Tag Archives: NHL

It’s Official: For the NHL, the Jets are a Rousing Success!!!

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment
8420529e3ab735ca810247d1155004ef getty 135150807 300x205 Its Official: For the NHL, the Jets are a Rousing Success!!!

The fans deserve a salute.

TAMPA — While sitting in the press box between a group of NHL executives on Thursday night, an official-looking list from the National Hockey League was passed around.

It was a list of the NHL’s gate receipts, ticket sales and ticket prices through Jan. 31, 2012. It confirmed everything Jets fans have known since the season opener against Montreal back on Oct. 9.

The Jets are 13th overall in NHL receipts per game even though Winnipeg’s rink is the smallest in the NHL at 15,004. Winnipeg makes $1.24 million per game. According to the NHL, last year in Atlanta, the Thrashers made $331,000 per game.

The Jets also had the seventh most expensive ticket in the NHL in average price at $76.41 per seat.

Montreal is No. in gate receipts at $2.058 million per game ($1.965 per game last year). Toronto is No. 2 at $2.004 million per game ($1.981 million per game last year). Montreal’s average ticket price is $96.44 per seat while Toronto’s is $105.94 per ticket.

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Mark loved the move from Atlanta. Gary? Not so much. Until now, one guesses.

At the bottom of the list — at No. 30 — in game per game gate receipts is Phoenix (no surprise) at $387,364 per game. Last year, the Coyotes averaged a meagre $378,925 per game.

Those Coyotes numbers make it all the more unbelievable that Commissioner Gary Bettman has three buyers in Phoenix who are prepared to keep the team in the Arizona desert.

How come Gary Bettman has the ability to find stupid people with lots of money who are eager to piss it down a toilet? I keep looking for those guys and just can’t find them anywhere.

(Note: To the commenter below — from the Globe and Mail: “True North considered a number of different pricing plans before deciding on the one it unveiled. Tickets will range between $39 and $129.” On the secondary market, ticket prices are obviously high. The original market was $39-$129.”)

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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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The 10 Biggest Stories of the Opening Half

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

sport 257 The 10 Biggest Stories of the Opening HalfIt’s halftime. Most of the National Hockey League’s 30 teams have played 41 of 82 games and for some of the teams, it’s been quite a ride. For a load of others, of course, it’s been a nightmare.

The Anaheim Ducks were fourth in the West last spring with 99 points. At the midway mark of 2011-12, the Ducks have only 11 wins and 28 points. Last year, the Atlanta Thrashers were in the midst of a downward spiral, set to miss the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. This year, the Thrashers are now the Winnipeg Jets and after a win in their 41st game of the season on Saturday night, they sit in ninth place in the East, just a point below the post-season line.

Still, there was a lot more to the first half of this season’s NHL campaign than just the woes of the Ducks and the euphoria in Winnipeg. In fact, finding the 10 most important issues of the first half was so easy, we had to exclude a few for the first time in four seasons of making this list.

So without further adieu, here’s our First Half Top 10 NHL Issues for 2011-12:

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Teemu

10. The Collapse of the Anaheim Ducks: Last season, with 99 points, the Ducks made the playoffs easily. With stars such as Teemu Selanne, Saku Koivu, Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf, Bobby Ryan and Cam Fowler, the Ducks were expected to challenge for the Stanley Cup. Uh, oh. The Ducks have 12 wins in their first 40 games and general manager Bob Murray told the Los Angeles Times last week that he’s just about ready to blow it up. Murray said Selanne and Koivu were “untouchable,” but everybody else was available. This is a very good team with very good players but something is wrong. Murray fired head coach Randy Carlyle and replaced him with Bruce Boudreau and nothing changed. One suspects that the Ducks will be a completely different team by the trade deadline. Oh yeah, and Teemu won’t be an untouchable by the Feb. 27 trade deadline. He’d look great in a Jets uniform.

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Claude Giroux

9. The Emergence of Claude Giroux: In 2006, Claude Giroux was the No. 1 draft pick of the Philadelphia Flyers, 22nd overall. This guy had enjoyed two straight 100-point-plus seasons with the Gatineau Olympiques of the Quebec League, had wonderful speed, great moves and soft hands and yet it took 21 selections before the Flyers could grab him because so many teams thought that at 5-foot-11, 170 pounds, he was a tad undersized. Before Giroux was taken, Florida took Michael Frolik, Tampa selected Riku Helenius, Anaheim took Mark Mitera and Montreal took David Fischer. Huh? Giroux was playing at the Habs doorstep and that organization didn’t even notice. Last year, Giroux had 25 goals and 51 assists. This year, at the midway point, he has 18 goals and 30 assists, is second in scoring in the NHL and has missed four games with a head injury. Right now, 23-year-old Claude Giroux might be the best young player in the NHL.

