Sharks Acquire Defenseman Craig Rivet From Montreal – San Jose Sharks

News – Sharks Acquire Defenseman Craig Rivet From Montreal – San Jose Sharks:

The San Jose Sharks acquired defenseman Craig Rivet and a 5th round selection in 2008 from the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday in exchange for defenseman Josh Gorges and San Jose’s 1st round draft selection in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft.

Shoe dropping… Gorges and two picks for Rivet from Montreal.

Rivet will be UFA after the season.

Tom Benjamin’s NHL Weblog: About the Donnybrook

Tom Benjamin’s NHL Weblog: About the Donnybrook:

# Bill Masterton died when his head slammed against the ice. It could have happened to Chris Drury. The league has to quit dodging these bullets. We need a rule that says, “Players can’t play if their helmets come off. They must proceed directly to the bench.” The result would be securely attached helmets.

I agree with Tom in principle, but the reality is that in leagues where I’ve seen this rule in effect (for instance, the old, unlamented roller hockey international), strategic removal of a helmet became a continuing problem. Another option to accomplish something similar is necessary.

I’d suggest something like requiring a strap to be within 1″ of the chin, and if a helmet comes off, the player can’t return to the ice until the helmet is inspected and returned to play by the referee (i.e., after a TV timeout when the ref has time to inspect it); if a helmet comes off the same player twice in the same game, a minor penalty for playing with broken equipment is called, and the helmet is confiscated for the duration of the game, and the player can’t return to play until he’s inspected by the referee with a new helmet.

Will that stop players from screwing around with their helmets? no. Will it discourage them from going to excesses? yes. Especially after the first time the team is penalized for their helmet and the coach bag skates them to get the point across.

# The referees booted away a chance to defuse the entire situation. If I’m calling the game, I give Neil a penalty for charging or elbowing or intent to injure every day of the week. (It was a legal hit, you say? Fine, I’ll give Neil a penalty for hooking. What’s one more phantom hooking call?)

the problem with a phantom hooking call is that it’s a phantom hooking call. That mistakes are made other times during the game by the referees doesn’t make it acceptable. Neither does “making up” a penalty to fit the situation. that’s just falling back into vigilante justice mentality again, or perhaps you can call it situational reffing (so is swallowing the whistle in the third period, just as unacceptable). What you’re really saying, Tom, is that the rule book doesn’t matter. And once you head down that slippery slope, you’re taking hockey off in the direction of the WWE and roller derby.

Count me out of anything where the rulebook is thrown out as inconvenient. Either this is a league of rules, or it’s a farce. And yes, some nights, it’s a farce, but that’s no reason to encourage it to be more farcical.

The Future of Communities Blog – Your comments are mostly a waste of time :)

The Future of Communities Blog » Blog Archive » Your comments are mostly a waste of time :

Most people have been told that in several studies only 90% of your community members are lurkers, 9% contribute something and the remaining 1% really account for most of the action. There are several angles that have been discussed about this in great detail. Still the question that we deal with on a daily basis is:

Here are some approaches:

1. Focus your efforts on the 1% and help them by making it easier to contribute. Compelling argument: Focus on the what you do best, is an approach that many have heard from several experts. Phil Wainewright suggests that you focus on those who are motivated to contribute.

2. Attempt to increase participation among the 9%: Compelling argument: Any incremental uptick will get you a more engaged audience.

3. Get rid of as many of the 90%. Compelling argument: They are not significantly enriching the community, but just parasites, so go forth and look for the next 1% types – or the “alphas” in your user community.

My view is you have to focus on the entire community. You have to keep the alphas happy because they drive the community forward and make it interesting, but it’s also important to find ways to encourage people to contribute, because that’s how you develop and grow your group of alphas. Even that 90% of lurkers is important, because that’s where most of your growth comes from. they may not contribute directly, but a number of them are contributing indirectly, and this is where most of your “friend of a friend” membership growth comes from.

ALL of these segments are important for different reasons — but not all of the segments are equal. If a situation comes up where I have to make a choice one way or another (the “either he goes or I go” situation, all things being equal I’ll cut more slack to the alphas and contributors over lurkers. You hope to be able to stop problems before it gets to that point, but sometimes, it’s just not possible, and when it does, the judgement has to be based on (1) who’s right, and (2) who’s the more important contributor.

4. Do a little of everything aka “peanut butter approach”: Compelling argument: Try several things at the same time and keep what works.

The admins need to set a tone and a set of standards, and hold to them. One guaranteed way to piss off a community is to judge things arbitrarily and inconsistently. If people don’t know what to expect, they’ll start looking over their virtual shoulders, and that’s a great way to throw cold water on a community and encourage people to move elsewhere.

5. Do nothing but understand and accept, plan accordingly. Compelling argument: Before you scoff at this consider how little we know about these things just yet and letting “things take their course” may not be a bad option.

The admins have to be the alphas. Ultimately, their word is law, or else. If the admins don’t take ownership, someone else will, and whoever becomes the prime alpha will set the agenda. If that’s not the admin, what you end up with is a community driven by someone else’s values, not the values of the person supposedly running it and paying for it. Rarely is that a good thing. As I like to put it, if someone isn’t committed to preventing the trolls from moving in, all you end up with are trolls. Is that why you put the time and energy and money into building a community for?

These Two Teams Don’t Like Each Other

These Two Teams Don’t Like Each Other:

However, I remembered a distinction you made a week ago between players who have a history of attempts to hurt (such as Scott Stevens) and players who have a history of attempts to injure (Bryan Marchment).

I guess my question is: Was Chris Neil attempting to hurt or injure Chris Drury?

Dave Comstock brings up a good point in the comments, that I felt ought to be part of a posting (and the RSS).

Now, my thoughts here: given I saw no sign of Neil leaving his feet, raising his elbow, using his stick — any of the normal “dirty” tactics, I’ll claim this as an attempt to hurt. Or more correctly, simply not pulling the punch and letting what happens, happens (which, FWIW, is what Bryan Marchment did 90% of the time; Mush normally had a very wide skating stance, powerful and stable, and that is the reason there was so much leg to leg contact between him and other players — that’s how he skated, and players trying to dodge or go around him tended to get caught by a leg. And then some of the time, Mush stuck out his leg as someone tried to go around him, so don’t start thinking I believe Mush was always a clean player. I don’t think he headhunted or knee hunted explicitly, but I also won’t pretend he was a clean player. Just not nearly as dirty a player as some fan groups want to think (hello, Dallas!))

the Neil his was, ultimately, the kind of hit Scott Stevens put people down with. the hit of a guy who knows he doesn’t need to embellish it, that it’s going to be quite good enough just through physics.

