Monthly Archives: June 2009

Thompson says, “…there will be some dramatic events this week.”

Posted on June 29, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

On Wednesday, the National Hockey League’s free agent season will begin and according to Tom Thompson, the assistant general manager of the Minnesota Wild, “I’m sure there will be some dramatic events this week.”

Assuming they aren’t signed between now and Wednesday morning, the Sedin Twins, Marian Gaborik, Mattias Ohlund, Dwayne Roloson, Ales Kotalik, Marian Hossa, Chris Neil, Mike Comrie, Mike Cammalleri, Todd Bertuzzi, Mike Komisarek, Mathieu Schneider, Alex Kovalev, Alex Tanguay, Saku Koivu, Mark Recchi, Maxim Afinogenov, Ryan Bayda, Erik Cole, Patrice Brisebois, Tom Kostopoulos, Brian Gionta, John Madden, Johnny Oduya, Brendan Shanahan, Derek Morris, Nik Antropov, Martin Biron, Antero Nittymaki, Viktor Kozlov, Miroslav Satan, Petr Sykora, Rob Scuderi, Hal Gill, Todd Marchant, Jay Bouwmeester, Martin Havlat, Sami Pahlsson, Ian Laperriere, Joe Sakic, Jere Lehtinen, Jordan Leopold, Mikael Samuelsson, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Martin Skoula, Vernon Fiddler, Greg de Vries, Stephane Veilleux, Rob Blake, Mike Grier, Claude Lemieux, Travis Moen, Nolan Baumgartner, Jason Jaffray, Jason Krog and Mats Sundin, along with more than a hundred others will be unrestricted free agents..

Even some of our old friends — Shane Hnidy, Teppo Numminen, Tyler Arnason, Nikolai Khabibulin, Colton Orr and Phillipe Boucher — will be free on Wednesday. It’s going to hit the fan this week and you can bet as many teams as possible will be involved.

In fact, during the draft, Brian Burke made it clear he’ll be a buyer: “We’ll be involved on July 1,” Burke told reporters in Montreal. “The door is open for business at noon and that’s when we will start to get involved.”

He’s not alone.

“There will be moves that will get a lot of people talking,” said Thompson. “There is going to be a lot of interest in the hockey world all over North America that’s for sure.”

But why? Why so many UFAs?

“It’s partly because of the cap,” said Thompson, via telephone from his office in St. Paul. “The thing about the salary cap system is that it forces people to make choices. Because you’re restricted by how much you can spend, if you decide to do one thing, you can’t do another. It’s what makes great organizations or not-so-great organizations. You can’t have everything anymore.

“If there is one thing the cap has done, it’s put every team on an equal playing field and the smartest hockey people will be successful.”

The other thing it does, is forces team’s into last-minute decisions. It forces them to meet deadlines. It allows players to know exactly how much they’re worth. And it makes people like the Sedin Twins, who want long term deals worth at least $62 million each, worry about their decisions just as long and hard as Shane Hnidy or Jason Krog, who just might be out there looking for work.

I’d hate to suggest anything specific will happen on Wednesday. Nobody knows. But here are five things that might happen…

1) The Sedins don’t get the money they’re after in Vancouver. Mike Gillis re-signs Mattias Ohlund and signs Marian Gaborik.

2) The Sedins end up in Toronto with Brian Burke, the man who drafted them in the first place, and who will dump a pile of dull, old contracts to make sure he has the dough to sign them.

3) The Flames will sign Bouwmeester, let Cammalleri ($3.6 million) and Bertuzzi ($1.95 million) go and have plenty of money to sign the roll players he needs (he’s already dumped Jim Vandermeer and his $2.3 million deal).

4) Bob Gainey will go on an unprecedented signing frenzy and get Komisarek, Brisebois, Kostopoulos, Schneider and Tanguay signed. Saku Koivu will end up with his brother, Mikko, in Minnesota.

5) At least 50 players will change teams.

