russian no other recourse but to return to the team he is contracted to play for.
"Why?" asked former NHL star Kent Nilsson not so very long ago when the subject of Yashin was raised. "I don't understand. What's the difference between $4 million and $6 million? Or $6 million and $8 million?
"He's at the peak of his career. Playing hockey in the best league in the world is how he expresses himself. And he's willing to throw one of his best years away? It's just so stupid."
In the extreme.
Whether Yashin cares or not, within the borders of Canada for an entire generation, he now symbolizes athletic arrogance and greed. The man's stepped up in class -- he's got baseball or basketball credentials now. His legacy won't be the brave challenging of authority but the foolish attempt to undermine it.
There's just no way to put a good PR spin on this guy. None of his strategy was done without consultation, of course, but Yashin's a big boy. The final decisions and their consequences must remain with him.
Oh, the fans in Ottawa will accept him back after an initial period of angry resentment. Time, goals, assists and wins tend to smooth over even the most vitriolic of reactions. But Yashin's stance of the past year will stay with him -- a brand -- like the mark of Cain. He'll return to dazzle us again. One year away from the game isn't enough to insidiously erode such talent. The Senators are, obviously, a far better team with him in the lineup, for as long as he stays. When/if they decide to deal him, there'll doubtless be some top-flight players and prospects coming back in return.
But, really, none of the principals involved can really declare themselves winners in this year-long spat. The Sens certainly didn't. They lost their best player for an entire season. The fans didn't, either. They lost the opportunity to see one of the planet's most dynamic hockey talents.
But Yashin, he lost the most, even if he's too deluded to admit it. And that is how it should be.
He lost one of the peak years of his career.
He lost a not-so-paltry $3.6 million.
And he lost what remained of a reputation in tatters.
Oh, and about that no-apologies press conference, Alexei. Thanks for merely confirming what we already knew.
George Johnson covers the NHL for the Calgary Herald. His Western Conference column appears every week during the season on ESPN.com.
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Reluctant Yashin returns to Sens without apology
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