Monthly Archives: June 2009

Could the Dominoes Start Falling?

Posted on June 6, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

There is a fear among North America’s major sports leagues. It’s a fear we’ve discussed before at rivercitysportsblog.com. If Gary Battman and the National Hockey League lose in court this month and if the Phoenix Coyotes are allowed to re-locate to Hamilton, Ont., the dominoes will start to fall.

And every other major sports league knows it.

For if the Coyotes’ owner, Jerry Moyes, is allowed to sell his team to the highest bidder in order for that bidder to move the franchise without the permission of the league, struggling franchises all over pro sports will just get in line.

In hockey, that could mean the Islanders, Florida, Tampa, Atlanta, Nashville, Columbus or even Dallas.

And that’s why the NBA, Major League Baseball and the NFL filed a joint court document on Friday warning that by allowing Moyes to do what’s right — get the most money possible for his asset in order to pay off the debts on a failed business — “it has the potential to undermine the business of professional hockey and other major league sports.”

Officially, the three other leagues joined in an “amici curiae” brief in U.S. Bankruptcy Court supporting, “the NHL’s right to determine where a team is located and who owns it.” But if Moyes has his ownership stripped, his ability to do with his business what he feels he must and to receive a $212.5 million offer instead of an alleged $130 million offer from a very reluctant suitor (there is still no reason to believe that the NHL has an actual buyer), then anyone who would enter into an agreement with the NHL’s cartel, is always in a position whereby he could lose every penny he’s ever had.

Just ask one of the men who purchased the Winnipeg Jets, Steven Gluckstern. Gluckstern is said to have lost half his personal fortune on ownership gambles with Phoenix and the Islanders. Hockey is a pretty questionable investment.

The judge in this case, Mr. Redfield Baum, set a deadline of midnight last night for the filing of all briefs in the distpute between the NHL and Moyes. Moyes wants to sell his team to RIM CEO and boring Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie (Did you hear that speech in Winnipeg? ZZZZZZZZ!), who wants to buy the bankrupt Coyotes (although the NHL says they aren’t bankrupt) for US$212.5 million and move them to Hamilton.

Now, according to tsn.ca, the NHL has blamed the Coyotes’ financial problems on a lack of success on the ice and believes that with a new lease agreement and solid management a franchise in Arizona still could be successful. If that’s true, why would ANYONE want to be involved with the NHL?

The National Hockey League has said — legally and on the record, no less — that one of it’s most popular spokespersons, Wayne Gretzky, is an incompetent boob who has driven one of its precious franchises into bankruptcy. It’s also claimed that President Doug Moss and a handful of GMs are idiots who couldn’t run a one-car funeral.

And into all of that, Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz told our Shaw Channel 9 TV audience, between innings of a Winnipeg Goldeyes-Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks game on Friday night, that it would be possible to have the NHL return to Winnipeg in “two-to-five years.”

“It’s possible,” Katz said, “but I believe it isn’t imminent, it’s down the road.”

When asked, “How far down the road?” Katz repsonded, “I believe it’s possible that it could happen in between two and five years.

“It would take an available team (and there will be available teams if Phoenix is allowed to move), and an owner who wants to risk the losses to bring a team here, plus the involvement of Mark Chipman and the people who own the MTS Centre. It’s complicated and it will be a difficult negotiation, but it’s possible.”

If Winnipeg gets a team, I wonder who would want to run it? If he’s working for Gary Bettman and the current cartel, he’d better have a thick skin. After all, these guys aren’t afraid to blame Wayne Gretzky for their problems — and then publicly call the Great One an idiot.

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If Red Wings Take the Series, Helm Could Be Conn Smythe Winner

Posted on June 5, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Thursday night in Pittsburgh, the Penguins sent a message to the Detroit Red Wings: “If you think you can lollygag around with a man advantage just because you’re the defending Stanley Cup champions, think again.”

The Red Wings had a 2-1 lead in Game 4 and the Pens had a man in the box, but a shorthanded goal by Pittsburgh tied the game and in a blink of an eye, the Pens had scored two more to win 4-2 and send the Stanley Cup final back to Detroit with the series tied 2-2.

Without a healthy Pavel Datsyuk, the Red Wings looked old and undermanned against the Pens on Thursday. The Wings really looked a man short. In fact, by the midway point of the second period, the Wings looked downright exhausted. Pittsburgh’s enthusiasm at home made a huge difference and the Pens made sure that the final remained a home-team series. 

So now we go back to Detroit and the Wings need some rest. In fact, these guys need 48 hours off before facing a rejuvenated Pens outfit again. Won’t quite get that, but they will need to sleep through the next optional workout.

Still, and to be absolutely fair, home teams have won every game in this series and there is no reason to believe that won’t continue to happen. As the adage goes: The team with home ice advantage is not in any trouble until it loses a game on home ice.

So for argument’s sake, let us assume, the Wings continue to win at home and eventually win the series 4-3. This team has had some tremendous players during the playoffs: goalie Chris Osgood is right at the top as is hard checking Henrik Zetterberg and steady (35-minutes-a-game) defenceman Nicklas Lidstrom.