I could live very nicely, thank you very much, without this kind of hit in hockey. From an entertainment standpoint, I want the best product on the ice that I can get. From a compassionate human being’s standpoint, I don’t want to see careers ended or shortened by hits whose sole intent appears to be injuring another player.

I fall on the other side of this one; this is the kind of hit that defines hockey — the clean, solid bodycheck in open ice. It’s Scott Stevens. It’s Cam Neely. It’s — it’s the essence of power forward. And it sucks that Drury is concussed and out, but the reality is that Drury’s been concussed before, so that makes it more likely that he’ll get a concussion — the same problem that Adam Deadmarsh, Brent Lindros, Pat Lafontaine and many others have had to worry about. Would someone else have been concussed by that hit? Maybe, maybe not. Is it Neil’s problem to worry about details like that on the ice? No.

At some point, we DO have to remember that hockey is a physical and violent sport. Injuries are part of the game, and they’re going to happen. You have to legislate and referee the game for the safety of the players. You also have to realize that if you legislate and referee the game to GUARANTEE no injuries, what you have isn’t the hockey game we know and love today (you have rec-league no-touch hockey, or ringette or curling). A player who’s had concussions has to understand the risks of going out and playing again, and take on responsibility for some of that risk. it’s the League’s responsibility to make sure that players play in a safe environment for the typical player; it’s an individual’s responsibility to know whether their personal situation is safe enough under those conditions.

And it’s that personal decision that led Brent Lindros to call it quits, while Eric fought back, changed his game, and has been able to play concussion free (and good) hockey – but Eric Lindros isn’t nearly the physical power forward he one was and wanted to be, either.

The one person who has no respnsibility there is the person doing the hitting. If it’s a clean hit by the rules of the league, he shouldn’t have to worry about what players he should hold back on. It’s up to the player to be able and willing to take that kind of hit (and/or risk the side effects of it happening…).

I can’t see taking this kind of hit out of hockey any more than I can see eliminating the middle linebacker in football because of the way a guy like Dick Butkus played, or telling Mike Singletary to back off because the running back’s just coming back from a knee operation. It just ain’t gonna happen….

ESPN.com – NHL – Burnside: Day 2 of NHL GM meetings

ESPN.com – NHL – Burnside: Day 2 of NHL GM meetings:

As expected, GMs voted to expand the threshold on suspensions for instigator penalties from three to five. That means players will now have to be penalized five times for instigating a fight before incurring a two-game suspension.

Some will view this as the league going soft on fighting, but there are so few instigator penalties called that it should have only a nominal effect on the game. As of Feb. 15, there had been 47 instigator penalties called this season in relation to 351 fights. Only Ben Eager of the Philadelphia Flyers has been suspended as a result of the rule.

If two players appear to consent to fight, no instigator penalty is called, director of officiating Stephen Walkom said. If, however, a player appears to be goaded into a fight or the fight appears to be some sort of payback for a previous incident, that’s when the penalty is enforced.

Some GMs believed it was important to increase the threshold because players were believed to be afraid to come to the defense of a teammate if they had two instigator penalties.

This may come as a surprise to some, given my previous comments on the instigator rule, but I think this is not a bad change.

Some commenters have even come out assuming that I’m against fighting in hockey; which anyone in the section where we sit can tell you isn’t true. I’m not against honest emotion in the sport, and I don’t mind at all when that emotion boils over. What I’m against is the ritualized fighting of the so-called enforcer and the thuggery you see in the game. You can have a solid, emotional, physical, intense hockey game without it.

It’s my belief, though, that at the root of the “people in the US won’t take hockey seriously” is this core belief that referees should allow teams to police the game and not be the police. That smacks far too much of pro wrestling or roller derby. My goal is to have the players play, have the referees referee, and the game will be healthier with the blood feud aspect. You don’t see a football coach put in his third string tight end and have him chase down and pummel a safety after someone runs the quarterback, right? But the equivalent happens regularly in hockey.

But it’s clear the time’s not right for the league to take a “referees are in charge”, at least to that degree. We’re still watching referees getting used to not swallowing the whistle in the third period without league offices bitching at them (the same officers that told them in October to call those things, of course…). So it’s changing, but hockey simply doesn’t seem ready to give up this part of the Wild West mentality.

So if you’re going to realize that some team enforcement is expected and necessary, I don’t want to see the instigator thrown out, because that would, I think, lead some teams to head back towards the Broad Street Bullies mentality; at the same time, I think they’re right that the instigator restricts things too much, fighters have to be TOO careful in “picking their spots”. The relaxation is a good tradeoff between my ultimate goal (referees meet out punishment, hockey players play) and the kind of chaos I worry about if the instigator is dropped completely. It gives teams the ability to make strategic decisions about when and how to fight and take the penalty, without having to be too paranoid about “saving” some penalties for key situations; but by not removing it completely, teams simply can’t choose to get aggressive and abusive — they’ll still get whacked if they do.

Works for me, in other words…

Validating Email Addresses – The Daily WTF

Validating Email Addresses – The Daily WTF:

The format for e-mail addresses is specified in a number of RFCs; it’s a pet peeve of mine when people “validate” away perfectly valid addresses, for instance: websites that think all domains end in .com, .net, .edu, or .org; and agents that refuse to transfer mail with a + in the local-part. To that end, I wrote my own regular expression that (I believe) follows the specification, which I’ll share below.

here’s what I use (in perl). there are a few things in the RFC it doesn’t handle, but they’re things nobody seems to really use these days. From my testing, almost no failures of good addresses, and very low rates of bad ones going in (I’d err on the side of letting a bad one through, FWIW, to be caught by a later test like MX resolution).

if (! ($addr =~ /^[a-z0-9\+_\.\-]+@[_a-z0-9\.\-]+\.[a-z0-9]{2,5}$/i)

|| ($addr =~ /@\./)

|| ($addr =~ /@.*\.\./) )

&this_is_bad();

} else {

&this_is_good();

}

Burnside: What’s on the agenda for GM meetings

Burnside: What’s on the agenda for GM meetings:

In the second trade period of the new NHL, the marketplace has evolved quickly into a sellers’ market, where GMs looking to make additions for a playoff run will have to pay a premium price for what is always a premium risk.