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Scott Arniel - gone.

8. Coach Firings: It started when the St. Louis Blues fired Davis Payne on Nov. 5 and replaced him with Ken Hitchcock. Now, nearly one-sixth of the entire league has fired its coach. Washington fired Bruce Boudreau and replaced him with Dale Hunter; Carolina fired Paul Maurice and replaced him with Kirk Muller; Anaheim fired Randy Carlyle and replaced him with Bruce Boudreau; Los Angeles fired Terry Murray and replaced him with Darryl Sutter; Montreal fired Jacques Martin and replaced him with Randy Cunneyworth and on Monday, the Columbus Blue Jackets fired Scott Arniel and replaced him with Todd Richards. St. Louis, Washington and L.A. have benefited from the changes. Not so much for Anaheim, Carolina and Montreal. We’ll wait on Columbus, but that’s an American Hockey League team. I wouldn’t expect a change in fortunes.

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Adam Larsson

7. The Game’s Great Teenagers: On Jan. 31, Tyler Seguin turns 20. Until then he is one of the league’s many outstanding teenaged stars. Seguin has 37 points in 37 games this season and is a plus-32, that’s the best in the entire NHL. Meanwhile, 19-year-old Jeff Skinner (down with a concussion), 18-year-old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (35 points in 38 games) of the Oilers, 19-year-old Adam Larsson (24 minutes a game as a defenseman) of the Devils, 19-year-old Gabriel Landeskog (plus-10 on a minus team) of the Avalanche and 19-year-old Sean Couturier of the Flyers, are all playing regularly – and well – in the best league in the world.

6. Realignment: The league voted 26-4 to realign the league in 2012-13 from a two-conference, six-division operation in which 16 teams made it to the playoffs, to a four-conference league, separated by time zones. It was brilliant, but it didn’t even get off the ground.

5. The Rejection of Realignment: This was a bigger deal than realignment itself. In an effort to fire a salvo at the owners, the players rejected the league’s new realignment. NHLPA executive director Donald Fehr said it had something to do with travel and fairness (since when did the Agents Association give a crap about fairness?). Seems the players couldn’t get a clear feel about the travel issues, days off, etc. etc and they didn’t like the fact that there were seven teams in two conferences and eight teams in two others and the players thought it would be harder to make the playoffs in the West. Most people involved with the NHL believed that this was simply Fehr’s first shot at the owners in what everyone believes will be a long, ugly battle for a new collective bargaining agreement (the old one expires on Sept. 15, 2012). In fact, many people are convinced there will not be a hockey season in 2012-13.

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Randy Cunneyworth, not the bad guy.

4. The Mess in Montreal: Here is the biggest problem facing the Montreal Canadiens: They don’t win enough games. At the midway point of the season, the Habs are 16-18-7 and in 12th place in the NHL’s Eastern Conference. However, many Quebeckers are not angry at the fact the Habs are a lousy team, but they’re incensed by the less-important fact (at least to a rational individual) that the Canadiens fired Jacques Martin and replaced him with Randy Cunneyworth, a coach from Etobicoke, Ont., who does not speak French. On Saturday night, Quebec Nationalists protested that the Canadiens, “aren’t French enough.”  What really pissed them off was the fact they found out the language of the locker room is English and that the team is made up of eight players from English Canada, five Americans, 10 Europeans (none from France) and only two Quebecois. In a roundabout way, the protesters have a right to be upset. How good and French would Montreal be today if they’d drafted PA Parenteau in 2001; Patrice Bergeron in 2003; Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Marc-Andre Gragnani in 2005; Claude Giroux, Brad Marchand and Mathieu Perrault in 2006; and hadn’t traded away Maxim Lapierre, Guillaume Latendresse and their first-round pick in 2008? Of course, have you noticed that after Giroux and maybe Vincent Lecavalier, there aren’t that many great French-Canadian players anymore? Maybe the problem in Quebec is at the minor hockey level, not the NHL level.

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Opening Night in Winnipeg

3. The Return of the Winnipeg Jets: It was one of the biggest stories in Canadian sport in 2011. On May 31, Mark Chipman and David Thompson announced that they had acquired the Atlanta Thrashers of the NHL and they were going to move the team to Winnipeg. They sold out the season tickets at the MTS Centre – for five years! – in just 17 minutes. Since then they have won 19 of their first 41 games (19-16-5) and remain a legitimate playoff threat. After 16 years without an NHL team, Winnipeg had its beloveds back again and Canada had a seventh franchise. The crowd at MTS Centre is so loud, enthusiastic, fun and intelligent that it has become an international story unto itself. Happy days are here again.