Unlike the dull-as-dishwater trade deadline television snooze, TSN, Rogers SportsNet and the Score will have an actual reason to telecast Free Agent Frenzy Shows. This should be nuts.

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Pronger to Philly, Bouwmeester to Calgary. Somebody had a Good Weekend.

Posted on June 27, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

For the most part, what we expected to happen, happened, at the 2009 NHL Entry Draft in Montreal.

We expected the New York Islanders to take Swedish defenceman Victor Hedman, if the Isles wanted a guy who could play (well) right now, and John Tavares if they wanted a Canadian junior sniper they could market like Steven Stamkos.

The Isles took Tavares with the No. 1 pick and will now be more sizzle than steak for another year. That’s not to say Tavares won’t eventually lead the Islanders out of the wilderness — a wilderness created by Mike Milbury’s failures — but it won’t happen in 2009-2010 and not like the year after, either.

There were plenty of interesting trades. Chris Pronger, along with forward Ryan Dingle, went from Anaheim to Philadelphia , in exchange for defenceman Luca Sbisa, forward Joffrey Lupul, two first-round picks and a conditional third-round pick in 2010 or 2011. Pronger is 34 and on the downside of a great career.

The Calgary Flames had a great day on Saturday. The Flames acquired the rights to 25-year-old Florida Panthers defenceman Jay Bouwmeester in exchange for defenceman Jordan Leopold and the 67th overall pick that Florida used to select Josh Birkholz. Bouwmeester is still an Olympic-calibre defenceman and he will make Calgary a force in the West.

Later on Saturday, the Flames sent six-year veteran defenceman Jim Vandermeer, 29, who played 45 games in Calgary last year, to Phoenix in exchange for a former Flames draft pick, 25-year-old Brandon Prust. Nice to see the Coyotes getting older and slower.

The made-up trade rumour that had the Boston Bruins sending Phil Kessel and a draft pick to the Leafs for Tomas Kaberle turned out to be aprochryphal. Who makes this crap up?

Sadly, there will be more ridiculous rumours this week with the free agent deadline on Wednesday. Wonder who will be the first to report, ohh I don’t know, Sidney Crosby to Washington for Alex Ovechkin? Please, somebody make that one up.

In the meantime, Teemu Selanne, a 10-time all-star and former Winnipeg Jets rookie of the year, told the Anaheim Ducks that he would be back next season. The 38-year-old Selanne will play his 18th NHL season this coming year. He had 27 goals and 27 assists in 65 games last season. Why is it that the NHL is just better with Teemu Selanne in it?

Finally, congratulations to Winnipeg’s Scott Glennie (eighth overall to Dallas), Winnipeg’s Carter Ashton (No. 29 overall to Tampa), Winnipeg’s Cody Eakin (third round, 85th overall to Washington) and Winkler’s Byron Froese (fourth round, 119th to Chicago), the Manitobans taken in this weekend’s draft.

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The NHL Draft Starts in less than an hour in Montreal: Here’s what we’re looking for…

Posted on June 26, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Will it be John Tavares of the OHL’s London Knights, Matt Duchene of the OHL’s Brampton Battalion or Victor Hedman of the Swedish Elite League’s Modo? That will be the biggest question on everyone’s mind as this year’s draft gets rolling in Montreal.

The 2009 NHL Entry Draft begins in less than half an hour and here the three things I’m expecting:

1) I just have to think that if the Islanders don’t trade their pick to Toronto, a team that really, really, really would like to draft Tavares, then the Isles will take Hedman simply because they’re an Eastern Conference team that needs to upgrade on defence and is a young guy who has already played against men with Modo in the Swedish Elite League.

However, if the Islanders are more concerned about image than winning next year, they’ll take Tavares and sell him as the next Sid the Kid.

2) Apparently this wild — and very, very stupid –  rumour that the Boston Bruins were going to give up Phil Kessel and a draft pick for Leafs Tomas Kaberle was as dumb as we thought.