[....]

Why? Simple. Because the new NHL is about seizing the moment.

Was it just a couple of months ago some media pundits were complaining that the new CBA had killed the trade market, and that the trade deadline would be a yawner?

[....]

Over the next few days, GMs will gauge their relative hunger for players such as Keith Tkachuk, Eric Brewer, Bill Guerin, Todd Bertuzzi, Gary Roberts, Jozef Stumpel, Martin Gelinas, Ed Belfour, Curtis Joseph, Fredrik Modin and Anson Carter.

Speaking for San jose, I’d be happy to take on Brewer, Roberts, Gelinas Guerin, Modin or Carter.

What else will be on the table during the meetings? Here’s a rundown of some things GMs hope will be discussed:

Another GM said he hopes his colleagues don’t do anything at all. Of all the pro sports, hockey is the one that seems determined to perpetually change itself. You don’t see baseball officials changing the size of the bases or enlarging the plate or moving the pitching rubber, he said.

football makes rule changes every year, many of them significant; look at the recent history of rule changes to change the balance between wide receiver and defender to encourage offense, for instance. That sport makes more changes, and many of them as significant as hockey, but nobody seems to complain. Maybe it’s because football is considered to be doing well and hockey is still (in the minds of some) struggling, therefore the changes are under a bigger microscope. The things the NHL are considering aren’t any more significant than the NBA outlawing the zone defense, or later removing that ban…

• It’s expected the GMs will at least debate the issue of larger nets and what the implications would be, along with no-touch icing.

One GM told ESPN.com he is all for an open discussion about a variety of changes, rules or otherwise, but thinks it’s imperative decision-makers use a wider lens on these issues, examining if changes will have the desired effect. Would bigger nets really improve scoring or would the same be achieved by further adjusting goalie equipment?

Another GM agreed, saying he thinks the move to lengthen the offensive zones after the lockout might have had the opposite effect. While more room was thought to mean more goals, this GM believes the larger space has made it difficult for forwards to get out to cover defensemen in the offensive zone. As a result, teams in the defensive zone tend to collapse into the middle of the ice, blocking a lot more shots.

You’d think the GM’s would learn. A few years back, they moved out the goal line, to give players more room to operate in “gretzky’s office” in hopes of generating more goals. What happened in fact was that they put enough room back there that a defenseman no longer had to risk the offensive guy slipping out the other side if he went back there — so instead, the defenseman simply joined the player behind the net and wrapped him up. oops.

After that, the NHL made a decision to test changes in the AHL first. Even taht’s not infallible, because the “no go” zones for the goalies seemed to work pretty well down there from all accounts, but NHL goalies quickly figured out how to minimize their impact, and they’re something that ought to be under consideration for elimination.

now, the move to increase the offensive zone seems to have the same effect as moving the goal line, causing more defense, not offense. I’d argue, actually, that the “collapse to the net” (or ‘sumo’) defensive style was coming on anyway, thanks to Minnesota and New Jersey and Calgary, and may be incidental to the change. it’s also a side effect of the changes to the contact rules in the slot, where defensemen no longer can “pull a chelios” on anyone who enters the slot, and instead actually have to play defense. And because they can no longer simply lumberjack anything within reach, coaches have figured out the most effective way to stop pucks is not to fight with the player generating the screen (which only makes the screen worse for the goalie), but to put their defenseman in front and have them block the shots before they get to the screen. End result: forwards in the slot aren’t bruised and bloodied, but shots are down, and shot blocks way up. and more defensemen likely wake up screaming in the middle of the night seeing pucks coming at their faces in their dreams…

So I’m not convinced it’s as simple as moving the line — but that wasn’t (as I remember it) tested in the AHL, either. It probably should have been.

From my talks to people recently, the bigger net is very unlikely to have much interest — of greater interest is to continue looking at slimming down goalie gear, but they have to decide what they can do while not reducing the goalies safety. There seems to be (gasp) a growing recognition that a goalie’s safety gear is there primarily to keep the goalie safe, not to stop pucks, and if the GMs actually can agree to that, goaltending will end up being much more of a skill position, rather than a positioning (and being hit by the puck) position.

The bigger net is being discussed, but I think the media is overplaying how high on the GM list it is, because it’s such a significant change to the game (well, in theory. I don’t think adding 2″ to the size of the goal is as serious as removing the red line or allowing the forward pass, or changing minor penalties to not be served the full 2 minutes after a goal…. The folks with their knickers in a knot need to look at the bigger picture and see the other huge changes the league’s done over the years…)

• There will also be some collective-bargaining housekeeping issues to deal with. A number of GMs would like to be able to make deals that allowed for teams to eat a portion of a player’s salary. For example, Colorado would love to unload Jose Theodore and his $5.3 million cap hit for this season and next, but aren’t likely to find any takers. If, however, they could absorb some of that salary and apply it to their own cap for next season, they might have more luck. GMs believe if this was an option, the stagnant trade market might open up more dramatically.

I think that makes sense.

I also think they need to revisit re-entry waivers, which was intended to keep a team from “parking” talent in the AHL to avoid the cap and move it in for the playoffs, and has instead meant teams like Vancouver and LA have goalies in the AHL they don’t dare risk bringing up, causing LA to instead have to deal for Sean Burke to cover their injuries.

Things I’d like to see the GMs take a look at:

1) Revisit the waiver rule: perhaps by allowing a player to be brought up as a designated injury replacement when someone is placed on IR, and to bring that player back OFF IR, the player brought up has to be sent back or pulled through waivers. That would eliminate the “parking” aspect of players in the AHL but give teams flexibility to cover legitimate injuries.

2) remove the “do not go” dodecahedrons for the goalies. Nice idea, goalies worked around them, just complicates things.

3) “over the glass”: I want to see them change the penalty for clearing a puck over the glass from a 2 minute minor to equivalent to icing, where the team can’t change players.

