SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — Harness racing takes center stage in Summerside in the coming week with Governor’s Plate week racing.
It all kicks off on Sunday with the Governor’s Plate eliminations where there will be two races with each carrying a $5,000 purse. Red Shores classifier Gerard Smith has eight horses in each with the top four qualifying for a berth in the Governor’s Plate next Saturday. How much quality is in the two fields will be known on Sunday.
After Sunday's 12-race program, racing resumes on Tuesday and goes nightly until the end of the week on Saturday.
NHL
After four days of the NHL free agency period opening, 102 contacts have been signed by players. It seems the days of big long-term deals may be coming to an end as teams have seen that in many cases these over-inflated deals do not work.
Of the 102 contacts signed this week, 85 are for two years or less.
The contract that Dion Phaneuf signed for $49 million for 7 years with Toronto five years ago would be a great example of a team overpaying with too long of a term. Phaneuf has since been traded to Ottawa and then to the Los Angeles Kings, who recently bought out the final two years of that seven-year deal. Phaneuf is now an unrestricted free agent and free to sign with any team. It will be interesting to see if the 34-year-old Phaneuf gets an offer and, if so, for how much and for how long?
There are a lot of free agents yet to sign and quite likely only the unrestricted ones will be moving to new teams.
Boston's Marcus Johansson, Toronto's Jake Gardiner and Columbus winger Ryan Dzingel are three of the top unrestricted free agents remaining.
NBA
On the other hand, the NBA seems to be just the opposite of the NHL in dealing out over-inflated, long-term contracts.
In the first two hours of the free agency signing period last weekend, league teams doled out more than $2 billion in contracts. One of those was not to Kawhi Leonard, who Toronto Raptor fans and the rest of Canada, hope will re-sign in Toronto. He is arguably the best player in the league, and he led the Raptors to their first NBA championship last month.
In my opinion, he is giving up too much by leaving Toronto where he has so much to stay for. That is why, Kawhi will remain a Raptor or at least we are hoping so.
Have a great week.
Joe MacIntyre is a local life insurance broker. His column appears every Saturday. Comments and suggestions can be sent to[email protected].