Assessing how each NHL team did in their big offseason test Well, the free agency dominoes in the NHL have fallen. But who overpaid, and who came away with a total bargain? Let’s look at the contracts of the four restricted free agents who were expected to take home the biggest pay-day at the start of the summer. Sebastian Aho (CAR – C) Contract Projection: 6 years/$60M – $10M average...
Is it finally the year Canada brings home the Cup? October is, without a doubt, the best month to be a sports fan. The MLB playoffs are starting soon, NFL season is ramping up, the NBA is about to get underway, and, come October 2, the NHL season will finally begin. For the purpose of this article, let’s look to the NHL and see if this could feasibly be Canada’s year to bring home the...
How this year’s group of NHL RFAs are trying to reset the market As has been detailed by nearly every media outlet, this year’s crop of restricted free agents (RFA) is likely the best we will see for many years to come. The king of the castle is surely Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who has just accepted a 6-year deal with an average annual value of $10.893 million. The remaining...
New Zealand goes for three in a row while Canada looks to take down a giant Though it might not be as big in Canada, the Rugby World Cup, which consistently generates over a billion viewers globally over the course of the tournament, begins on Friday. So what should our hopes be for Canada this time around? And does anyone have a shot at dethroning New Zealand? Let’s take a look. Pool A —...
Why Bianca Andreescu Deserves the Lou Marsh Award as Canada’s Top Athlete The Lou Marsh Trophy is an award given annually to Canada’s top athlete, professional or amateur, as voted by journalists across Canada. The award has been handed out 82 times since 1936, including 13 times to hockey players, nine times to a figure skater, and one time to a harness racer. Not once has it been awarded...
New Zealand Goes for Three-in-a-Row While Canada Looks to Take Down a Giant Though it might not be as big in Canada, the Rugby World Cup, which consistently generates over a billion viewers globally over the course of the tournament, begins on Friday. So what should our hopes be for Canada this time around? And does anyone have a shot at dethroning New Zealand? Let’s take a look. Pool A —...
A quick preview of what to expect on Sundays this season With the National Football League season about to kick off, it’s time once again to review the field and make some bold predictions on the studs, duds, and question marks! Contenders Kansas City Chiefs: Led by reigning NFL MVP, Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs are an obvious choice for contender. Defences have adjusted to Mahomes after his...
A re-telling of the Raptors’ incredible run to an NBA title, and the excitement that took over the city of Toronto. I strained to look over the crowd as the buses drew closer, the applause and cheers growing stronger as the bus neared our post next to Osgoode station. The NBA champions, grinning from ear to ear, showered champagne onto fans down below as they brandished the Larry O’Brien trophy;...
Nolan Cattell – Sports Editor Congratulations on making it this far into this year’s first issue of Obiter Dicta! You might be thrilled to know there actually is a place to talk sports at Osgoode Hall, and it’s right here! Welcome to the sports section of Obiter! As the sports editor, I’m hoping to provide broader coverage of the sporting landscape. Sure, we’re going to be involved in...
Or “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Quebecois” There’s this yearly event called “The Law Games”, and while it’s framed as a sports tournament, it’s essentially a week-long drinking contest designed specifically to cull the herd. This year, it was held in Winnipeg, because sociopathic endurance trials aren’t sociopathic enough unless they’re held in a city where the temperature...
And now… The Conclusion: First of all, thank you for your patience in staying for the ride for “Why Auston Matthews is a Better Player than Jack Eichel at This Stage of Their Respective NHL Careers: Parts I and II.” And now… the long-awaited conclusion as I present to you the National Hockey League (NHL) reasons to prove my “generational player/talent” formula...
The Growing Trend of the NBA Community to Vent Publicly In the last week, the NBA has witnessed what appears to be a growing trend among its teams and players. The media has become the forum for players, coaches, teammates, and organizations to call each other out. Whether through real time interviews, tweets, or Instagram posts, venting publicly is the new way for members of the NBA to...
