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The Week That Was…

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

It’s been a crazier week than normal in the World of Sports. It’s time to weigh in on the seemingly non-stop lunacy:

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Tim Thomas

1) Tim Thomas didn’t join his team when the Boston Bruins were honored at the White House this past week.

The guy is free to do what he pleases but it cannot be argued that he put his political views ahead of his teammates.

In the meantime, I don’t need to say anything about Tim Thomas. I’ll leave that to American goaltender Cory Schneider, a one-time popular member of the old Manitoba Moose:

“I have no problem with his personal beliefs, but [Thomas] can suck it up for an hour, say, ‘hi,’ and be with the team, and avoid all of this,” Schneider told The Vancouver Province.

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Cory Schneider

Schneider, who hails from Marblehead, Mass., and played collegiately at Boston College told The Province that he believes Thomas “should be more appreciative of the opportunities he’s been given by playing in the United States.”

“Respect the [presidency],” Schneider said. “He plays for Team USA and he has no problem making millions of dollars in the USA, but he can’t go say ‘hi’ to the President? You get a lot of benefits living in the U.S. and he should have a little bit of respect for that.

“It’s about putting your own agenda aside to do something with the team whether you like the guy or not.” 

2) I guess you can call it “The NHL All-Star Game” if you want to, but here in Winnipeg, anyone who watches it will probably be watching it on a dare. With not one single Winnipeg Jets player in the game to go with the fact Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Nick Lidstrom, Jonathan Toews, Teemu Selanne, Ilya Kovalchuk, Brad Richards, Loui Eriksson, Patrik Elias, Marty St. Louis, Nicklas Backstrom, Vinny Lecavalier, Bobby Ryan and Anze Kopitar were either not chosen or are just not participating (for whatever reason), this is an “All-Star Game” in name only.

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Nick Lidstrom: All-Stars? Anyone?

When you’ve reached the point that one-hit wonders like Jamie Benn, Jason Pominville, Alexander Edler(?), Dion Phaneuf (gawd, the voting is stupid), Logan Couture and Dan Girardi are all-stars and there is not ONE Winnipeg Jet, this game is a misnomer. The fact it will be a no-hit 14-12 afternoon of pond hockey doesn’t even matter anymore. If there aren’t all-stars or a player in the game from every team, what’s the point?

Oh, I know, all it is is an excuse for NHL executives to have a party. I get that. Still…

Here in Winnipeg, people just can’t understand the NHL’s stupidity: Or, if nothing else, the NHL’s inability to grasp a feel-good story.

When it comes to the Jets, the NHL dropped the ball on this one. Frankly, the Jets should have had a whole line at the all-star game in Ottawa. The Return of the Jets to Canada was the feel-good sports story of the year in this country and if the NHL wanted to milk a feel-good story, it should have had a few Jets for the international media to talk to at the mid-winter classic.

Now they can just talk to real all-stars like Alex Ovechkin, Teemu Selanne, Jonathan Toews, Ilya Kovalchuk and Sidney Crosby. Oh yeah, they aren’t there either.

Like always, the NHL missed a great PR opportunity because as happens far too often, the NHL still doesn’t know a really good story when one steps on its throat.

In the meantime, the NHL has another problem, a credibility problem. Regardless of how they want to spin it, the NHL would have a better “all-star” game if, say, somebody invited those players who chose NOT to go to Ottawa, to appear for big money in Vegas or New York or L.A. on the weekend. Now that would have been a game.

Meanwhile, other than a nice excuse to have a small mid-season convention in a member city, the 2012 “No-Star Game,” is a sad joke.

And here is what makes it truly sad: The ONLY thing the media has talked about for two days is which player would be selected last when the teams are picked. That’s it. That’s all they got.

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Arizona's Platinum Uniforms

3) Nike, which did wonders with the University of Oregon Ducks uniform this year (Man, I loved those Rose Bowl helmets), has now turned its attention to college basketball.

These unis are called “Hyper Elite Platinum,” and they will be worn by Connecticut, Kentucky, Duke, Florida, Syracuse, Arizona and NorthCarolina. They’re different and kind of fun and they’ll look pretty decent on national TV.

Here is the schedule for when these uniforms will be worn:  UConn vs. Notre Dame (1/29), Kentucky vs. Tennessee (1/31), Duke vs. Maryland (2/11), Florida vs. Tennessee (2/11), Syracuse vs. USF (2/22), Arizona vs. UCLA (2/25) and UNC vs. Maryland (2/29).

I like them. Once.

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Our NHL All-Star Break Award Winners

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Alex Ovechkin

It could be argued that Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin are the two most talented players in all of hockey.

But of course, Crosby has been out for almost an entire year with a concussion and Ovechkin, although he’s trying to change his game, hasn’t quite come to grips with his coaches’ demand for a more defensive approach to the sport.

As a result, for different reasons, hockey’s two greatest talents have been missing.

