Kudos to Kovalev and Beckham...

It seems more often than not we always hear the bad stuff about athletes (ex: michael vick); but rarely do we hear people talking about athletes going above and beyond the call of duty.

Take you back to last March. Alex Kovalev, receives a letter from Jocelle Cauvier, a resident of Grande Riviere in Gaspesie. Cauvier, tells Kovalev that she is his biggest fan and has all of his jerseys and other memorabilia. Kovalev immediately invites her to the Bell Centre to watch the morning skate vs the Capitals and meets Cauvier, her husband and her parents after the skate. Kovalev, then invites them to the game, giving them 4 spots in his ''Kovy's Kids Loge.'' Not only that but Kovalev promises Cauvier a goal. He delivered scoring 2 goals and picking up the puck of his 1st on the nite and gave it to Cauvier personally after the game. Before Cauvier left that nite she invited Kovalev to visit her in Grande Riviere and Kovalev agreed to do so. Last week, Kovalev did just that. But the only thing that made the headlines was that Kovalev scrapped the mayors 1992 Harley. My colleague Genadi Boguslavski, is a Russian Reporter who works for Sovietsky Sports. He was in Grande Riviere with Kovalev. Kovalev didnt scrap the bike....what happened was he was sitting on it and lost his balance and the motorcycle fell on him. The wheel of the bike got caught in a railing and the wheel got deformed. Thats it. Just so you know, the mayor paid the bike $12,000 back in 1992 and sent Kovalev a repair estimate of about $10,000....a little much dont you think? As a matter of fact, the accident was such a non-issue that Genadi Boguslavski, didnt even write about it. Mind you somebody leaked the so called accident story to Radio Canada. I tip my hat to Alex Kovalev; he doesnt owe anybody anything and its awesome that he went to visit the Cauvier family. If you want a great read on Kovy's visit to Grande Riviere..check out this link.

http://www.rushockey.com/events.php?i=nhl&stream=nhl_news&id=609

Thumbs up also goes out to David Beckham. It will be almost impossible for him to live up to his $250 million dollar pricetag awarded to him by AEG, owners of the LA Galaxy. However, Beckham has been everything I wanted him to be and more. In his first appearance, he comes off the bench and the visiting team applauds him. He distributes 2 great passes but unfortunately they weren't capped off. After the game, he gives his jersey to an opposing player. Next game, he scores a vintage Beckham goal on a free kick. Next up, his Galaxy play the Red Bulls in New York. Beckham arrives in NY a couple of days before and shows up to the Harlem FC Academy and tells the kids to stay off the streets. His message was go to school and play soccer. He spent the day with them. Come gametime Beckham picks up 3 assists and more importantly in front of over 66,000 fans. Thats what I call an impact player. Want to hear another good one? A fan asked Beckham to autograph a soccer cleat the fan brought from home; instead Beckham removed his own cleat, autographed it and gave it to the fan. Thats awesome stuff I think. Beckhams latest injury is unfortunate because the MLS was gaining so much momentum. IMO, so far he has done everything asked of him and much more. I admire what he's done.

In ending, Martin Rogers from Yahoo Sports wrote an interesting article of the possibility of more stars coming to the MLS. He put together his Top 10 Wish List. Check out the link.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mls/news?slug=ro-mlstargets082207&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

thats it for now...talk to you soon.