Originally “broken” on TSN, we’re now told by the Toronto Sports Network: “It appears the potential trade involving the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs is at the very least on hold and quite possibly dead. It turns out there was apparently major miscommunication between the two teams.”

Really? Perhaps it was a miscommunication by the mainstream media. TSN originally reported it was Kessel for Kaberle and Toronto’s No. 7 pick. Terrible deal for Toronto, but Boston might like it. Then it became Kessel and a draft pick for Kaberle. Only someone smoking something would have thought was a bright move. In the end, it was none of the above. Somebody made this thing up over cognac in the hotel bar.

3) There will be trades. Somebody is going somewhere. After all, last year’s draft produced a frenzy of pretty big deals.

Toronto really wants a top pick (up from No. 7) to get either Tavares or Brandon’s Brayden Schenn and Brian Burke will do what’s necessary to get the people he wants in order to rebuild that mess in T.O.

Ottawa is going to try to move Dany Heatley but Bryan Murray won’t give him away. Murray’s way too smart to take that bait.

Florida will probably move Jay Bouwmeester — or anybody else with a pulse and a contract. After all, Randy Sexton is now the acting GM and if you remember him in Ottawa, you know he’ll try to make some kind of splash — stupid or otherwise.

The San Jose Sharks will move somebody. Expect it to be Jonathan Cheechoo.

Despite not falling for that dumb Toronto offer (or “made-up” Toronto offer), Boston might still try to move the disgruntled Phil Kessel.

And don’t be surprised if Tampa tries to get Tavares and then, if they do, they’ll have Stamkos and Tavares in the fold, so then Lightning GM Brian Lawton will trade Vinny Lecavalier to Montreal.

And finally, don’t be surprised to see Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, J.S. Giguere and a bunch of “older” Calgary Flames change teams tonight.

OK, get out the sodas and chips and let’s go watch some kids get rich.

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Babcock a Great Choice as Canada’s Olympic Coach

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

FULL DISCLOSURE: If you know me, you know I’m a fan of both Barry Trotz and Andy Murray.

I believe what Trotz has done with almost no money in Nashville has been remarkable and while I’ve always liked Murray (both personally and professionally), I believe what he did with the St. Louis Blues in the second half of the 2008-09 National Hockey League season was coach of the year worthy.

Both men are tremendous coaches, but more importantly, they are tremendous people and I have been on a personal crusade to get both of them named to the coaching staff of Team Canada.

Having said that, I would have no problem if they were both assistants, along with Boston’s Claude Julien.

That’s because I truly believe Mike Babcock would be an outstanding choice as head coach.

Babcock’s name has been floating around for awhile, but yesterday, it became clear that he was now the front-runner for the job. Today, it became apparent that the head coach of the Detroit Red Wings was going to be officially named the head coach of Team Canada at a news conference later this week.

Genius choice.

Babcock has all the skills, mainly because he’s become a successful NHL coach handling good hockey teams. He knows stars and can deal with egos. And despite the fact he’ll demand that all egos be checked at the locker room door, he’ll still have to deal with some of the biggest egos in Canadian hockey. It’s a pretty good guess to think he already knows that.

Babcock has a career NHL coaching record of 282-139-71 and has won 58 postseason games. He has coached Detroit to four consecutive seasons of 50-plus victories, won a Stanley Cup and reached a final, guided Canada to the 2004 world championship and won the 1997 world junior title. He’s perfect.

Word is Ken Hitchcock will be one of the assistants. I still like Trotz, Murray and Julien, but it will be up to Babcock to choose his own guys and make this thing work.

Canada should win gold in men’s ice hockey at the 2010 Games. After all, we’re at home.

Babcock’s hiring is just the first step toward making that happen.

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Things That make You Go, Hmmmmm…

Posted on June 20, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Some things rattling around in my head that make me wonder, What’s up with that???

1. I love dogs. Love ‘em like nothin’ else. But I don’t understand how Michael Vick gets 18 months in prison for financing a dog fighting ring when Donte Stallworth gets only 30 days for killing a human while driving drunk? The law is an ass.

2. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers made 13 cuts on Friday. It’s 24 hours later. Without looking, do you remember five of them? That was something, but it wasn’t news.

3. Great Op-Ed piece in the New York Times on Friday, slugged “Let Steroids Into the Hall of Fame.” Written by Zev Chafets, it explores the hypocrisy of baseball’s steroids witch hunt and discusses most of the issues we’ve discussed here for more than a year. My favourite of many brilliant comments by Chafets is a point I’ve made here on numerous occasions: “For decades, baseball beat writers — the Hall of Fame’s designated electoral college — shielded the players from scrutiny. When the Internet (and exposés by two former ballplayers, Jim Bouton and Jose Canseco) allowed fans to see what was really happening, the baseball writers were revealed as dupes or stooges. In a rage, they formed a posse to drive the drug users out of the game.” Dupes, stooges, rage. That defines the Baseball Writers Association of America in three concise words. Why are sportswriters so important and pristine that they get to be the conscience of baseball? Dupes and stooges, I like that.

4. My good friend Marty Gold passed this along and asked, “What does this say about the state of live wrestling in North America?”:  The results of the Thursday night Wrestling Supershow at Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay in front of about 1500 fans

Hacksaw Jim Duggan beat Sid Vicious,

Hannibal fought Abdullah the Butcher to a double dq,

Koko B. Ware beat Jeremy Prophet,

The Genius Lanny Poffo beat Brutus Beefcake and

The Highlanders beat the Hollywood Hunks.

And this show outdrew TNA in the Seattle market. Evidently, there are very few new wrestlers out there who tweak the imagination. Hacksaw Jim Duggan? Brutus Beefcake? I thought those guys were dead.

5. Now that the NHL has hung Phoenix Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes out to dry, Moyes still wants to be able to sell his dead hockey franchise by Sept. 15. The poor bastard. He’s lost nearly $300 million of his own money on that dreadful piece of crap of a franchise and he’s been told by the NHL and a gutless bankruptcy judge that he can’t have $212.5 million from Jim Balsillie for the franchise because Balsillie can’t take it out of Phoenix and move it into a real hockey market. You might not agree that Balsillie would make a good owner, but you have to agree that the NHL — which may or may not have an actual buyer with a real $130 million — just screwed one of their own governors right where the sun don’t shine. If you really liked money, would you ever do business with the NHL?

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Bombers Win Pre-Season Opener. Kelly Makes Inadvertent Statement.

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers pounded the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 32-22 on Wednesday night. It was a game that produced a statement within a Statement.

All four Bomber quarterbacks played near error-free football in front of more than 27,000 at Canad Inns Stadium as Winnipeg absolutely dominated Kevin Glenn the visiting Ti-Cats.

Now, I know, pre-season games mean nothing. After all the Goldeyes went 0-4-1 in the pre-season and are now 21-8 in the regular season. But Bombers head coach Mike Kelly wanted to show how good his new-look Bombers could be and Wednesday night, his players made one statement with a dominant win over a division rival and the coach himself made another statement: “Let’s stop talking about all the tired, old Jeff Reinebold stuff, shall we?”

Wednesday night, with lefty Stefan LeFors at the helm, the Bombers built a 19-0 lead after the first quarter, built that lead to 26-0 and coasted to a 32-22 win. In terms of starters vs. starters, the Bombers were in complete control.

“I hope everybody feels a little more relaxed right now,” Kelly told reporters afterwards. “These guys played the way I had expected them to play. We executed pretty well and I thought, as a whole, we played with a lot of discipline.”

The Bombers built their 19-0 lead thanks to LeFors ability to move the football and a pair of one-yard touchdown runs by Lavarus Giles, the kid who looked so good at training camp. After one quarter, the Bombers lefthanded-throwing starter completed 5-of-8 passes for 98 yards.