But frankly, if one player continues to play as well as he has in the final, and continues to lead the Wings both as a checker and scorer, then Darren Helm of St. Andrews, Man., has a legitimate right to consider himself Conn Smythe worthy.

Thursday, he was consistently the best player the Red Wings had. He’s demonstrated that on more than one occasion this spring. He’s scored some big goals and he’s also done a wonderful job in the corners. He hits, he wins faceoffs and he backchecks as well as any player in the post-season.

I love the fact that when he gets hit, which he often does because of his aggressive style, he just gets up and plays. No slashing, no face-washes, no belligerent  words or gestures. No whining. He just plays.

Frankly, even if he’s not the Conn Smythe winner, he’s been the most refreshing young player in the entire post-season. And his style is the best thing thats happened to the game in decades.

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The Hockey World Gets Crazier Every Day

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

When it comes to the NHL, it’s hard to imagine that things could be crazier. From making up rules as they go along to their futile attempts to hide the coming financial disaster from the public, every NHL day is a wild and crazy day.

So without further adieu, let’s dig deeper into the mess that IS Gary Bettman’s National Hockey League:

1) It has been said by lawyers who are more attuned to the issue than me, that if Bettman loses his case against the re-location of the Phoenix Coyotes, then the dominoes will begin to fall.

In fact, Bettman speaks the truth when he says he really has nothing personal against Jim Balsillie, the man trying to move the Coyotes to Hamilton. Bettman’s real beef is with anybody who would force the league to move one of its shaky franchises (and believe me, there are many), thus allowing other franchises to do the same.

Case in point: The Columbus Blue Jackets.

We often use Nashville, Atlanta, Florida, Tampa and the Islanders as examples of teams that would love to re-locate if only the league would allow them to move. 

Friday, however, a major story on the front page of the Columbus Dispatch made it very clear that the Blue Jackets have serious financial problems.

Who knew? In fact, because the Jackets regularly announce crowds between 14,000 and 17,000 per night at Nationwide Arena, no one assumed that the team was drowning in red ink. In 2008-09, the Blue Jackets averaged 15,543 fans per game (think about this: it would be at least 500 more tickets sold per game than can actually be purchased to attend hockey games at Winnipeg’s MTS Centre). With tickets priced between $18 and $150 per game, not including suites or loge box seating, the team will lose more than $10 million on operations this year.

Blue Jackets president Mike Priest issued this written statement on the team’s website late last week: 

“The Columbus Blue Jackets are in the process of seeking a solution for a structural problem in the economic model that was created over a decade ago to ensure the construction of Nationwide Arena and the procurement of a NHL team for Columbus. This is an issue for us because we manage and operate the team as well as the building. Because the building was financed and constructed privately, there are certain revenue streams typically available to teams that are not available to the Blue Jackets.

“As an organization, we have incurred substantial losses over the past several years, of which a significant portion is related to arena operations under the current structure. It is a building financial problem that has become a team financial problem. If we fix the building problem, we fix the team problem.”

Sound familiar? That could have been Barry Shenkarow talking about the Winnipeg Jets relationship with Winnipeg Enterprises Corporation in 1982.

Over the last seven seasons, the Blue Jackets have lost upwards of $80 million. This year, despite reaching the playoffs, the Jackets lost more than $10 million.

If a team like the Blue Jackets is losing money, a team that makes the playoffs, draws well and is closer to the salary cap floor than the ceiling, I can’t imagine what the numbers are like in Atlanta, Nashville, Florida and Tampa. However, I do the Islanders have lost $283 million of Charles Wang’s money since 2001, so those losses would be significant.

No wonder teams are looking seriously at that court case in Phoenix.

2) It’s great to be a star in the NHL. Had Dan Cleary or Maxime Talbot received an instigator penalty with 19 seconds to play in a Stanley Cup final game, you can bet they’d be suspended for the next game.

But not Evgeni Malkin. The league found a slick rationalization for keeping Malkin in the lineup Tuesday night.

From the NHL’s own website: 

National Hockey League Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell issued the following statement regarding the instigator penalty assessed to Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin at 19:41 of the third period of tonight’s Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final:

Rule 47.22 states: “A player who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five minutes or at any time in overtime shall be suspended for one game, pending a review of the incident.  The director of hockey operations will review every such incident and may rescind the suspension based on a number of criteria. The criteria for the review shall include, but not be limited to, the score, previous incidents, etc…”  

Following that review, Campbell said: “None of the criteria in this rule applied in this situation. Suspensions are applied under this rule when a team attempts to send a message in the last five minutes by having a player instigate a fight.  A suspension could also be applied when a player seeks retribution for a prior incident.  Neither was the case here and therefore the one game suspension is rescinded.”

NHL Hockey Operations also determined that Malkin should have been assessed a game misconduct for not having his jersey tied down.

Whatever. It just pays to be a big name.

3) Sobering news for the Pittsburgh Penguins:

History tells us that the winner of Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final, wins the Cup 78.6 per cent of the time. When it’s the home team that wins Game 1, as Detroit did on Saturday night, the winning percentage increases to 87.9 per cent. When the home team wins Games 1 and 2, it wins the Cup 94.9 per cent of the time.

We’re merely heading into Game 3 in Pittsburgh and even though the Penguins have yet to lose at home, they still need a miracle.

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