2. Concussions and The Shanahan Justice: This season, Brendan Shanahan took over from Colin Campbell as the NHL’s director of discipline and it’s clear he’s been told to do everything possible to lower the number of concussions being suffered by NHL players. The concussion “epidemic,” is indeed and epidemic, but there is one big problem: Many of the concussions suffered by the game’s top players came as a result of (a) contact with teammates, (b) inadvertent contact based on the speed and size of the players and (c) injuries that were a result of hard plastic equipment that is a dangerous weapon when it’s placed on large, fast hockey players. So far this season, Shanahan has suspended 30 players while another 14 players have been fined. Trouble is, in the big picture, none of this is making a dent in the problem.

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Will We See Him Again?

1. The Loss of Sidney Crosby: So far this year Chris Pronger (who signed a seven-year contract with Philadelphia in 2009) has been lost for the season with a concussion, young superstars Claude Giroux and Jeff Skinner missed time with concussions or concussion-like symptoms and even Ottawa forward Milan Michalek (20 goals already) has missed games due to head trauma. However, the loss of Sidney Crosby — the game’s best player – since last January because of a concussion is what makes this epidemic so tragic. When the face of the game is also the face of the game’s biggest problem, the NHL has trouble.

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Are We Closing in on Another Nuclear Winter?

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Gary Bettman

When Donald Fehr took over as the executive director of the National Hockey League Players Association, he offered an olive branch to commissioner Gary Bettman.

In a far-reaching interview in early 2011, Fehr said he wasn’t taking over the position to create any problems or have a fight with anyone. He was there to do what’s best for his members. Sounded good, but anyone who knew Fehr, knew that he was jerking Bettman’s chain.

Friday night, Fehr yanked Bettman’s chain again.

A realignment plan that was approved 26-4 by the teams and got the thumbs up from the more than two dozen players with whom I spoke, was not approved by Fehr and the NHL Players’ (Agents?) Association.

That brought a long response from the league, but here was the money line: “It is unfortunate that the NHLPA has unreasonably refused to approved a plan that an overwhelming majority of our clubs voted to support and that has received such widespread support from our fans and other members of the hockey community, including players.”

I particularly like the use of the word, “unreasonably.”

Bettman, who can become quite prickly when someone does or says something he doesn’t like (see: Ron MacLean), was obviously pissed. This was his realignment. He, and pretty much everyone else, knew it made sense, andyet  his new best friend, Don Fehr, threw it right back in his face.

Are We Closing in on Another Nuclear Winter?

Donald Fehr

However, keep this mind. Fehr isn’t an idiot. He knows that the realignment agreement made sense. He knew that vast majority of his members have stated publicly that they liked it. This is a man who just wants a preliminary bout.

As we know, the current collective bargaining agreement expires on Sept. 15. Initial discussions on a new CBA are set for the all-star break. Don Fehr has just told Gary Bettman that the negotiations are going to be no cakewalk. As the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Fehr made it clear that he had no patience for salary caps and he will not allow his members to give up the 57 per cent of revenues they have already collectively bargained (the owners want what the NBA owners got, abut 50 per cent). Hockey fans should brace for a long, ugly ordeal.

There is a war looming. On Friday night, Donald Fehr fired the first shot.

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Another Day With the Circus

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Chris Johnson Should Be in the NFL Playoffs

New Year’s Day was disappointing. There were no real upsets in the NFL wars. Sure, Kansas City going into Denver and beating the Broncos 7-3 was a bit of an upset, but considering all the holes in the Broncos offense, it wasn’t a big surprise.

In the end, the finish to the NFL season created the usual stupid playoff matchups. Explain to me the logic behind the ridiculous fact that 12-4 Pittsburgh has to go on the road to play at 8-8 Denver in the first round of the post-season this coming weekend. That’s bloody senseless. Sure, Denver won a Division, but there are BCS teams that could have won the AFC West. The only surprise in the AFC West is that San Diego coach Norv Turner wasn’t fired on Monday.

Of course, it was a surprise that Norv Turner wasn’t fired seven weeks ago.

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Tim Tebow Should Not Be in the NFL Playoffs

When 9-7 teams are eliminated (Tennessee) and 8-8 teams (Denver) get in, you have a problem with your playoff structure. It’s time the NFL went to at least eight teams in the post-season. Or else the league should have a cross-over team. Denver has no business being in the playoffs. And they have no business being in the playoffs even if they upset Pittsburgh this week. The Broncos, a sorry team,  are in the playoffs only because the rest of their division is putrid and their presence is a post-season blight on the NFL’s good name.