For fans and fantasy players, that’s not great news. For other players, however, it’s an opportunity to step up, score some goals, become leaders and make a name. One man’s disappointment is always another man’s opportunity.

As a result, a whole collection of new, young stars has risen to the top in the National Hockey League this season. Names that might not have been well known a year or two ago are now getting the respect that their coaches, teammates and a whole lot of scouts believed they always deserved or, at least, would earn.

nhlasg2012logo Our NHL All Star Break Award WinnersWe’re now just a week away from the NHL’s Mid-Winter Classic, the All-Star Game in Ottawa. At that game, you will no doubt be introduced to a number of young players who could, one day, take up the mantle that has been left virtually untouched since Crosby’s injury.

You will no doubt also recall some old names that have been stars in this league and are clearly stars once again. The one thing that this year’s all-star game will bring clearly to mind is the names of the players who should be honored at the end of the 2011-12 season.

In order to set you up for the big game in Ottawa, here’s a look at the players who should be honored at the mythical midway point of the campaign. These are our seven major award winners for the opening half.

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Evgeni Malkin

The Hart Trophy, Most Valuable Player: Our winner is Evgeni Malkin of the Pittsburgh Penguins and our runners up are Claude Giroux of the Philadelphia Flyers and Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers. nhl.com gave us a pretty clear outline of what Malkin has done in order to almost single-handedly keep the banged-up Penguins in the heart of the Stanley Cup playoff race:

“Since Crosby exited the lineup on Dec. 5, the Penguins have limped to a 9-9-0 record in his absence. If not for the heroics of Malkin things could be a whole lot worse. In those 18 games without Crosby — and not to mention Kris Letang one of the NHL’s best offensive defenseman who returned to the lineup after a two-month absence on Thursday — Malkin has 15 goals and 15 assists. He has factored in 30 of the Penguins’ 53 goals during that time (56.6 percent) and has been on the ice for a whopping 34 (69.8 percent) goals during that stretch.”

Malkin has also taken over as the NHL’s scoring leader (54 points) and he’s kept the Penguins within the Top 6 in the Eastern Conference.

Our runners-up are Giroux who is more responsible than anyone in that Flyers lineup for keeping Philly in the Top 5 in the East and Lundqvist, because the Rangers have 62 points and are first in the East for only one reason: goaltending. 

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Henrik Lundqvist

The Vezina Trophy, the Best Goaltender: Well, if he’s almost the MVP, Henrik Lundqvist is certainly the best goalie. The runners-up are Jonathan Quick and Jimmy Howard.

Lundqvist has played 34 games and has a 1.93 goals against average to go with his .936 save percentage. He’s 20-10-4 and has saved the first-place Rangers on more than one occasion.

Howard has played 39 games and is 28-10-1 with a 1.98 goals against average and .926 save percentage while Quick is 20-11-9 with a 1.92 GAA and a save percentage of .934. Frankly, if the Rangers aren’t first in the East and Lundqvist doesn’t make so many game-saving stops, I’d look at Quick as the best goalie in the game this year.

Of course, there is also that two-headed monster in Boston. Tuukka Rask is 11-4-1 in 16 games with a 1.61 GAA and a .946 save percentage while Tim Thomas is 19-9-0 in 30 games with a 2.02 GAA and a .936 save percentage. Turn those two guys into one and you have the best goalie in the world.

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Adam Larsson

The Calder Trophy, Rookie of the Year: There are three players I love for this award at the midway point of the year. Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins leads all rookie scorers with 13 goals and 22 assists. Adam Henrique in New Jersey is next with 13 goals and 21 assists. And then there is New Jersey’s Adam Larsson, a big, powerful defenseman who is logging 22-25 minutes a game.

If I had to vote today, Larsson would get my vote. It’s tough enough to learn to become a regular defenseman in the NHL. Larsson, the No. 4 pick overall last spring, has not only learned, he’s instantly become one of the best rearguards on a defensive minded team. In fact, he’s the No. 1 defenseman in the Devils lineup right now.

At 6-foot-3, 210-pounds he has all the tools to play the position but the fact he can skate, hit and clear the front of his own net, makes him, potentially, one of the great players of the future in the NHL today.

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Zdeno Chara

The Norris Trophy, Best Defenseman: We still love Nick Lidstrom and always will, but this year, Zdeno Chara, all-star captain and leader of the Boston Bruins, has been remarkable. He won his first Norris Trophy in 2008-09, and has been the Bruins rock ever since. He is currently on a pace to set career highs in assists, total points, and plus/minus, all while being the most imposing force on defense in the game – anywhere on the planet.

Our runners up are Nick Lidstrom (of course) of the Detroit Red Wings, and Shea Weber of the Nashville Predators for reasons that are obvious.

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David Backes

The Selke Trophy, Best Defensive Player: There is only one choice for the Selke this year and while Ryan Kesler, Pavel Datsyuk, Jonathan Toews and Patrice Bergeron will get a load of support from the media voters, there is only one guy who passes the best defensive forward test at every level.