“I thought the offensive line did a good job giving me time,” said LeFors. “The running backs were outstanding, as well. “They’ll probably find something wrong with what we did, but really what matters is what happens in this room. We know that most of the things we did were positive, but we also had some things that kind of went wrong. But we’ll fix that. It’s only a pre-season game.”

Look, the Bombers aren’t going to go 18-0. But they will be very competitive. In fact, if you know Mike Kelly, you know his team will take a serious run at Montreal for first place in the East.

This team isn’t perfect, but it’s a helluva long way from being a return to 1997.

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Red Wings Lose, Balsillie and Real Hockey Fans Lose More

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

DETROIT — The Pittsburgh Penguins might have shocked the Detroit Red Wings, but they didn’t shock themselves.

Last Friday night at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena, the Penguins got a pair of goals from Maxime Talbot and a great goaltending performance from Marc-Andre Fleury en route to a 2-1 victory over the Red Wings in Game 7 of the 2009 Stanley Cup final.

With the win, Sidney Crosby got his first Stanley Cup and the Penguins avenged last year’s six-game loss to the Wings in the final. It’s unlikely anyone in hockey — except for the true Penguins believers and all those folks who hate the Red Wings for being winners — expected Pittsburgh to win four of the last five games of the series to claim the Cup.

“Dream come true. It’s everything you work for,” said Crosby, the youngest captain ever to win a Cup and a young man who was also criticized by the Red Wings for not shaking hands with Wings captain Nick Lidstrom after the game. “It just feels so good. This is exactly how you picture it, what you play for.”

It was only the 14th Game 7 in Stanley Cup finals history, although it was the fifth Game 7 of this decade. It was also the first time a road team had won a Game 7 since the Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Blackhawks in 1971.

This year’s final was sensational, perhaps one of the best Cup finals in more than two decades. It was an amazing comeback by the Penguins, who trailed 2-0 in the series and came back to win four of the last five games.

Evgeni Malkin, who was the NHL’s leading scorer in the regular season and in the playoffs was named playoff MVP, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy.

“For us, it was a different guy every night,” Crosby said. “That save that Marc (-Andre Fleury) made with one second left, he’s done that a number of times in the series.”

Crosby was referring to Fleury’s desperation save on Lidstrom in the dying seconds that preserved the Penguins victory.

Meanwhile, for winning coach Dan Bylsma, a former draft pick of the  Winnipeg Jets, the victorty was almost hard to believe.

“Life’s a bugger,” Bylsma said during his post-game press conference. “I had dreams about this day. I hoped this would happen someday, but good coaches have coached a long time and never gotten an opportunity like this. A lot of times, your first opportunity doesn’t come with a team that’s this talented or this group of players. I’m very fortunate in that regard.”

While most hockey fans were pleased with the outcome of the Stanley Cup final, not many were happy with Judge Redfield T. Baum’s decision to block Jim Balsillie’s attempt to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move them to Hamilton.

In a 21-page document Baum wrote that the court didn’t feel there was enough time to resolve all the issues before the offer for purchase of the insolvent team to Balsillie (for a hefty $212.5 million) closed on June 29.

The question now is: Who IS going to pay for the disaster that is the Phoenix Coyotes. The league says it will find an owner. It also claims the reason for the financial demise of the Coyotes was rotten ownership and bad management, meaning NHL commissioner Gary Bettman believes owner Jerry Moyes is nothing more than a bank, Wayne Gretzky is a buffoon and Doug Moss is an idiot.

I wonder if Bettman has the stones to say that to their faces?

Regardless, Bettman loves to say he saved the Pittsburgh Penguins and can do the same with the Coyotes. Great! So is he going to demand that the Penguins give Sidney Crosby, Jordan Staal, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury to the Coyotes? Because if you understand anything about hockey — or North American sport, for that matter — the only way you can turn shit into Shinola is if you give a city a winner.