OK, that rant is done. Now, to relax. At least, on the day after New Year’s, we were treated to some very good sporting events.

Loved the Wisconsin-Oregon Rose Bowl, won 45-38 by Oregon in what the critics are calling Nike’s victory over adidas.

It seems the teams themselves were perfectly matched. The difference in the game was the uniforms. adidas had developed special uniforms for Wisconsin while Nike had developed what it called, “the greatest technological advancement in uniform design in sports history.” (I love the fact that Nike doesn’t get all hyperbolic about itself).

In the end, Oregon won because they had cooler helmets. At least, that’s my guess.

I also enjoyed the Michigan State-Georgia Outback Bowl in Tampa. Considering the way the Buccaneers played in 2011, it was the best football game Tampa fans saw all year. Michigan State won 33-30 in triple overtime. Nice.

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Rangers Score to Win the Winter Classic

The one thing that wasn’t so nice on Jan. 2 was the Winter Classic, the NHL’s outdoor game in Philly. The hockey was decent and it’s always fun to watch one outdoor NHL game a year, but the officiating made the NHL look like professional wrestling.

I had a Sport Select ticket with the Flyers on it, but by the end of the game, I was cheering for the Rangers. That’s because, by the end of the game, referees Ian Walsh and Dennis LaRue were doing everything they possibly could to get Philly the tying goal. Why didn’t one of them just throw the puck in the net and say Scottie Hartnell shot it?

Ryan Callahan’s holding the stick penalty was one of the most mind-boggling calls in hockey history while the penalty shot call on Ryan McDonagh was weak (Covering the puck in the crease? Well, maybe, at absolute worst). In the end, Henrik Lundqvist beat the officials by himself and I didn’t even mind tearing up my Pro Line ticket.

Then, to top off a very interesting day, word arrived on my Twitter that the Calgary Stampeders and Hamilton Tiger-Cats were about to swap quarterbacks.

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Henry Burris Now No. 1 in Hamilton

You knew it was coming, didn’t you? You knew there was no way the Hamilton Tiger-Cats were going back into battle with Kevin Glenn as their No. 1 quarterback next season. And you also knew that Lyle Bauer, the president in Calgary, was NOT going to pay Henry Burris a bonus on Feb. 1, if he could help it. After all, he pulled the same trick with Kevin Glenn in 2009 when he released Glenn before he had to pay him a few thousand bones.

Anyway, we learned late in the day that there was a deal in place to send Glenn to Calgary as the backup to Drew Tate — along with offensive lineman Mark Dewit — while Burris would head to the Ticats to be the new No. 1 in Hamilton.

It was a huge trade, but absolutely no surprise.

It was quite a day. Throw in all the NFL firings and it was a lot more fun than NFL Sunday.

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Helpless

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment
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Sidney Crosby

It could have been called “Black Tuesday.”

On Tuesday, Dec. 20, two New York Islanders, goalie Al Montoya and forward David Ullstrom, were taken from the ice with suspected concussions. In Ottawa, Jesse Winchester left the game with head trauma. In Pittsburgh, the home of Sidney Crosby and his fragile cranium, Chicago’s Marcus Kruger left the game with a concussion after a vicious hit from Deryk Engelland.

One night, three games, four concussions.

If there was one story that has consumed the National Hockey League this season, it is the concussion story. Yes, the return of the Jets was wonderful and the death of three players in the off-season was tragic, but the one story that wouldn’t fade away –primarily because of the injury suffered by Sidney Crosby – was the concussion story.

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Shea Weber in happier times

And, not surprisingly, it became as big an issue as ever at the end of 2011. Especially after John-Michael Liles went down on Dec. 22 and Shea Weber suffered a concussion on Dec. 23.

Sadly, there is very little that can be done about it.

Now, naturally, the NHL was concerned the night Montoya, Ullstrom, Winchester and Kruger went down. Already, some of its biggest stars were on the sidelines nursing head injuries – Crosby, Jeff Skinner, Chris Pronger — so of course the league was worried.

Trouble was, there was absolutely nothing the NHL could have done. Engelland was suspended for his hit on Kruger, but Montoya was blasted by Winnipeg’s Evander Kane, who was pushed into the goalie, so it wasn’t Kane’s fault. Kane didn’t even have a discussion with the NHL’s vice-president of discipline, Brendan Shanahan.

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Brendan Shanahan: A Man With an Impossible Job

Fact is, in the vast majority of major head trauma incidents this season, there was absolutely nothing the NHL could have done. Milan Michalek ran into his own teammate. Claude Giroux ran into his own teammate. The list goes on.