Centre David Backes of the St. Louis Blues covers the opposition’s best line on every shift. He starts most shifts as the centre in his own end and wins most of his faceoffs – and almost all the important ones. In fact, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock sends Backes out on to the ice 63 per cent of the time when his team has to start with a faceoff in its own end.

Backes also leads his team in scoring with 14 goals and 19 assists, is a plus-13 and is the leader on the power-play AND the penalty-kill. He’s also a leader on a team that is a remarkable 28-12-6 this season. He was snubbed by those selecting the players to attend this year’s all-star game and he’s been snubbed by the media mob that wants to give Toews an award, but won’t give him the Hart Trophy. Still, quite clearly David Backes is the best defensive forward in the game.

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Teemu

The Lady Byng Trophy, Most Gentlemanly Player: I don’t even have a runner-up for the Lady Byng. There is only one player who is even in the mix: Teemu Selanne.

The fact that he plays the game with passion, is the 15th leading scorer at age 41, seldom gets a dirty penalty, is beloved throughout the league and is such a class act at every possible level that there is no greater gentleman in all of hockey, makes this award a no-brainer. In fact, he should get it as a lifetime achievement award for being both a great player and a great human being.

I frankly, don’t care about anyone else. As one of my colleagues, Jonathan Willis, recently wrote: “This award really should go to a guy like Selanne, who has shown over a long career that he’s a superb player and someone who has exhibited exceptional sportsmanship throughout his career.”

Can I get an Amen?

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Paul MacLean

The Jack Adams Trophy, Coach of the Year: Absolutely no doubt about it, Paul MacLean of the Ottawa Senators is the coach of the year. Our runners-up would include Ken Hitchcock of the St. Louis Blues and Mike Babcock of the Detroit Red Wings.

MacLean, the former Winnipeg Jets rightwinger has the Senators in fourth place in the East with a record of 27-16-6. A man who learned his coaching philosophy as a player and as an assistant to the very accomplished Babcock in Detroit, MacLean has taken an Ottawa team that was 32-40-10 (13th in the East) last season and nearly equaled that win mark by the all-star break.

There is no doubt that MacLean’s efforts have taken a team that was expected to miss the playoff this year and turned it into a team that is now three points out of first place in the entire NHL.

Babcock has Detroit in first overall with 63 points and what makes him great is his ability to handle some huge egos and make the gifted Red Wings play as a team. Meanwhile, Hitchcock replaced Davis Payne early in the season and in a very short time coaxed the Blues into fourth in the West.

By the way, I have no problem with those people who promote the efforts of Alain Vigneault in Vancouver, Barry Trotz in Nashville and John Tortorella with the Rangers. They’ve all done great work.

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In a Crazy Summer, 10 Things That are Pretty Goofy.

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Ever wonder why the United States Justice Department is even bothering to bring Roger Clemens to trial. Who really cares?

The guy is out of baseball; based on statistics alone, it’s obvious that steroids are out of baseball (can anybody hit anymore?); it’s an incredible waste of taxpayers’ money (just like the Barry Bonds trial was an incredible waste of time, money and effort); and when lying to Congress is all you have on a guy, then the Justice System is suspect. Congressmen lie to Congress every single day.

Here was AP’s lead on the jury selection process for the trial: “Prospective jurors screened Thursday for the Roger Clemens perjury trial were more critical of Congress for spending time investigating drugs in baseball than they were of the star pitcher on trial for lying to lawmakers about ever using them.

“The sports legend watched intently but didn’t speak as members of the jury pool faced intense questioning from the judge and lawyers from both sides for a second day. Nearly as many have been turned away as qualified to be considered for the panel that will eventually be seated, including two who were excused after they said they weren’t sure they could be fair because of their feelings about Congress.”

“‘Even members of Congress have lied to Congress and they have not been prosecuted,’ said one of the panelists who was excused.”

It’s a crazy summer. Here are 10 more things that are absolutely nuts…

10. Detroit Tigers manager  Jim Leyland sid this week that players, managers and umpires needed a big league summit meeting because the tension between the participants in Major League Baseball and the people who call the games are “at an all-time high.”

Leyland had just been tossed out twice in two straight games at Angels Stadium which prompted a Minnesota Twins broadcaster to suggest that the problem isn’t tension between umpires and players/managers throughout baseball, it’s a problem with the California umpiring crews.

“There aren’t tensions in games when Detroit plays Cleveland or Minnesota or even the Yankees,” he said. “There are problems with everybody when they have to go west. Those west coast crews, well, they just don’t seem right to me.”

When people here in Winnipeg rip the umpiring in the independent American Association games as being “minor league,” they obviously don’t watch major league baseball. MLB umpires are horrendous (see Armando Galarraga’s umpire-destroyed perfect game) and as one observer has pointed out, the ones in California are even worse.

Baseball desperately needs instant replay.

9. The New Jersey Nets Deron Williams has decided that the NBA lockout just might go on forever, so he’s negotiating a contract with Besiktas in the Turkish League.

