I’m less than one week from finally learning all 87 rules in the NHL Rulebook. With the Olympics imminent and all the trade talk in the air, I’m moving on to the IIHF Rulebook and the business of hockey. On the latter, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the Kovalchuk trade. And don’t even start me on the elbow that Patrice Cormier put on Mikael Tam.

When you see things like the death of Brian Burke’s son or the loss of Ryan O’Byrne’s mother, it makes things like brain-damaging elbows and outrageous salary/trade demands even uglier. Therefore, I propose my own addition to the current NHL Rulebook. Again, I don’t consider myself an expert just yet, so here is my admittedly amateur take on this whole circus:

1. I don’t know what’s more horrifying, Kovalchuk saying no to $101 million or the reason he did it. What have we come to in this world that anyone in any profession anywhere says no to a nine-figure salary offer AND still stays employed? Even more horrifying:

2. I read somewhere that acquiring Patrice Cormier in the deal was apparently a “must” for Waddell. Let me first say that I love a good clean hit. I love the sound of guys crashing into the glass and I firmly believe that fighting is one of the rules that was meant to be broken. But that hit on Tam was cowardly and unacceptable. If you’re good enough to get drafted into the NHL and be named captain of your World Junior team, you’re good enough to find a more honorable way to win.

3. That being said, I propose my own addition to the NHL Rulebook: Humility. Here it is: 88.1, Humility. Players are responsible at all times for understanding that the world does not revolve around them and that they are fortunate to be in the NHL at all. Players who do not endeavor to appreciate their good fortune and/or who try to pout their way to a higher salary or trade shall be subject to removal from the NHL and permanent reassignment to an ordinary day job in a windowless office with a salary cap of $60,000 a year before taxes.