Tim Wharnsby, who writes for CBCsports.ca has kept count of this season’s concussions and resulting suspensions. According to Wharnsby, the NHL has lost 457 man-games due to head injuries while players have been suspended a total of 77 games for alleged illegal hits.

And still, players are suffering concussions at an alarming rate.

Here are the problems:

1. The equipment. The players don’t wear padding anymore, they wear body armour. Their equipment is a weapon, or a series of weapons.

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The End of Marc Savard's Career

2. The athletes are too big and too fast. Fifty years ago, players averaged 5-foot-10, 175 pounds. Today, it’s 6-foot-2, 220-pounds. The ice surface is no bigger than t was then. Accidents will happen and the presence of these very big men will make those accidents more devastating.

3. The skates. Today’s hockey skates are a technological masterpiece. They are lighter, the blades are sharper and as a result, these giant players skate faster than ever. When the players run into each other, somebody gets hurt.

4. No red line. Players are flying through the neutral zone at a pace that has never been more frightening. If a player gets hit in the neutral zone now, there is always a chance a stretcher will be required.

5. The ice surface. With larger, faster players, the 200-foot X 85-foot enclosure might be too small. But there is one problem. If you watch a hockey game today, most of the fierce play occurs in a space from 10-feet to 30-feet in front of the net, between the circles. Even if there was a larger ice surface, it’s unlikely players would use the extra space.

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Will he get up this time?

The NHL can continue to pass new rules designed to avoid the inevitable. It can fine and suspend players and pay a full-time disciplinarian to try and “clean-up” the game. But I’m afraid none of it will work.

It’s the nature of the game – a fast, brutal dangerous game. And as long as large, tough, fearless, fast-skating, highly-paid entertainers are asked to do what’s necessary to play in the NHL, there will be serious head injuries.

And there is nothing – nothing – that the league can do about it.

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Why Doesn’t Anyone Challenge the Forbes List?

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

ZForbesSportsMoney 300x300 Why Doesnt Anyone Challenge the Forbes List?What I love most about the annual Forbes Magazine “Values of NHL Franchises” list is how the international mainstream media covers it as if it’s legitimate.

Because google is my friend, I checked out 30 different international media outlets and found the reporting almost equal at every stop. Not one outlet looked at the numbers and said, “Really? You believe this number and this ranking? You really believe that? Really?”

Here is how the 2011 Forbes Hockey Franchise Values Lst was reported in the National Post. It is worth the read:

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Dustin Byfuglien a year ago.

“Moving the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg is paying off big time for the team’s new owners. According to Forbes, the Jets gained the most value of any of the 30 National Hockey League teams from last season to this season.

“A year ago, the Thrashers were valued at $135 million. The new rankings estimate the Jets are now valued at $164 million, which represents a 21per cent increase. The average year-over-year increase across the league was 5 per cent.

“The Jets are ranked 24th in the league and are worth more than the Nashville Predators, Florida Panthers, St. Louis Blues, Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Islanders and Phoenix Coyotes, according to Forbes. The Coyotes are owned and operated by the league, and are valued at just $134-million to finish last in the valuation ranking.

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Phil Kessel leads the Leafs.

“At the top of the list are the Toronto Maple Leafs, valued at $521-million. The Rangers are second at $507-million, while the Montreal Canadiens are third at $445-million.

“The majority owners of the Leafs, the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan, had considered selling part of the team earlier this year, but have since decided to retain ownership. The Leafs’ value increased by three per cent this season, according to Forbes. The Rangers are up 10 per cent and the Canadiens have seen their value rise nine per cent. The Vancouver Canucks are the next Canadian team on the list at No. 7. They’re worth an estimated $300-million, up 15 per cent a year after reaching the Stanley Cup final.”

Sounds convincing, doesn’t it? Trouble is, nobody bothered to ask anybody this question: “How did you come up with those numbers?”

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Dustin Byfuglien today

Let’s look at the Jets, as a for-instance. The team was purchased from the owners in Atlanta for $170 million — $110 million for the franchise and $60 million to the league for “relocation fees.”

Immediately upon the team’s arrival in Winnipeg, the building sold out – for at least three years and much of the building was sold out for five years. And it was sold out in less than half an hour.

When it moved from Atlanta to Winnipeg, the hockey team went from an arena in which it was treated like a tenant – even though there was one ownership group for hockey, basketball and the building –  to a rink in which the owners owned it all and were treating the hockey club as the featured anchor alongside one of the top concert destinations in North America.