Don’t be surprised if Williams is just the first of many NBA players to consider moving to Europe while the billionaire owners fight with the millionaire players.

8. Dallas Cowboys wideout Roy Williams Jr. lived with former Miss Texas, Brooke Daniels (a legitimate hottie) for about a year. In February, he bought her a $76,000 ring. Then he proposed to her by recording his proposal and sending it to her via e-mail. With that he called himself “an old fashioned romantic.”

The two are no longer together (surprise, surprise) Daniels did not return the ring and Williams is suing her. Yep, that’s pretty romantic.

7. We see that Paige Duke, one of NASCAR’s three Miss Sprint Cups, has lost her sash. Nude photos of her showed up on the Internet. Ah, yes, the dreaded morality clause. She’s apparently upset about it — losing her job, I mean, not the fact the photos of her stark nekkid are showing up the e-mail in-boxes of high school boys.

6. Detroit Red Wings defenseman Mike Commodore is considering wearing No. 64 this year. Really, Seriously.

That would make him Commodore 64. Jersey sales would be through the roof.

5. Here’s an excerpt from Curt Schilling’s interview on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia on Wednesday. Schilling, always outspoken, was asked if he thought teammates on his 1993 Phillies club (the team that lost the World Series to Toronto) were using steroids.

“Oh, absolutely. Sure, sure. We all thought to some degree, some people did and didn’t here and there. But again, it wasn’t something you’d walk up to someone and talk about or ask them. So you had your ideas. I mean, when guys showed up with 25 extra pounds on them after three months and you’d seen them kind of during the winter time, you had an idea. And there were a lot of guys on a lot of teams. I would tell you, any fan of any team that goes ‘ohh, no..’ Because I hear a lot from the 2004 team with Ortiz and Manny and blah blah blah, and it’s usually from Yankees fans who had a roster full of them. There isn’t a team in the last 20 years that’s won clean.”

Thank you, Curt.

4. The Women’s World Cup Soccer Championship recorded a 0.01 television rating on two separate occasions last week. Nobody watched it. Apparently, not even the referees.

On a scoring chance by Australia in a round-robin match, the ball hit the post and was caught by an Equatorial Guinea defender, who took two or three steps with the ball in her hands and then casually dropped it on the pitch. While the Australians screamed at Hungarian referee Gyeongyi Gaal to call a penalty kick, she did nothing. Later Ms. Gaal apologized for missing the play. If a tree falls in the forest…

3. Former Montreal Alouettes president Larry Smith, now a Canadian Senator, has denied that the CFL team falsely announced sold-out games in order to guarantee the government funding that was used to expand Montreal’s Molson Stadium to 25,000 seats for the beginning of the 2010 season.

LaPresse reported that the sellouts were bogus and that the team wasn’t close to its claim of 105 consecutive sold out games. That streak ended this past week, in Week 1 of the 2011 season, when 2,700 seats went unsold.

That story is a classic case of turning mile hills into mountains. LaPresse couldn’t prove that games weren’t sold out if it wanted to. Another classic example of the media just making it up.

2. Gil Brandt reports at nfl.com that Brett Favre is getting the itch to return to the NFL if the lockout is somehow, someday negotiated away.

Why not? He’s better than anybody else the Vikings have right now.

1. The Nashville Predators are now offering a five-game mini-pack exclusively to Atlanta hockey fans. But it’s an even juicier deal than it sounds: An Atlanta fan picks five of eight offered games on the schedule — including a preseason game against the Winnipeg Jets — and they receive a March 24, Predators game against the Jets “free,” with tickets in the lower bowl, no less. What a terrific opprtunity to cheer on Andrew Ladd and Dustin Byfuglien one more time.

Atlanta is about four hours from Nashville.

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Our Picks for the NHL Awards

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Tonight in Las Vegas the National Hockey League will holds its annual awards show.

Here’s a look at the nominees and our choices as the most deserving winners:

Hart Trophy (Most Valuable Player)

Nominees: Corey Perry (Anaheim), Daniel Sedin (Vancouver) and Martin St. Louis (Tampa Bay).

Who we think should win: Daniel Sedin.

Vezina Trophy (outstanding goaltender)

Nominees: Roberto Luongo (Vancouver), Pekka Rinne (Nashville) and Tim Thomas (Boston).

Who should win: Tim Thomas.

Norris Trophy (outstanding all-around defenceman)

Nominees: Zdeno Chara (Boston), Nicklas Lidstrom (Detroit) and Shea Weber (Nashville).

Who should win: Zdeno Chara.

Calder Trophy (outstanding rookie)

Nominees: Logan Couture (San Jose), Michael Grabner (N.Y. Islanders) and Jeff Skinner (Carolina).

Who should win: Jeff Skinner.

Jack Adams (outstanding coach)

Nominees: Dan Bylsma (Pittsburgh), Barry Trotz (Nashville) and Alain Vigneault (Vancouver).

Who should win: Barry Trotz.