4) “no touch icing”: I’ve long been a proponent of no-touch icing. I’ve also spent a lot of time talking it over with people and listening to others who’ve studied this issue, and I’m now convinced we don’t need it, and it’d slow down the game and reduce excitement. What I do want to see, however, are strong sanctions against headhunting during an icing chase — so any penalty taken behind the goal line while an icing is called is an automatic major penalty. THAT will help ensure that the chaser doesn’t “not hear” the linesmen and goalies screaming “no ice” so they can take a shot and look surprised when icing is called…

5) smaller goalie gear — let’s see what we can do to safely reduce the gear, so taht goalies have to stop pucks, not “just” get in the way of them. (and yes, I’m trivializing how good even average NHL goalies here, but we need to rebalance their performance to the game some more…)

6) protect goalies — the NFL understands. you don’t sneeze on a quarterback without taking a penalty. the NHL needs to figure this out, too, because a hurt goalie can be the difference between a good playoff run and early tee time in today’s NHL. If we’re going to ask goalies to take on smaller gear and see their GAA go up, let’s at least try to protect them better… So let’s modify the goalie interference rule and the crease.

6a) First, go back to the semi-circle crease.

6b) Second, any player that makes contact with a goalie who’s skates are FULLY in the crease — automatic goalie interference. If a player from the goalies team is in contact with the player when he makes contact with the goalie, it’s coincidental penalties for both. By making it automatic, it’ll force coaches to coach players to STAY THE FREAK OUT OF THE PAINT. By making the coincidental also automatic, it’ll force defensemen to stop shoving guys into their own goalie hoping for an interference call. By making it automatic/no-tolerance for any action within the crease, it’ll cause the forwards and defensemen, and most importantly coaches, to adjust their play to avoid penalties, while avoiding long arguments about intent. In this case, we don’t care about intent, we’re giving the goalie the crease, and inside the crease, he’s untouchable (unless the puck is inside the paint with him. If it is, you can go in after it, as you can today).

6c) Third, outside of the paint, make it clear that the goalie can’t be checked, but incidental contact is allowed. If a goalie wants to come out to cut off an angle, players are allowed to make some contact with him. Goalie doesn’t like contact? stay in the paint. By making the crease a no-touch area, If we’re going to tell other players to stay out of the crease, tell the goalies to stay in, and give him incentives to do so.

6d) behind the goal line? if a goalie wants to act like a third defenseman, treat him as one. you can check him, and contact is allowed, since he’s not trying to focus on stopping a puck. Again, this is for a goalie to decide whether they want to do this or not; they can always stay in the crease. but the days of the “patrick roy floating screen and canival parade float” back there need to go away.

7) hits to the head: make any contact with the head by elbow or shoulder an automatic 5 minute major. make any stick contact with the head a major penalty. These days, players are willing to risk a “sloppy stick” because the penalty is most likely 2 minutes. Let’s give them incentive to care. hell, Scott Stevens wasn’t a small person, but he knew how to keep his elbow down. the “size difference” issue is over-used as an excuse for players not caring. use major penalties to make them figure it out.

Elephant’s tusk removed with chain saw

Elephant’s tusk removed with chain saw:

The next time you dread a trip to the dentist, consider the plight of poor Tusko the elephant. It took veterinarians and a dentist nearly five hours Saturday to remove what was left of an elephant’s infected tusk at the Oregon Zoo, and it took a chain saw, hand saws and a drill that can punch through concrete to do the job.

Oh, I sympathize. I love my dentist. I’ve been going to the same dental practice since I was at sun (recommended to me by Karen Shannon, all those years ago), although the original dentist retired and sold the practice. I’ve had the same hygenist for so long I almost feel like I’ve been part of her daughter growing up….

But I’ve done pretty well at taking care of the teeth, and they’ve been pretty good to me overall, but time moves on, and a couple of molars are almost at the ready for crowns, so rather than wait until all hell breaks loose, we started the planning now, and we’ll likely decide to put them in during one o f the next two visits… After having had a wisdom tooth removed the hard way (the dentist didn’t notice a hook under the jawbone, and it came out in three hours and six pieces, under a local… the other three got removed by oral surgery and a valium drip years later…), I’m all for avoiding taht damn chainsaw…

The 2007 goals…

I realize it’s mid-february, but given in the past years I never got around to this until well after Macworld, anyway…

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to accomplish moving forward. 2006 was about trying to make the lifestyle changes I felt I needed to make within the context of Apple, and when I couldn’t, make the decision to move on. 2007 is about taking advantage of the opportunities the move have given me, and moving forward.

I wanted to really refine my goals for this next year or so, not overdo it and screw up the “life balance” bit by simply loading up life with self-generated stress (hence he reason why Outsider’s Guide’s launch is “soon” instead of “late”).

So for me, fewer goals, more long-term views than “this year, I’ll” — 2007 really is turning into the start of the next phase of life for me.

1) lose weight, get back in shape. I’m down 10 pounds since I left Apple. I was doing fine to start, then Laurie got sick, and with holidays, new job, etc, etc, I’ve been right around -10 +-3 since. Now that it’s all settling down again and I feel like I’m in a rhythm at work, it’s time to get the weight loss down, and get myself back in some decent shape. My soft goal for 2007 is another 50 pounds.

2) excel at work. Yes, work is my second priority, and I’ve committed to myself that if it comes down to my health or my work, I’ll take my health. I also fully believe that my new job is compatible with this, so I won’t have to make that decision. It’s too bad I couldn’t do that at Apple, but that’s okay. This new chapter is just as interesting…

3) launch Outsider’s Guide. I’m really jazzed about the potential of this blog. Hopefully, when it launches, you will be, too. And it ties in nicely with the first item, and the whole life-balance thing, as well as being a jumping-off point for item 4:

4) reboot my writing. time to dust off the novels and restart them, as well as look for other opportunities to write. It’s be nice to ahve the first draft of my novel done by end of the year, but it’s really more of a “start this next phase”, without any hard goals this year. A good start is enough, get the writing habit started again. (and yes, blogging is sometimes writing. And sometimes, it’s typing… mostly, it’s improv…)

One reason I haven’t blogged here more recently is that I’ve been doing more offline stuff — like (gasp) reading books, or sitting and watching TV with Laurie without multitasking. The lack of multitasking alone is a big win for me… (and yes, book, movie and TV reviews will start arriving RSN.. I now have a nice little stack built up); of course, I’ve also been blogging hockey a fair amount. (If you haven’t noticed that, you need to keep an eye over here at Two for Elbowing).