Pittsburgh, when it was in trouble, was able to draft some of the best players ever to play the game. Unless Phoenix can use that sixth pick this year to come up with the next Gretzky (player Gretzky, not coach Gretkzy), Bettman won’t be able to save anything. After all, the Coyotes already have a new arena.

Hockey is dead in Phoenix and Gary Bettman along with his hand-picked new owner won’t bring it back to life.

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Could We Be Going From the Death of Eaton’s to the Rebirth of the Winnipeg Jets?

Posted on June 12, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

On a recent Winnipeg Goldeyes telecast on Shaw TV, Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz hinted that a deal to bring the Jets (or a reasonable facsimile) back to Winnipeg could be secured if a number “of very complicated things fell into place.”

“It’s certainly not impossible,” Katz said. “It’s not something that would happen overnight. I would say in the next two-to-five years, perhaps. It would involve the MTS Centre and certainly the Chipmans (Winnipeg’s wealthy Chipman family) would have to be involved, although I don’t think they would necessarily be the major shareholders in the club.

“It would be a very complicated deal. First of all, an NHL team would have to be made available and I think that’s coming. If that happens, there is a chance something could be arranged to bring an NHL team to Winnipeg. I really believe that.”

For months (maybe years) there has been a belief among certain Winnipeg business people that the money is already in place to bring an NHL team back to the ‘Peg. That’s not crazy talk from semi-delusional 35-year-old unemployed males who live in their mothers’ basements. There has also been a more recent belief that if someone, anyone (even Jim Balsillie) can break down the NHL’s cartel, there is a good chance half-a-dozen teams in failing markets could become available.

This week, if Balsillie gets a favourable ruling from Phoenix Judge Redfield T. Baum, there is a very good chance he’ll be able to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes and move the team to Hamilton, Ont. If that happens, other teams will soon become available to the highest bidders. You can almost see the Islanders moving to Kansas City as we speak.

The Chipmans, as wealthy as they are, have made it clear they won’t be bringing a team to Winnipeg all by themselves. Just too much coin. But with some help, they have the building (a building that’s way too small, just ask the Columbus Blue Jackets, but that’s for another day), that could play host to an NHL team. The team would lose money, but it certainly would have considerable fan support.

In order to get the help they need, the Chipmans have already reached beyond the Perimeter Highway. One of the current investors in True North Sports and Entertainment, the parent company of the MTS Centre and the Manitoba Moose, is the Toronto/Stamford, Conn.-based Thomson family.

The Thomsons, owners of Thomson Reuters, Thomson Financial, Thomson Legal, Thomson Scientific, et. al, have a stake in True North today. The family owned the old Eaton’s site in Winnipeg where the MTS Centre now stands and have been investors in the company since the early days.

The key person in this alleged NHL ownership group is David Thomson, who runs the multi-billion dollar Thomson business conglomerate from the head office in Stamford, Conn.

Lately, there has been talk that the Thomsons will soon take over the major shareholder position in True North from the Chipmans.

If that’s true, and there is still some question that it is, the NHL will be in Winnipeg in two-to-five years, just as Mayor Katz suggested on our Shaw telecast last week.

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More Stuff Rattling Around in My Head.

Posted on June 10, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

I’m in the I-told-you-so mood. And the cranky mood. And the really disgusted mood.

So here’s what’s making me goofy today…

1) The Associated Press wrote a story about Selena Roberts’ book on Alex Rodriguez today. Evidently, A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, that made-up piece of garbage by a woman who went to the same journalism school as those famous and successful let’s-make-it-up artists, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, has not been a big seller. Evidently, baseball fans don’t cotton to books filled with hundreds of un-named sources.

Now, in case you forgot, Fainaru-Wada and Williams were the dynamic duo wrote the book Game of Shadows using more than 225 un-named sources. That book turned out to be a very successful effort to vilify Barry Bonds, even though most of it was rubbish (one even two or three un-named sources is acceptable, hundreds make a story rubbish).