Even if the team struggled in Winnipeg, which it wasn’t going to do, it’s finances would be covered by all the other activities in the building: Just as the teams are treated in larger venues such as Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver etc., etc. where the owners also own the buildings. Frankly, as we speak, this Jets franchise is almost priceless.

But here’s what I love about Forbes’ seemingly random valuations. In one breath, the writer and researcher, Michael Ozanian, makes a big issue out of the fact that the Carolina Hurricanes are a consistent money loser and yet, in the next breath, he rates the Hurricanes’ value significantly ahead of Winnipeg’s. It makes no sense.

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Gary Bettman

“Three years ago NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told me not a single NHL team was worth less than $200 million,” Ozanian wrote. “But money-losing teams are being sold for much less. In February, Forbes 400 member Terrence Pegula bought the Buffalo Sabres, who lost $5.6 million last season, for $165 million. The St. Louis Blues and Carolina Hurricanes, two other teams losing money, are being shopped at prices well below $200 million. And the New Jersey Devils, who sank 17 per cent in value to $181 million, are in such bad shape financially that there is speculation the team could be headed for bankruptcy and a court supervised sale like the Dallas Stars.”

And yet, Dallas, a team just purchased out of bankruptcy, which drew only 10,175 fans for a game with Florida on Nov. 15, only 11,779 for a game with Los Angeles on Nov. 23, and only 10,490 for a game with Ottawa last Thursday, is deemed by Forbes to be worth $230 million.

Now I won’t say the Stars, with that big beautiful American Airlines Arena in which to play, aren’t worth $230 million. Heck, it could very well be true. But here’s why it’s random and senseless: The Stars were purchased out of bankruptcy for $265 million and yet the team is a mere tenant in an arena owned by the City of Dallas and managed by the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks.

Ozanian can’t explain that one, except perhaps to say that on some planet in some other universe, the Dallas Stars are worth more than the Winnipeg Jets.

Nor can he explain his take on the New Jersey Devils. The Devils, as he reports himself, could be headed toward bankruptcy. Their announced crowds this season average around 14,800 per game in a 17,625-seat rink. Many of those fans, especially on weekends, are Quebec hockey fans who go to the Devils and Islanders games wearing old Nordiques jerseys – a message to Bettman that Quebec City’s fans are ready even though the arena is not.

Ozanian says the Devils are worth $181 million and yet they don’t own their arena, don’t fill their arena and are nearly bankrupt? Huh?

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Michael Ozanian

According to Ozanian, the Jets aren’t worth as much as Carolina, New Jersey, Colorado (which seldom, if ever, sells out the Pepsi Centre) or Dallas and are worth only a million more than Nashville, another team that doesn’t own its own arena.

Hate to say this, but this stuff reads as if is all made up.

Now, to his credit, Ozanian does know this: “… margins are getting squeezed. During the 2010-11 season the league posted operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of $126 million, 21 per cent lower than the previous year. Main reason: Player costs increased 11 per cent, to $59 million. Last season 18 of the league’s 30 teams lost money even before they had to pay bank loans or write down assets, compared with 16 the prior year.

“The league’s salary cap, set at 57 per cent of revenue, is too high for some teams to be profitable,” Ozanian continued. “As a result, expect the National Hockey League to undergo a cantankerous labor negotiations when the owners and players union begin to hammer our a new collective bargaining agreement to replace the current six-year deal that expires in September. The NHL must move much closer to the 48 per cent model the NFL agreed to before this season or the 50-50 revenue split National Basketball Association’s owners and players recently agreed to.”

All that means the Jets are doing just fine and have one of the strongest organizations in all of major professional sports. And while I’m not as smart as some MBA at Forbes Magazine, I can tell you this: It will take a helluva lot more than $164 million to buy the Winnipeg Jets today.

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Buying A Ticket on the Kane Train

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment
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Evander Kane Scores Again

Even Winnipeg Jets head coach Claude Noel admitted that Evander Kane’s 2011-12 National Hockey League season didn’t start very well.

“Look at the way he’s playing now as opposed to the way he played at the beginning for the year,” said Noel shortly after Kane scored a pair of goals in Saturday night’s 4-2 Jets’ win over New Jersey. “He’s really playing well and he’s playing well with his linemates (Little and Wellwood). This is a guy who is improving all the time and it’s nice to see. He’s doing a lot of things well right now.”

Evander Kane – and yes, he was named after former World Heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield – is turning into one of the most feared scorers in the NHL.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pound, 20-year-old is in the midst of a five-game points streak (seven points in those five games) and has 12 points in his last nine games.