As part of the first priority, I’ve been talking to my doctor, and we’ve been running the normal tests. I’m happy to note that I still have no sign of diabetes (or any trend towards it), and my total cholesterol is a solid 165, down and in happy land (especially noteworthy because my father is a factory, and struggles to keep it under 300 on drugs — I got my mother’s cholesterol gene).

On the “not so” side, the arthritis in the shoulder’s continued to increase enough so that I’m going to go in for a formal evaluation, and for some advice on range of motion exercises. And we’ve been chasing something that’s popped up since I left Apple — I’ve been having some intermitted periods where I simply don’t have any energy. It’s not tired or fatigue, it’s just sudden drop-outs of my energy levels. Because of this, I’m going to be doing an apnea sleep study next week, although I don’t believe that’s “it”, with my weight, it’s a logical next step to check and (hopefully) eliminate (or deal with). It’s very possible it’s simply related to my being so heavy and out of shape, and given the test results are so clean, I’m moving forward on that thought while evaluating other things as they come up.

overall, it’s minor. I found that dropping Melatonin, which I was taking to stabilize my sleep schedule, solved 90% of it; now that I’m not at Apple and sort of working a crazy/random schedule, I’ve found I really don’t need the melatonin, either. As long as I’m careful to get to bed at a rational hour when I know the alarms’ going to go off, I’m fine (and since work isn’t encouraging me to work late to catch up on stuff I didn’t get done during work hours, it’s easier…). if I crash around 11, getting up around 6 is no problem.

the one semi-serious negative is that the old blood pressure continues to creep, so I’ve started taking something to moderate it. It finally moved into the high 140′s and stayed, and I can’t blame work, stress, or anything else. oh

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been evaluating and to some degree revamping my diet — I was in the 2500 calorie range, more or less steady state for me. I know if I go down under 2000, I lose weight. I seem to lose weight around 2200 calories right now, actually. Now, the plan is to move to 1600-1800 calories a day, and get the exercise going again. My doctor’s encouraged me to not only do cardio, but get going on the weight work again, so I’m looking into that. Unfortunately, my work’s fitness center is on the wrong side of my commute (and/or I’m not really interested in waking up at 5AM), yahoo isn’t open to spouses, and in general, I hate going to a gym to work out these days. That kind of limits options… Or you can choose to see them as opportunities…

When I was getting checked out, the nurse looked at my chart, and suddenly smiled and said “you turn 50 next year! you know what happens then, right?”

Yeah, right. Colonoscopy goes on the schedule. I do want to believe that her smile was a friendly one, not a “and then you’ll get yours” leer…

three months!

It’s weird — it seems almost like yesterday that I started my new job. I keep meaning to talk about it a little, and now I’m sitting here three months (and a bit more) in — and way overdue at posting here about things.

It’s a nice, quiet, bachelor weekend. Laurie’s up in Yosemite on a photo and hiking trip, taking a few days off. I’ll probably go up in late march, maybe early april, after her last surgery and when she’s recovered. This gave her a chance to get some R&R in before the next round (and honestly, with the hassles of kennelling the cats and birds, it seems hard to justify long weekends away together — although in this case, I’m in the middle of a few things where being home is useful.

For those who are complaining that it’s been too long since the last volume of this series, I can only answer guilty, and like George R.R. Martin, start this volume with a recap. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost six months since I left Apple. At this time last year, I was still convinced I was a lifer.

I left Apple in Mid-september, and Laurie and I took off on a couple of weeks of real, uncompromised vacation up to the pacific northwest and back down the coast. Got back the start of October and started interviewing. I ended up deciding on going to StrongMail. Since Laurie and I both realized that once I started it’d be a while before we could do much travelling again, we agreed that she’d take off on a trip to Lassen before the weather closed it down, and then I’d take the week before starting at Yosemite. Laurie had a nice trip doing photo work in Lassen, came home, and then her appendix filed for divorce the next Saturday afternoon — and divorce was finally granted about 5AM on sunday. This obviously changed plans and complicated things. Fortunately, I was not working during her time in hospital and for her first week or so at home, which helped a lot for both of us.

And that was the situation when I started StrongMail. In retrospect, I should have listened to myself and delayed starting another couple of weeks. There was enough going on that I feel like I didn’t have my A game right away, and it frustrated me. A couple of weeks in, things started to click better, and now, I’m really happy with how things are going (and so are they, they tell me).

Who is StrongMail? It’s a startup, about 70-80 people, funded by Sequoia, which is building email appliances. I work in professional services as their architect, helping companies figure out how to integrate the beast into their IT infrastructure and business practices — or how to create them and become an effective email sender. One of the things I’m working on these days is a soup to nuts best practices on how to create various email systems from scratch. To a good degree, I’ve traded in my compiler and copy of vi for word, visio and powerpoint, and if I’m not doing much coding these days, I’m spending a lot of time helping people understand how to code things well.

One thing they’ve asked me to do, but we’re still figuring out how best to do it, is to get involved with MAAWG. I’ve agreed, and I’m looking forward to it, because one of the things I came to realize was a negative at Apple was that my old organizations preferred keeping a low profile, so there weren’t many opportunities for me to get involved in the groups that help set policy in the field. MAAWG’s doing good work at helping mail senders and receivers understand each other and work out common standards to fix the tower of babel that is email these days.

A side effect of the MAAWG stuff is that I now have, much to my amusement, something I never had or could have had at Apple: a formal corporate bio, which we spent a few days working on and discussing just how many times we could put StrongMail in (we settled on 2). Since this is simply too much fun to keep to myself, here it is:

Chuq Von Rospach serves as a professional services architect at

StrongMail, where he helps customers integrate its appliance into

their existing environment and design new state of the art digital

messaging solutions based on the StrongMail platform. Previously, Chuq

spent 18 years at Apple computer, where he designed, implemented and

operated their marketing newsletter system, along with several other

core projects. At the end of his tenure, Chuq served as senior

architect for Apple’s in-house direct marketing email systems. His

career prior to Apple includes stops at both Sun Microsystems and

National Semiconductor. He has more than 20 of years experience in

operating and managing online communities based on email, web and NNTP

protocols.