Selke Trophy (top defensive forward)

Nominees: Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit), Ryan Kesler (Vancouver) and Jonathan Toews (Chicago).

Who should win: Jonathan Toews.

Lady Byng (most gentlemanly player)

Nominees: Loui Eriksson (Dallas), Nicklas Lidstrom (Detroit) and Martin St. Louis (Tampa Bay).

Who should win: Nicklas Lidstrom.

Ted Lindsay Award (outstanding player as voted by his peers)

Nominees: Corey Perry (Anaheim), Daniel Sedin (Vancouver) and Steven Stamkos (Tampa Bay).

Who should win: Sedin.

 

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10 Things I Loved This Week

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It was a very interesting week in the Wonderful World of Sports. Some funny things happened, some great things happened and some people decided to say the things that needed to be said.

Here’s the Top 10 of things I loved this week:

1) The City Council of Glendale did exactly what the government of Manitoba did in the 1990s and decided to pick up the losses of its National Hockey League franchise for another year. Of course, everyone around the game — especially Winnipeggers — called them idiots, but I don’t remember anyone calling Gary Filmon an idiot in 1991. That’s right, the Government of Manitoba paid the Jets losses for four years.

2) The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Boston Bruins 5-2 in the first game of the Eastern Conference final in Boston. Sean Bergenheim scored again. He has eight goals in the playoffs. Dwayne Roloson, at age 41, stopped 31 of 33 shots. I wouldn’t have believed it after watching them all season, but these Lightning might be the best team in the game right now. And head coach Guy Boucher might just be the smartest man in hockey.

3) Last week, Detroit Tigers righthander Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter at the Toronto Blue Jays. This past week, in his next start, he threw five no-hit innings at the Kansas City Royals. That’s 14 innings without giving up a hit. After a slow start, Verlander is now 4-3 with a 2.91 ERA and the Tigers have won seven straight games. Pitching is everything and in Detroit it all starts with a 28-year-old righthander who can get it into the 100s.

4) The Winnipeg Goldeyes scored two runs in their final at bat to beat the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks 3-2. That never happens. Fargo never gives up a game in the bottom of the final inning (in this case, the seventh, as the second game of a doubleheader) with the quality of closer(s) Doug Simunic brings in eery year. For the first time in a decade, the RedHawks look vulnerable.

5) Comedian Sarah Silverman  was invited into the FOX TV booth on Saturday and was, essentially, beamed in from another planet. For 5  1/2 minutes she nattered on about, well, nothing but jibber-jabber. It was truly awful. But it proved once again, something that my producer Jim McGregor and I have learned over the years in our own Shaw TV booth here in Winnipeg. If your guest knows nothing about baseball, don’t have them as a guest.

Or, a corollary to that would be: Don’t think you’re funny when you’re not. Joe Buck is a fine broadcaster but he’s not funny. Trying to be funny with Sarah Silverman’s brand of humour when you aren’t funny to begin with is an invitation to disaster. What we saw Saturday was an embarrassing 5 1/2 minutes of lousy TV.

6) Jose Bautista hit his 13th home run of the season during a six-run 11th inning that results in a 9-3 Blue Jays win over Minnesota. Bautista is now on a pace to hit 54 home runs again. This is weird. Here’s a guy who never hit more than 16 home runs in almost five years of big league baseball. He was a Pittsburgh Pirates castoff for goodness sake and now he’s going to hit 54 homers two years in a row. No wonder some members of the Toronto media thought he was on the juice last year. In a world where Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera and Alex Rodriguez don’t get close to 50, a 195-pound, 30-year-old is on pace to hit 54. You gotta love it, but you also have to wonder.

7) If Nick Lidstrom decides to retire, it’s safe to say he’s the second best defenceman ever to play in the NHL. Sorry, kids, there will never be another Bobby  Orr.

icon cool 10 Things I Loved This Week Here is the trouble with major league sports these days: On Thursday, player agent Scott Boras told Yahoo Sports that the Kansas City Royals had absolutely no chance of signing the next Baseball Jesus (Joe Mauer was the last), Eric Hosmer, to a long-term contract.

“There will be massive increases in television revenues over the next three years and that will change the landscape of baseball salaries,” Boras said.

Which should mean Kansas City will see some of that money. Trouble is, Boras was suggesting there will massive increases in New York, Boston and Chicago and not likely anywhere else.

Buy the way, remember the name Eric Hosmer. He will not reach his 22nd birthday until October and yet this 6-foot-4, 230-pound first baseman has two homers (both in new Yankee Stadium)  in seven games with the Royals  and has a career OPS of .987 (Fifth overall in MLB) . He also has two doubles, five RBI and a stolen base.

He will get a gigantic long-term contract one day. And it will be from the Yankees or Red Sox, not the Royals.

9) Saturday was a big day in Manchester, England.

Manchester United won its 19th English title by playing Blackburn to a 1-1 draw. United won the English Premier Division. Then Manchester City beat Stoke 1-nil to win the FA Cup.