With two goals on Saturday night, Kane scored his 13th and 14th of the year. He’s now sixth in goal scoring in the NHL, tied with Pittsburgh’s James Neal, one behind Jonathan Toews and Claude Giroux and just two back of league-leaders Phil Kessel, Steven Stamkos and Milan Michalek. Suddenly, a prospect just out of his teens is now among the game’s greatest scorers.

But it’s not like it wasn’t expected. When the new owners of the Atlanta Thrashers sat down to decide who they would keep and who they would let go, Kane was at the top of the keep list. He was going into the final year of his rookie contract and would make $900,000 this season. But next year, he’d be looking for a big number and the Jets brass has already swallowed and decided to do whatever they can to keep him. Good thing, too. He’s not only playing tremendous hockey, he’s become a huge fan-favorite.

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Kane Scores Against the Flyers

However, two months ago, Kane wasn’t so certain he wanted to be in Winnipeg. There were conversations with his close friends that he was going to ask for a trade. He was unhappy with his ice time – he averaged only 11 minutes a game through the first six of the season and he was scoreless. He didn’t like Noel and wasn’t afraid to tell people about it. He didn’t score a goal until the seventh game of the season (that means he actually has 14 goals in the last 18 games) and really didn’t start to play much until the ninth game of the year.

But his dad, an old amateur boxer and hockey player at St. Francis Xavier University and his mom, a former basketball and volleyball player, had always told to him to hang in there, work hard and good things will come.

And it doesn’t hurt that he comes from a family of pro athletes, a list that includes his cousin Dwayne Provo, who played in both the CFL and NFL, and another cousin, Kirk Johnson, who competed for Canada in boxing at the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona. If Evander doesn’t understand something, he has plenty of people around him who can fill him in.

Still, even though he was an outstanding junior who had 48 goals and 96 points in 61 games with his hometown Vancouver Giants in 2008-09 and was also a member of Canada’s national world junior championship team in 2009, the can’t-miss Kane missed early in his NHL career.

In his rookie year in Atlanta in 2009-10, Kane had 14 goals in 66 games. In his sophomore year last season with the Thrashers, Kane had 19 goals in 73 games. This year, he has 14 goals in 25 games and is on pace to score 44 this season. If he can possibly keep up this pace, he could emerge as one of the greatest scorers in the game today.

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Kane Scores Against Florida

“He’s playing really well especially when he comes down the wing and drives to the net,” Noel said of Kane “He’s using his speed and size and he’s shooting the puck. He’s not doing anything a lot different. He’s just getting a lot of opportunities. He’s gotta shoot the puck. And with his shot, why wouldn’t he?”

In training camp, Kane knew what this season meant. Not just because he was playing in a new hockey-mad city, but because if he could finally have that big year, the year the scouts believed he could produce, he could turn it into a large, long-term paycheque.

“This is my third year in the league and, obviously, it’s a big year for me,” Kane said during camp. “I know I have to have to play well. I have to come in here and make a statement.”

The first statement he made was calling and asking Winnipeg Jets great, Bobby Hull, if he could wear Hull’s No. 9. The fans loved him for that.

“It’s almost like asking a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage,” Kane told the Vancouver Province. “I’ve read somewhere on Twitter that he had done an interview and said that he wanted me to wear it proudly. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to speak to him soon. If he doesn’t have an issue with me wearing it, I’ll do my best on and off (the ice) to live up to wearing that number. If I have to change, I’ll change.”

Interestingly, he would never have had to change anyway because Jets 2.0 does not own the history of Jets 1.0. This incarnation of the Jets owns Atlanta’s history. Phoenix owns the history of the last incarnation of the Jets. Confusing perhaps, but true.

As well, Kane isn’t wearing No. 9 because of Hull. He’s wearing it because of the man who owns part of his junior team, Gordie Howe. Confusing perhaps, but true.

Regardless, he’s becoming the great offensive player every one knew he could be and both Hull and Howe would be proud.

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Barresi’s Firing and Other Observations

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It didn’t take long for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to find someone to blame for their 34-23 loss in the 2011 Grey Cup game.

Barresis Firing and Other Observations

Jamie Barresi

It seems as if only moments after Bombers GM Joe Mack came back from Vancouver and railed about his offense, he fired offensive coordinator Jamie Barresi.

To be fair, it was a move that most Bomber fans expected. After all, while the Bombers defense was, for most of the season, quite worthy of its self-imposed nickname/state-of-being “Swaggerville,” the offense should have been called “Anemia City.” It was short blood, guts and, in the end, glory.

And when the team arrived back in Winnipeg, Mack made it clear that the offense would change (sure he was cryptic, but what else could the following comments have meant?)