When I decided to leave Apple and start looking for a job, I more or less did so because I felt I needed to cut the stress and simplify my work life to let me better balance work with the rest of my life (and, he says as a deep subtext, give himself a decent chance of losing weight, which I simply wasn’t able to do at Apple because of the demands of my old job. Now, let’s keep it real: I loved Apple, I loved my job, I loved the people I worked with — but it’s also real that when I handed in my badge and headed for Canada, I was pretty heavily worn out; nobody can claim I didn’t give my all for the cause — and that’s something I’m proud of. But I figured I was going to find a nice job coding somewhere, take a step back, go to a larger, stable company (hint: I fully expected to go to work for Yahoo somewhere, somehow — and came close a couple of times) and go do something other than email.

Which is how I ended up at a small startup doing email systems in a role that’s really a step up for me and making me grow and stretch in new and interesting ways…. And, believe it or not, the stress IS down, my enjoyment of the job and the people I work with is equal to Apple, and I’m having a ball.

And in that, there’s a learning experience to share with others: I made the assumption (and it’s probably not a bad one, but it clearly isn’t the ONLY option) that to simplify my work I’d need to go to a less challenging job, or at best, a sideways lateral into doing something similar. Because of that, early on I was focussing less on positions like engineering manager or architect, and more on IC type positions — and that was in retrospect a mistake, probably what kept me out of Yahoo at the time. On the other hand, I made no assumptions that it was ONLY yahoo I’d go to, and I interviewed pretty widely and considered every option I could dig up — and I came around to what I really found interesting instead of what I thought I’d find interesting, and I ran with it. the key here was a brutal self-analysis of every interview I did; being really honest with myself on how I did, how I felt, how I reacted and whether it was something I felt like pursuing.

I found myself, much to my surprise, a lot more motivated and interviewing well when talking to VP and CxO level people than programmers; when talking policy and strategy instead of arrays and hashes. I was probably THE most surprised person to find that out of the bunch — although there were a number of serious geek jobs that tickled my fancy, too (hi, Ryan; hey, Igor) — and I still really would love to work for Tim some day, but the logistics of living down here simply made that not work this time…

It turns out that (at least for me) getting the life balance back was more about not being the point man for everything — and working with fewer timezones — than it was simplifying the work itself. And for me, now, it’s not so much about what’s next, but taking what I taught myself and learned from my cohorts at Apple — and having a chance to maybe influence and improve many companies through improvements in our product and services, and through my consulting as a PS person, and whatever happens with my involvement with MAAWG and others.

And that, I gotta say, sends me to work every morning with a smile on my face…

Seth’s Blog: Great writing, unfiltered

Seth’s Blog: Great writing, unfiltered:

The filter is important, sometimes. It keeps us focused and on time and from veering too far in the wrong direction. But in a Long Tail world, the filter is actually better off gone.

Anyone who’s ever spent time reading a publisher’s slush pile understands the importance of the filter. It’s not that you want the filter gone; it’s that you want the ability to build your own filters, and also leverage a wider number of filters to help find stuff.

“Eye of Argon” didn’t become publishable simply because it’s easier to publish now. It’s still crap (fun to read crap, as opposed to boring crap, or painfully bad crap, but still crap). But if you look at, say, the Science Fiction market, 99% of what people can read are filtered through maybe 20 people (magazine and acquisition editors). There’s still some very readable stuff that can’t get published because the traditional publishing environments have limited bandwidth they need to fill. The net makes it easier to get the rest of that good stuff out where it can be seen, but we shouldn’t pretend that ALL of the stuff that’s going to pop up out of the slush pile deserves to….

And I don’t think it’s worht anyone’s time to have to plow the slush pile. There’s still a need for filters to help focus us on the material worth spending time with. It’s just that the number of filters and filtering mechanisms are widening, not that they’re going away.

Head-hunting a growing problem

Head-hunting a growing problem:

Detroit Red Wings defenceman Andreas Lilja elbowed Flyers star Simon Gagne in the head, so Philadelphia defenceman Denis Gauthier confronted Lilja, pummelling him to the ice in retaliation, while Gagne collected his senses.

It’s a hockey ritual that scores high on the sticking-up-for-your-teammate testosterone scale, but does nothing whatsoever to address the issue of dangerous hits to the head.

If this sort of vigilante on-ice, heat-of-battle response is meant to act as a deterrent, then why do we see the initial hits so often?

Because (hint) it’s not a deterrent. Because all it means to the person initiating the hit is maybe a sore knuckle and a five minute rest in the bad boy box.

It’s not hard to come up with examples, the most recent and vivid for Edmonton fans being Atlanta’s Andy Sutton catching Oilers forward Fernando Pisani with his head down, driving his shoulder into the Oiler’s left cheekbone, knocking him out and sidelining him indefinitely with a concussion.

Causing brain damage, in other words.

Primeau has said he thinks the NHL should address the concussion issue more aggressively. Just so. Starting with a continuum of penalties ranging from a minor to a misconduct or match penalty or, where warranted, suspensions for head hits.

It’s well beyond time; Primeau is just the latest in a long series of players who left the game long before their time, from Nick Kypreos to Brett Lindros to Jay More to Pat Lafontaine to…. the list simply keeps going. The list of players who’ve lost significant time to head injury should scare the crap out of any marketing person for the NHL: imagine the league without Eric Lindros or Paul Kariya, to name just two.

Listen, when you play a violent game like hockey, head trauma is a risk. But the question for general managers and governors is: are they managing that risk intelligently, given the toll concussions take on their prized assets – their players? Is there a way to minimize dangerous head hits without neutering the game?

The junior Western Hockey League and Ontario Hockey League think so. They have implemented rules intended to deter head hits and engender the kind of respect for the opponent that is much discussed in the NHL, but too little acted upon. Too often, the action taken is nonsensical.

What’s the normal action? The player that initiates the hit gets a roughing call. The player that jumps him from the team of the player injured does, too. Maybe they both get fighting majors. Almost invariably, there’s no power play.

Wow. Some deterrent.