10) And this announcement came out of Ottawa on Saturday:

“Football Canada is proud to announce the addition of defensive linemen Brian Guebert (Editor’s note: A former Blue Bomber) and Michaël Jean-Louis to the Senior Men’s National Team roster competing in Austria this summer at the 2011 International Federation of American Football (IFAF) Senior Men’s World Championship.”

We have a Senior Men’s National Team? Who knew?

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Great First Round of the Playoffs. Now it’s on to Round 2

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

There is only one Canadian team left in the Stanley Cup playoffs and let’s be honest, the Vancouver Canucks were lucky to move on.

Meanwhile, we had a pretty darn good record in Round 1, finishing 7-1 (our only miss was Nashville over the Ducks). With a game on Thursday night, it’s time to take a close look at Round 2:

2011 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS ROUND 2

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Series I: No. 5 Tampa Bay Lightning (Defeated Pittsburgh in Seven Games) at No. 1 Washington Capitals (Defeated NY Rangers in Five Games).

Season Series: Washington won 4-1-1

The Capitals looked awesome in taking out the Rangers in five games. Ovechkin is back, Semin scored a couple of big goals and the checking lines were great. Tampa can score, no doubt about it, but in their win over Pittsburgh, the Lightning had some very bright spots defensively. In fact, that 1-0 win on the road in Game 7 against the Pens was a tribute to both goaltender Dwayne Roloson and the defensive unit in front of him. I loved the way Tampa battled back and I’ve developed a great deal of respect for coach Guy Boucher, but I just think Washington is the best team in the East.

Key player; Dwayne Roloson, Tampa Bay Lightning.

Our pick: Washington in six.

Series J: No. 3 Boston Bruins (Defeated Montreal in Seven Games) at No. 2 Philadelphia Flyers (Defeated Buffalo in Seven Games).

Season Series: Boston won 3-0-1

It’s the same thing every year. If the Flyers get the goaltending they require, they will win and advance. If they don’t, well… Boston won the season series quite handily and beat a much better team to get to the second round. Boston has significantly better goaltending and Philly will go down for the same reason it goes down every year. If your goaltender isn’t your best player, you can always lose. Once again, Philadelphia is likely to lose.

Key player: Tim Thomas, Boston Bruins

Our pick: Boston in six.

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Series K: No. 5 Nashville Predators (Defeated Anaheim in Six Games) at No. 1 Vancouver Canucks (Defeated Chicago in Seven Games)

Season Series: A split 2-2.

If you are a regular reader of fantrax.com, you know I’m a huge fan of Predators head coach Barry Trotz. On Monday I wrote that he should be the NHL’s coach of the year. However, I also think his hard-working Preds might need some divine help to get past the Canucks who just got a real scare from the Chicago Blackhawks – proving that defending champions do not go down easily. The Preds don’t score a lot, they don’t have a of bog name stars and they seldom look like a playoff worthy team at the start of the season, but this year’s Predators are as good a team as there is in the West. Trouble is, they get to face the best team in the NHL and one suspects the Sedin Twins will wake up this time.

Key player:  Roberto Luongo, Vancouver Canucks

Our pick: Vancouver in five.

Series L: No. 3 Detroit Red Wings (Defeated Phoenix in Four Games) at No. 2 San Jose Sharks (Defeated Los Angeles in Six Games).

Season Series: Sharks won 3-1-0

This is a great matchup because in recent years both of these teams have been very good and yet both have choked in the playoffs. Detroit looked like a buzz saw, taking out a pretty good Coyotes team in four straight games. If Pavel Datsyuk is a as good as he was in Round 1 and the checking lines continue to dominate, the Wings could have an easy time. Henrik Zetterberg is also expected back for Round 2. The Sharks finally got past the first round and looked good doing it, although they did take out a banged-up Kings team that just wasn’t up to snuff offensively without leading scorer, Anze Kopitar. However, Joe Thornton looked good in Round 1 and that might bode well for the Sharks.

Key player: Jimmy Howard, Detroit Red Wings.

Our pick: Red Wings in six.

 

 

 

 

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Just Waiting For an Announcement

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It would appear the Phoenix Coyotes are now, officially, on life support. Not on the ice, but off it.

The deal in the desert is as troubled as it was six months ago and once again, the NHL has called upon Winnipeg to pick up a franchise that never should have left the city in the first place. Unless there is some sort of miracle — and it appears at this stage that it would indeed be a miracle — the NHL is probably going to try and find a new home for a franchise that has been a financial failure for more than 15 years. That home is, more than likely, Winnipeg.

The ownership in the ‘Peg is ready to negotiate  and the league probably has no choice. The optics are dreadful (frankly, Bettman should resign if he has to re-locate this team to its original home) and by moving back to a city that it left a decade and a half ago, the NHL is admitting that expansion into those non-traditional U.S. markets was an abject failure.

