Mike Richards focus of Canadian police investigation: Report
On Monday night, Pierre McGuire of NBC Sports confirmed that the termination of Los Angeles Kings center Mike Richards’ contract this week stemmed from an incident at a border crossing.
Which border? The Canadian border, of course! Which is why the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating that incident, according to Katie Strang of ESPN.com:
A spokesperson for the RCMP in Manitoba told ESPN that, as of Tuesday, no charges have been brought against Richards but declined to comment further. The source said that Canadian Border Services is also involved in the investigation, but a spokesperson declined comment, citing Canadian privacy laws.
A denial from the Winnipeg RCMP on Monday was reversed on Tuesday, according to TSN’s Rick Westhead, which is now saying they can’t confirm or deny he’s under investigation.
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet filled in some blanks about the Richards situation last night:
In a brief filed to the NHL and the NHLPA, the team referenced Section 2(e) of the SPC, which states a player agrees “to conduct himself on and off the rink according to the highest standards of honesty, morality, fair play and sportsmanship, and to refrain from conduct detrimental to the best interest of the Club, the League or professional hockey generally.”
… From a salary cap perspective, the move (at least temporarily) frees the Kings from most of the five years and $5.75 million remaining on Richards’ contract. Because he had one of the “backdiving” deals the NHL banned in the new CBA, there is a $1.32-million hit that does not get erased as a “cap recapture” penalty. So, it’s a benefit of approximately $4.43 million. (Philadelphia, which signed Richards, is unaffected because he was traded prior to the new CBA’s existence.)
Now, allow me to make some uninformed speculation about this.
Richards screws up royally. Any trades for him are off the table. The Kings are left with two options: buy him out or use the “morality clause” in his contract to terminate the deal, which they did.
Now, the NHLPA breaks a land-speed record to fight this thing because (a) they see it as an end-around to avoid a buyout and (b) of the precedent it would set for players that run afoul of the law, which is something the NHLPA is obviously going to battle in court.
So this one is far from over, even as the details emerge.
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