In the wake of the Pisani hit last Sunday night, Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish denounced Sutton for trying to hurt Pisani. Probably, he was. Pisani had his head down, a bad idea to begin with, as any hockey player knows.

But Pisani was vulnerable and in that posture, any opposing player with any degree of body control and a modicum of skill can deliver a shoulder-to-face hit such as the one the 6-foot-6, 245-pound Sutton put on the 6-foot-1, 205-pound Pisani.

For MacTavish, the issue with Sutton seemed to be his reluctance to stand and fight, a common response among hockey people.

Ah, joy. “The Code”. Which is unwritten, rather flexible in interpretation, and usually involves a player on the opposite team doing something that harms himself or his team “for the code”, to the benefit of his opposition; who bitch and moan if he doesn’t willingly cooperate.

Anyone see the problem here? “The code” once again boils down to “we should be allowed retribution on our terms, or you’re a bad sport” and thsi is somehow “good for the game”.

And Raffi Torres has never ducked a fight calling on his honor after a hard hit “because of the code”, right? Oh, wait, that’s different. that’s a player who’s using the rules to benefit his team.

The bottom line on this, though, is that the problem is the league and the rules. “The code” comes out of the league not being willing to deal properly with hits that are intended to injure — and fight the entrenched interests that promote and celebrate “the code” because they get off on the lawlessness aspect (which they attempt to spin-doctor into “self-policing”).

We don’t want to take the hitting or the violence out of hockey; it’s part of what makes hockey hockey. But vigilantism isn’t the answer, either, and ultimately, “the code” is vigilante justice.

I think what the juniors are doing is a good first step — and it helps teach the younger kids when they’re open to being taught. But the NHL has to be the role model here, and set an example. How to draw the line in the sand without pulling the teeth out of hockey’s grit isn’t an easy decision, but it has to be done.

I’d suggest starting with this: any hit to the head of an opposing player is a four minute minor. Period. No more 2 minutes. If the referee considers it an intentional hit, it’s a five minute minor. The 2nd high stick of any kind by a player in the same game is a game misconduct, and as those accrue, the suspensions grow.

No more “drawing blood” for a double-minor, no more taking into consideration helmets or visors. If you get up past the shoulder, it hurts your team. The war room that’s watching all ogames from Toronto can also determine whether they feel a major was warranted; the first time they do, they issue a warning. The second time they issue a warning to a player, the player takes the next game off.

Players talk a lot about “respect for the other player”, and how it’s up to the player that hits a guy to pull up when they know he’s vulnerable. The problem is: ESPECIALLY if you’re a marginal player, that’s a great way to become an AHL player again. And, of course, for all players say this, what teams do is go out and sign players that are known for not showing that kind of “mercy”, because they know it can impact a game.

One of those guys who played for a while in San Jose was Brian Marchment. The name is pretty famous, and rather infamous in some cities (Dallas, you can stop booing now) — but the reality is, Brian could play some serious hockey, and he could also hit you and send you into next thursday. And did on a fairly regular basis. As Marchment use to say, he’s not trying to injure players, but to hurt them. the difference is crucial here — playing hurt is a way of life in any competitive sport. bumps, bruises, soreness — playing through that is part of what makes great players great. Injuries are things you can’t play through. In a physical game, hurting a guy is part of the game — slowing them down, making them lose that step, making them worry about a future hit, getting in their head. it’s part of gaining the edge.

Scott Stevens is a classic of the “hurt, not injure” mode. His hit on Lindros is a classic — and Lindros was in fact injured, but nobody considered Stevens a dirty player for it.

The key here is the difference between Stevens and Marchment. Stevens is what the NHL should be pushing for — that hard, physical player who knows how to put you into next week cleanly. Marchment, for all his protestations about “hurt” and “injure”, was wrong. It’s not that Marchment WANTED to injure people; that’s not true. But on the ice, having watched him for a few seasons, it seems to me that Marchment was oblivious to the hurt/injure aspect on ice. It was the hit that matters, and making the hit — and then let the chips (and knees, and suspensions) fall where they may. Stevens might make a crushing hit, but it was always a hurting hit, not an injuring one. Marchment was just about the hit. That’s the core difference the league needs to identify and rulemake over. Easier said than done, but we can start by simply outlawing any hit to an opponent’s head (when did you ever see Steven’s check someone to the head? He was always on the shoulder or chest).

There are relatively few players in the league I’d say are willing to injure opponents — Messier was one, Chelios is one. It’s interesting to realize that one of the louder proponents of “the code” was Bobby Clarke, who also saw no problem in consciously breaking the ankle of a russian opponent during an exhibition series…..

More common are those that simply don’t care, or don’t see the difference. Marchment, Kasparitis. To me, the guy who epitomizes this in the league is Jordan Tootoo, who is a welcome (but marginal) talent who probably won’t stay in the league if he ever stops playing that close to his particular cliff — he really seems to be the next Marchment.

The big push against outlawing head shots is “what if it’s accidental? what if he ducks?” well, those issues are true for high sticking today, and nobody seems to be pushing to remove that rule…. the players will adjust, a few will dive, but if the league would get serious about diving, too, that’d be a minor issue. Frankly, I’m not sure I want to win bad enough to want to duck INTO an elbow from someone like Rod Brind’Amour just to get my team a power play — but then, that’s probably why I’m writing about hockey, not playing it…

So Long to the Suite Life – WSJ.com

So Long to the Suite Life – WSJ.com:

It was like watching an era of sports history being erased. In early December, construction workers sawed through the multiple layers of drywall and metal studs separating a row of skyboxes at the Seattle Mariners’ Safeco Field. They tore up the suites’ beech-hardwood floors and carted away their oriental rugs and leather furniture. By the end of the week, the eight skyboxes were gone.

In a reversal that strikes at a cornerstone of pro-sports finances — and of the way corporate America entertains — teams around the country are ripping out luxury suites. These perches have been used to justify billions of dollars in stadium construction over the past two decades. But in many cities, they are losing luster with surprising speed, partly the result of factors that couldn’t have predicted five or 10 years ago, from changes in tax laws to scandal-driven reforms on corporate entertaining.

About the only words I disagree with here are “couldn’t have been predicted” — anything that depends on business T&E or marketing budgets, especially where the benefits are, well, at best indirect — you have to assume that when it gets big enough and it involves a tax subsidy of some sort, it’ll eventually get notice from the IRS and the government and the regulations tightened up.