Roberts, meanwhile, is the woman who jumped to the wrong conclusion and slandered the lacrosse players at Duke University, only to have all of her vitriol turned to urine by a judge who threw the charges against the players out of court. She never apologized, only wallowed in her hubris — and got better journalism jobs.

Seems now that the rip on A-Rod as fallen on few eyes.According to the AP, the book was published in early May by HarperCollins with an announced first printing of 150,000. It has sold just 16,000 copies so far, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 75 percent of industry sales. The book sold 11,000 in its first week, then quickly faded. The book “A-Rod” fell off The New York Times‘ hardcover list of nonfiction best sellers after three weeks. According to AP, “As of Wednesday afternoon, the book ranked No. 2,904 on Amazon.com, where even James Frey’s discredited memoir A Million Little Pieces — at 1,776 — is outselling it.

Well, give Frey credit, at least he admitted he made it up. Roberts still hasn’t apologized for her destruction of a bunch of college kids and she won’t apologize for this dreadful bit of fiction.

2) Watched the American Hockey League Calder Cup final game between the Manitoba Moose and Hershey Bears on Tuesday night.

In the third period, the Bears dod not complete a single pass. That’s right, not one pass reached its target without bouncing off another player.

How did the Moose lose three games to these guys?

3) My new hero is Judge Redfield T. Baum. He became my hero with just one comment in that Phoenix courtroom on Tuesday. He told the lawyers for commissioner Gary Bettman and the NHL:

“Don’t tell me that you have ‘expressions of interest.’ It’s obvious to me that there is only one bidder, Mr. Balsillie. Expressions of interest are meaningless.”

The Canadian Press was quite impressed as well: “He (Baum) essentially dismissed the NHL’s assertions of four expressions of interest from potential buyers interested in operating the Coyotes in Phoenix — including Toronto Argonauts owners Howard Sokolowski and David Cynamon, and Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf — as little more than hearsay. He added there was only one real offer, that of Balsillie.”

Evidently, Baum has a built-in Bullshit Meter and because he has it, the NHL is in for tough ride.

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Vikings Waiting to Sign Favre

Posted on June 9, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It took two days of telephone calls, but it now appears that the Minnesota Vikings are waiting for Brett Favre’s decision. That’s it.

If Favre, 39, decides he will play a 19th season in the National Football League, it’s all but guaranteed that he will play in Minnesota. In fact, my sources tell me that the only reason the Vikings haven’t extended the contract of safety/halfback Antoine Winfield is because they’re waiting for Favre to make a decision. Sources at WCCO radio in Minneapolis told me yesterday that Favre will cost the Vikings at least $10 million dollars a season and if the quarterback is healthy enough to play, he’ll probably want a two-year deal plus an option on a third season.

A report at espn.com this week suggesting Vikings head coach Brad Childress demanded that Favre decide this week whether he will join the team, “is probably not accurate.”

“The coaching staff would like Brett to take part in some kind of off-season workout with the club,” said my source in Minneapolis today, “but there were no demands made.”

Favre, who wanted to play for Minnesota last season, but was unable to do so because of his contract with the Green Bay Packers, is now free to sign with anyone. He retired at the end of last season and was subsequently released by the New York Jets (the team to which the Packers traded him). Now that he’s free, it’s likely he will try to get his injured right arm in shape and play for the Vikings in 2009.

Both the Vikings and Favre would like to know if last week’s shoulder surgery has repaired the problems that negatively affected his ability to throw last season. Family members have reported that he has been passing the football since last week’s surgery, but there are no reports as to whether his throws are at an NFL-calibre level.

Meanwhile, his family has booked 30 rooms at the Midway Motor Lodge near Lambeau Field so they can be in Green Bay when the Vikings and Packers meet on Nov. 1. If the family is getting excited about the quarterback’s return, one suspects the Vikings are, too.

And based on everything that’s happened over the past three days, it’s clear that if Brett Favre is healthy, fans will be able to buy their purple No. 4 jerseys before the season opener on Sept. 13.

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