“And there will be probably some changes made because they have to be made to get where we need to go,” Mack said. “I’m aware of what I want to do in that regard, and hopefully we’ll be able to execute that in the off-season.

“But we will never be complacent as long as I’m here. We’re always going to be on the razor’s edge trying to get better, because if not you’re going backwards.”

I remember when Doug Brown said that a couple of years ago. It was after another off-season in which the Bombers did little or nothing, just like the most recent off-season. Now in their favor in 2011, some good young defensive players improved dramatically and Winnipeg won, what turned out to be, and extremely weak CFL East — the Montreal defense was brutal, Kevin Glenn was 8-10 and the Argos were an embarrassment to the league (even though they beat the Bombers twice).

Now I won’t criticize the firing of Barresi. Mack was NOT going to fire Paul LaPolice who turned a 4-14 team into a 10-8 team and got to the Grey Cup by beating a horrid Hamilton team (that had beaten a horrid Montreal defense in the Eastern semi) in the Eastern final. But even when Winnipeg won the Eastern final, they only put up 19 points at home. The offense was bad this year and it wasn’t bad because Buck Pierce was occasionally out of the lineup.

It was bad because the offensive line, which was eaten alive in the Grey Cup game, wasn’t very good and because the play-calling was often vomit-inducing. How do you come off a 190-yard rushing game by Chris Garrett in the Eastern final and then don’t even try to establish a running game in the Grey Cup? Anyone with a brain knew somebody was going to get fired for that — al by itself.

It will be interesting to see what Mack does this winter because, as he says himself: “We’re always going to be on the razor’s edge trying to get better.”

Bet that hurts.

Here are a couple of questions I had this week…

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Browns-Bengals

1. Is the NFL fixed?

Watching the Cleveland-Cincinnati game on Sunday and the officials made a half-a-dozen questionable calls in favor of the Bengals. The game didn’t matter, except for the players’ pride and their jobs, but it still looked fishy.

I know, I get all obsessive about officiating, but goodness, gracious, it’s awful. Don’t these sports have rules? Did you watch the Grey Cup? Brutal. They can’t even get replay right.

Just sayin’.

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Victoria's Secret Ad

2. Why hasn’t in-store advertising kept up with our multi-racial community?

My wife’s a mall-walker and I joined her on Sunday. Didn’t realize ‘till that moment how hard she walks and for how long. Heck of a workout.

Anyway, mall walking for more than an hour can get boring so we both started counting those big advertising pictures in department, clothing, make-up, shoe and accessory stores. There are hundreds of them in the windows of high-end mall shops and there was one aspect of them that was unmistakable.

The women in the photos are almost all Caucasian. In fact, there was one Asian model in a photo in the window of an accessory store, but every other female model was white.

We counted four African-American men  and three Asian men, but there were dozens of female models and all but one of them was white.

Just an observation, but considering there were as many Asian mall-walkers as there were Caucasian mall walkers and that many of the stores’ employees are First Nation, Asian or African-American (or would Caribbean-Canadian be more appropriate?)  it just seems reasonable to think that the advertising community might want to take notice.

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Dustin Byfuglien

3. Why is Dustin Byfuglien a defenseman?

OK, OK, I know why. It’s because Craig Ramsay, the coach in Atlanta, decided last year that he was going to move Byfuglien from a forward position (where he helped Chicago win the 2009 Stanley Cup) back to defense because he was big, tough, skilled, fast and Ramsay wanted him on the ice 25 minutes a game. And what the hell? If it’s good enough for the guy True North wouldn’t keep on as head coach, it’s gotta be good enough for the guy they hired.

But that still doesn’t make it a good idea.

Tuesday night, Byfuglien had 12 shots on goal, the most in a single game by an NHL defenseman since Sergei Gonchar — another guy no one would call a pillar of defensive hockey — took 12 shots in a game in 2006. He also played 25 minutes and 53 seconds and, of course, Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff wants him to be on the at least 25 minutes a game.

But he was also a minus-one despite dishing out an assist and while he has five goals and 12 assists so far this season — sixth among NHL defensemen in scoring — he’s also a minus-10, the worst plus-minus in the league for the top 29 scorers among defensemen in the NHL (Anaheim’s shaky, young Cam Fowler, No. 30 in scoring, is minus-13).

Dustin Byfuglien turns over the puck too often and makes too many mistakes in the neutral and attacking zones, simply because he’s more interested in scoring than stopping the opposition from scoring and, to be fair, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. For a forward.

And at 6-foot-5, 265 pounds, Dustin Byfuglien would make a GREAT forward.

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