Be sure, Phoenix isn’t the only failure. Atlanta, Florida, Columbus and Nashville are all struggling. Dallas’s ownership situation is a mess. St. Louis is looking for a new ownership arrangement. Colorado doesn’t sell enough tickets anymore. Tampa has a great owner, but a lot of empty seats. And the Islanders are just a money pit. From a competitive standpoint, the NHL has the best hockey league on the planet. From a business perspective, the NHL is a mess.

Barring a miracle, it seems pretty clear that despite its own wishes, the NHL has only two alternatives — continue to own the team in Phoenix, a team that will lose about $30 million this season, or sell it to a very rich man representing Winnipeg.

Both options are not ideal from the league’s point of view. If the move to Winnipeg seemed like a good idea, it would have been done last year. Now, however, it might be the only idea.

Here in Winnipeg, we’ll just sit back and wait for the announcement. It’s an announcement that some well-connected folks in Toronto believe is inevitable.

And wouldn’t it be fun if Phoenix’s last game was a 4-1 loss to the Detroit Red Wings in Game 6 of the opening round of the playoffs?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Devellano Not Convinced the Coyotes are Headed to Winnipeg

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

TAMPA, Fla. — While most Winnipeggers would now agree that the NHL’s return to Winnipeg is only days away, not everyone inside the game would concur.

Recently enshrined Hockey Hall of Famer, Jim Devellano, is one of those people who isn’t so sure. In fact, the Detroit Red Wings executive who makes his home near the St. Pete Times Forum here in the Tampa Bay region, figures if the Phoenix Coyotes end up in Winnipeg, it will happen when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has exhausted every possible financial method known to man to keep the team in Phoenix.

On Wednesday night, before the Lightning met the Chicago Blackhawks in front of a pretty nice crowd in downtown Tampa, a group of old hockey personalities, both great and not-so-great sat around the media lounge and discussed the Phoenix mess. While none denied that Winnipeg may very well, most agreed that Bettman would have to be the very end of his rope to allow it to happen.

“I believe the Coyotes will stay in Phoenix,” said Devallano, who also said the same thing to TSN and the Globe and Mail last week. “Here’s why: 1) the American owners don’t want that franchise in Winnipeg. Not because Winnipeg can’t afford it or because it won’t be a good franchise, but because it’s a ticket killer. Chicago’s in here tonight and the place is nearly sold out. How many people do you think would be here if Winnipeg was in town? Half as many? Maybe. American fans don’t want to pay money to see Canadian-based teams. There is no rivalry. It just doesn’t mean anything. 2) The league has a TV contract negotiation coming up. Do you think it would be good business to say to the president of NBC Sports, ‘Oh, by the way, we want hundreds of millions of dollars from you, but we’re going to move a team from the 12th largest TV market in the United States and put it in Winnipeg.’ The TV exec would say , ‘What’s a Winnipeg?’ It wouldn’t fly. And 3) Deep in his heart, I don’t believe Gary wants to move Phoenix back to Winnipeg. I think it would make him look very bad.

“However, if he has no alternative, if he’s down to no other option, then I guess he’d have to go to a city that has a guy with a pocket full of money who wants to throw that money around. But until he reaches the point of absolutely no return, I believe he’s going to do everything he can to keep the Coyotes franchise in Phoenix.”

One of the great things about hanging out at Lightning hockey games is just sitting and talking hockey — every issue in the game — with both Hall of Famers and folks who are just interested in the sport.

Phil Esposito does radio here and his brother Tony made a brief appearance at our little group think tank Wednesday night. Scotty Bowman, Les Binkley, Devallano and Tampa sports writers Ira Kaufman and Roy Cummings had lots to say on the Winnipeg issue. It was pretty much agreed that if Winnipeg gets a team, it won’t be because it’s what the current owners want or don’t want.  It won’t be because Winnipeg provides the league with a large base of corporate giants interested in hockey or because the fans are desperate for the NHL to return or because we have a “great” arena.

It will be because Commissioner Gary Bettman has no American city in which to put a team and because somebody in Canada wants to be an owner — in Canada.

From the day the team left, the return of the Jets was based on the presence of an acceptable arena and legitimate ownership. If both are there and the mess in Phoenix becomes a completely untenable situation, Winnipeg could get a team. But make no mistake, Gary Bettman won’t be giving up on Phoenix without a fight.

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Atlanta to Winnipeg? Sounds Like February 2010.

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Bill Daly, the vice-president of the National Hockey League, is an interesting guy. Whip-smart and with a sound handle on the business side of hockey, Daly was always at the forefront of the “Save or Don’t Save the Phoenix Coyotes” argument. And for him, there was never any doubt. If you listened closely, there was never even a waver in his voice. He said from Day 1, the league was going to do everything humanly possible to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix, and it did.

That’s why his comments this week regarding the future of the Atlanta Thrashers were somewhat stunning. He made it clear that he hoped all would go well in the Thrashers’ efforts to find a new investor in order to maintain a franchise in Georgia, but he didn’t say it with quite the same conviction he did when he said the league would do everything possible to save the Coyotes.

