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The Basketball’s Great. The Announcing and Officiating not so much.

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It’s that time of the year. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship runs all day, every weekend and nothing could possibly be more enjoyable.

Then, of course, I have to turn on the TV.

First of all the officiating in the tournament is brutal beyond all description. I am now convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the reason the govening bodies of amateur basketball have put three referees on the floor is to get the total IQ up over 100.

The officiating is so bad that if I were an inveterate Vegas gambler I might be incensed. However, it is so bad in the favour of the big TV teams that it’s easy to figure out which team is going to win — Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, UConn, Kentucky, Florida, BYU  – are going to get all the calls, in all the important situations. And they did.

Meanwhile, I’m so sick of the CBS color analysts speaking in absolutes when the game still has 10 minutes left to play, that the only thing good about this tournament is the mute button. And, frankly, I like all the play-by-play guys. However, I’ve reached the point now where I watch the tournament mumbling things like, “that should have been a foul,” or “if that call at the other end was a foul, then that’s a foul,” or “My goodness, that was six steps, why wasn’t that a travel?”

I must admit, I did feel better, when I was watching the TBS panel on Sunday, and Charles Barkley called the officiating “in many games, terrible.” Thanks Charles, I always knew you had it in you.

In the meantime, here is the Sweet Sixteen: in the East, Ohio State will face Kentucky and Marquette will take on North Carolina; in the West Duke will meet Arizona and Connecticut will play San Diego State; in the Southwest Kansas will play Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth will meet Florida State; and in the Southwest, Butler will play Wisconsin and Brigham Young will meet Florida.

I believe that Ohio State, North Carolina, Arizona, San Diego State, Kansas, Florida State, Wisconsin and Florida are the best teams. I don’t believe they will win. The officials will screw half of them

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Bettman Uses Winnipeg as a Pawn in His Nasty Fight With Balsillie.

Posted on May 17, 2009 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

You knew the word “Winnipeg” had to turn up at some point.

National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman, in his ugly court battle with RIM CEO Jim Balsillie, a wealthy entrepreneur who wants to move the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton, filed an affidavit with the court in Phoenix suggesting the NHL would rather have a American-based team move to Winnipeg than Southern Ontario.

The news arrived in Canada on TSN yesterday and not long after I received a telephone call from Winnipeg mayor, Sam Katz.

“What do you think of Mr. Bettman’s proclamation?” the Mayor asked.

“I think it’s disingenuous,” I replied. “I think Bettman will use anything he can to win the war with Balsillie and make himself look good. I think he’s said something to make it seem like he cares about the NHL in Canada, but he doesn’t, and he’s just being the same guy who lied about ‘not being in control of the Coyotes’ for six months when he actually was in control.” 

Mayor Sam didn’t seem happy.

“All this is going to do is cause more grief and unnecessary heartache,” Katz said. “I think it would be great to have a team back, but we don’t have anyone with deep enough pockets to buy the team and then operate it in Winnipeg. And until we find an owner, there is no sense talking about it.”

The mayor, as usual, is absolutely right. We did have someone who was rich enough and smart enough to own a team, but Izzy Asper has passed on and that leaves no one.

Although some people would love to call the MTS Centre, “NHL-suitable,” it’s too small, the seats are too uncomfortable for the prices that would have to be charged, the press box is too small, there aren’t enough suites, parking revenues are a problem and no one is sure about the value (if any) of television revenue or corporate support. The fans are there, nobody doubts that, but what price will they pay to sit in an undersized arena is anyone’s guess.

An NHL team in Winnipeg would lose money, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s because it’s very unlikely a team in Winnipeg would lose as much money as the teams are already losing in Florida, Atlanta, Tampa, Nashville, Long Island and Phoenix.

The return of the NHL to Winnipeg would be the right move by the NHL, but we all know the NHL isn’t full of “right moves” (What the hell IS Versus and why is there a team in Fort Lauderdale?). 

In the meantime, it’s pretty unfair to use this community as a pawn in an ongoing battle with an honest, well-meaning billionaire who wants to put a team in Hamilton.

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