Part II Sorry for the Cliffhanger but… The evidence is impressive. It comes in all forms—both qualitatively (through the eyes of amateur and professional scouts) as well as quantitatively (for those who do analytics and crunch numbers). As the—what is quickly becoming insurmountable—evidence continues to pile up and trend in favour of Auston Matthews, the message is loud and clear:...
A Scarce Resource: The prospect of being able to draft a “generational talent” in an NHL Entry Draft to star for your team in the next decade (if not more) is always enticing to General Managers. Yet, few GMs ever get such an opportunity, because unlike average NHL players, which are a dime a dozen, “generational players” come few and far between. Indeed, I estimated in my last article titled...
Ever since the term “generational talent/player” was coined roughly a decade in the 2005 National Hockey League (NHL) Draft, a highly-anticipated draft that produced the current fact of the NHL in Crosby, NHL General Managers (GMs)—especially those whose teams are at or near the very bottom of the NHL standings from the previous season—have been actively chasing the next such phenom...
What We’ll Need to do Better Next Year Unfortunately, I was right about the Blue Jays losing this year’s ALCS. Even more unfortunately, I was wrong in predicting they’d at least put up a good fight. We certainly went down swinging in the wrong way. Encarnacion’s awkward 9th inning hacks in Game 5 certainly won’t be as fondly remembered as Bautista’s bat flip or either of Joe Carter’s...
Indians. Redskins. Braves. Blackhawks. Long-held sports traditions or discriminatory cultural misappropriation? It’s a contentious debate that found itself front and centre in a downtown Toronto courtroom on Monday 17 October. Douglas Cardinal, a prominent Indigenous activist, had just launched actions with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario and the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and was...
Dr. Kenneth Lam’s Two Cents As Arm Chair GM: Part Two Source: The Toronto Star While there are many uncertainties with how draft picks would turn out, one thing is certain: Toronto head coach Mike Babcock thinks highly of Maple Leafs prospect Auston Matthews. However, rumour has it that the Leafs’ bench boss is thinking of starting the rookie centre up the middle on the third...
Dr. Kenneth Lam’s Two Cents As Arm Chair GM: Part One On 24 June 2016, Toronto Director of Player Personnel Mark Hunter—who has since been promoted to the position of Assistant General Manager—walked up to the podium at the First Niagara Center in Buffalo, New York and with the following words promptly affirmed the worst kept secret since the Maple Leafs won the draft lottery back on 30...
A great television series captivates you. It is intuitive–the thrills and suspense are sprinkled in methodically, and the more mundane parts of the season are purposeful. It knows its audience. Most importantly, a great television series knows when to end. If the show runs a little too long, in hindsight, it is probably as great a series as it could have been. Look at the critically-acclaimed...
How Valuable is the First Overall Section in the NBA Draft? Every decade or so, a supposedly “can’t miss” prospect out of high school or a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I powerhouse attracts national attention and emerges as the crown jewel of a National Basketball Association (NBA) draft. For instance, in the 2000s, there was LeBron James, who was...
Value. Potential. Character. Health. These are some of the things to consider when players are off the books, a.k.a., free agents. Picture two scenarios. In Scenario A, there is a budding talent who just came off a career year with your team (you are the general manager, so you do not own the team). He has yet to reach his “peak”, so to speak. He is just as good as his counterparts at his...
With the Toronto Maple Leafs poised to finish last in the NHL and teams across the four major North American professional sports intentionally losing in order to secure the best possible draft picks, the popular narrative has become that “tanking” is the smart way to build a team, and that without high draft picks, it is impossible to build a successful team capable of winning a championship...
How Valuable is the First Overall Section in the MLB Rule Four Draft? Pop Quiz: What do Andrew Wiggins of the Minnesota Timberwolves (2014), Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts (2012), and Connor McDavid of the Edmonton Oilers (2015) have in common? Answer: They are all recent household names that were chosen with the first overall pick in their respective draft class. Yet, unlike the National...
The 2016 Entertainment and Sports Law Conference Sponsored by Osgoode’s Entertainment and Sports Law Association, the eighteenth annual Entertainment and Sports Law Conference took place at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on 4 March 2016. The long-running and highly successful conference brings together some of the top IP, entertainment, and sports professionals to talk about recent...