This time, Daly essentially alluded to a clear fact of capital, saying that in the United States, the market will determine the future. Whether it’s a business or a hockey franchise, Daly made it known that if the market couldn’t carry the Thrashers, the Thrashers might have to be carried to another market.

We wrote on the 92-CITI-FM website in February of 2010 that a team was on the verge of heading to Winnipeg and that the team would be the Atlanta Thrashers, not the Phoenix Coyotes.

It’s not going to happen for the start of the 2011-12 season, not a chance, but as Daly suggested this week, the Thrashers future in Atlanta isn’t quite as guaranteed as the Coyotes future was in Phoenix/Glendale.

Those with their hands on the pulse of the NHL still believe that the Atlanta Thrashers will end up in Winnipeg for the 2013-14 season — or sooner and it will be the Thrashers for a handful of reasons:

1) The Thrashers are 28th on the NHL’s list of announced attendance (don’t believe a word of announced attendances), behind the Islanders and Coyotes. The league knows they play in a college football town and the league also knows the attendance isn’t going to get any better.

2) The team’s owner has worked very hard for more than two years to find a business partner and he has not enticed one person who was interested in buying a chunk of the franchise and keeping it in Atlanta.

3) The Thrashers play in the NHL’s Eastern Conference and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has two problems with his East-West split — the Detroit Red Wings and the Columbus Blue Jackets. Both teams are located in the Eastern time zone and yet they play in the West. Detroit, being an Original 6 team, has first dibs on a spot in the Eastern Conference, and Bettman would be happy moving an existing, yet struggling Eastern team to the West so he can move the Wings to the East. Atlanta to Winnipeg (just like the Islanders or maybe Florida to Kansas City) works.

4) An NHL franchise in Atlanta has failed before. The Flames crashed in the late 70s and were eventually moved to Calgary. Moving a second failed franchise in the same market is not as horrible an optic as moving Winnipeg to Phoenix and then Phoenix back to Winnipeg.

5) Bettman wants to appease the new, suddenly militant NHLPA which now has former MLBPA boss Donald Fehr as its executive director. Fehr hates salary caps and will quite happily take his players out on strike if there is one tiny, little thing he doesn’t like. Fehr loves labour strife and he’ll create strife were it doesn’t really exist. So in order to try and save his “cap-based-on-revenue” concept, Bettman needs to keep revenues high and the cap moving up every year. That means he must get out of struggling markets soon and while he did everything he could to save Phoenix because of his legacy, his ego, the optics of the situation and the promises he made to the community, he won’t be quite as enthused about saving a franchise that has none of those concerns.

We will know this year if (first) and when Winnipeg will get a new NHL franchise.

I wrote in February of 2010 that it would be the Atlanta Thrashers. I still believe that today.

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Vuvuzelas Give Me a Headache and Other Thoughts from the Whine Cellar

Posted on June 15, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Those who think the vuvuzela is cute and cultural simply refuse to believe that plastic really isn’t part of any nation’s culture.

1) The plastic horns that are “played” (how about “just blown into?”) from start to finish of every match at the 2010 World Cup in  South Africa have reached the point of stupid and annoying and while I love the British announcers who call the matches with both a rich vocabulary and soothing voices, the fact they’ve been drowned out by the incessant hum of the vuvuzela has made the mute button on the TV my most precious of possessions.

Monday, we got word that FIFA is considering banning the horns. According to yahoo.com sports, a precedent has already been set. Vuvuzelas were banned – confiscated from ticket holders upon entry to the stadium – from the World Cup Kickoff Concert in Soweto last Thursday.

I, frankly, don’t care what FIFA does at this stage. The mute button has done its job.

2) This Thursday is the sixth anniversary of the Mike Richards Show at Calgary’s The FAN 960. I’m proud to say I’ve been a part of it almost the entire six years. Richards is the best young broadcaster in the country and nothing on the radio dial is funnier than the fabulous Mike Richards Show.

3) No matter where I go in Winnipeg, I get asked the same question: “Are the Jets coming back?” I believe they are and the team coming to Winnipeg will likely be the Phoenix Coyotes.

However, I’m not convinced yet that it won’t be the Atlanta Thrashers. Friends inside the NHL office in New York tell me that if a team must move, and commissioner Gary Bettman does NOT want any team to move, Bettman would accept the move of a team from the Eastern Conference to the West. That means he can move the Detroit Red Wings to the East (Bettman believes teams in the Eastern time zone, like Detroit, should probably play in the Eastern Confernce).

Sure, all signs would point to the Coyotes leaving the desert and moving back to the prairie, however there appears to be enough resolve to keep the Coyotes in Phoenix now and if Ice Edge can get its financing in order, they’ll likely buy the team and keep them there.

But there are more non-traditional markets out there and committed fan bases are small in many of hockey’s Sun Belt communities. Before this whole issue is resolved, the next Winnipeg franchise could very well come from the Eastern Conference.

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