I’m not surprised that the market for suites has saturated and demand is weakening; we’re seeing a similar weakening of demand for sports advertising — not from lack of interest, but because available inventory of both have grown to the point of saturation. When you stop to think about how many “corporate” ticket owners are really either small businesses shifting the owner’s cost to the company (and taking a deduction), or a part of a larger company where the marketing budget is controlled by someone doing the same thing, it’s not surprising that after a while, the IRS and companies are going to start looking at the value of these deals…

I think this is actually part of a larger issue in pro sports: there’s been a massive growth in salaries and expenses, and along with that, ticket prices and prices of other aspects of being involved with a sport (sponsorships, suites, advertising, etc, etc, etc); many fans have been priced out of seeing their teams, or complain that they are (but find a way to go anyway). We’re now starting to see the TV networks (ABC giving up monday night, for instance) and companies (weak demand for suites as one example) also starting to say enough.

that indicates that revenue growths are probably peaking, or has peaked. How will leagues handle this when revenues flatten or drop?

Honestly, given hockey’s been the league that’s stayed closest to gate receipts, it may be the one best poised to handle whatever happens if this peak doesn’t lead to a plateau, but instead to the other side of the curve….

MercuryNews.com | 02/17/2007 | Nothing doing

MercuryNews.com | 02/17/2007 | Nothing doing:

The Sharks could have used newly reacquired Alexander Korolyuk on Friday, because their offensive struggles continued with a 3-0 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The Sharks seemed to play pretty well, but not accomplish much by it.

The last half dozen games have pretty much re-affirmed to me what I’ve been thinking for a while: the Sharks had six legitimate top-six forwards at the start of the season, except that Steve Bernier and Cheechoo just didn’t get the job done. Fortunately, Joe Pavelski and Ryane Clowe stepped in, and as long as everyone is healthy, our scoring and power play are fine. But if we lose someone to injury on the top two lines, the Sharks struggle to find two scoring lines, and the other team generally has a line that can shut down the line that is scoring, so the Sharks struggle. It also means juggling in a body from the third line, messing it up.

On defense, I was impressed with how the team handled McLaren being out. I’ve stopped worrying about depth or youth back there, they seem fine.

But up front, we seem a body short. Maybe Bernier when he gets back can step back in, but I won’t bet on it. Cheechoo is returning to form, which is nice. We need Pavelski back, but we also needed more depth.

Enter (it seems) stage right, Alex Korolyuk. I find this fascinating. Korolyuk is a huge unknown (except to the Sharks) at this point; I know Doug Wilson’s always been very high on this player, considers him a a top-six player. He’s torn up the league he’s in.

He’s also an interesting situation; he’s one of those players that chose to stay home and stay near family and play in russia rather than come to the US and play in the NHL. It wasn’t money, it wasn’t playing time, and it wasn’t because the Sharks didn’t want him. When he was sent to New Jersey, I wrote that I felt it was simply Wilson’s way to stop the “why aren’t you signing Korolyuk” gripes from fans, because all indications were Alex simply wasn’t interested.

So now, he comes back. Since he comes from another team, it looks like he avoids waivers (or perhaps New Jersey slipped him through without it hitting the press). In today’s newspaper, Wilson notes that Korolyuk will be in San Jose as early as Sunday, and is looking forward t joining the team (and taking a run at the Cup). It’ll be interesting to see what’s said when he gets here.

This looks to be another one of Doug Wilson’s rabbit, out of the hat that nobody remembers him having handy. And it has the potential to be huge for the Sharks if Korolyuk is anything close to what we think he’s capable of. I don’t think it’s unfair to put him up next to someone like Ray Whitney as the quality of player who got stuck in a corner and forgotten, then pulled out and given another shot at the league.

james mirtle: Korolyuk a Shark… again – A hockey journalist’s blog

james mirtle: Korolyuk a Shark… again – A hockey journalist’s blog:

(One question for Sharks fans: Does anyone know the likelihood of Korolyuk playing for the team this season? Wilson seemed to indicate in the team’s press release that Korolyuk would be arriving in North America shortly, but one of the concerns will have to be his vulnerability to the waiver process should he return midseason from Russia.)

I would expect the reasoning is this: how many NHL teams are going to take the risk on Korolyuk’s salary and a roster spot (and the cap space it would eat up) to take him on waivers, when nobody’s seen him play or scouted him (except the Sharks, I bet).

How many teams would have the interest and cap space and be lower than the Sharks in the waiver priority to do this? The sharks seem willing to risk it. My gut says it’s a reasonable bet.

The Battle of California: “Dang” say the Ducks and Sharks

The Battle of California: “Dang” say the Ducks and Sharks:

The thought of Peter Forsberg going to the Ducks scared the crap out of me. And even though Doug Wilson said the Sharks weren’t in the Forsberg sweepstakes, I thought it’d be pretty damn interesting to keep Thornton/Marleau together on the same line and have Forsberg anchor the second line. Well, now all I have to say is dang.

Well, good for Nashville. But they gave up a lot to get him — on the Sharks, this looks to be something similar to Rissmiller, Pavelski and the draft picks. (maybe not Rissmiller, maybe Setoguchi…). In any event, I would have loved to see Forsberg in teal; I’m happy we didn’t pay this price to get him without any committment for next season.

As to the Sharks not being in the sweepstakes — I have my doubts, and I have some reasons why I think those doubts are legit. They likely, I expect, weren’t in it to the very end, but I doubt they were never in it.

I do, though, feel this has been what’s holding up the deal the Sharks ARE doing. Rumors are they want Guerin, and that’s what I think the team needs. Now, if the price is acceptable…. To me, it’s only a question of “when” and “who”, not if.

NHL raises profile online | ajc.com

NHL raises profile online | ajc.com:

2. Revamp NHL.com — The league is in the process of conforming all of the team Web sites into the same look and navigation. The content will all be created locally, but to help fans find their way around the team sites, the league felt it was important for all the sites to have the same look and feel.

This is, IMHO, a mistake, and is probably more about central control by the league than about standardization.

Standards and minimum functionality are good requirements for the league to put in place – it’s how you keep the badly or cheaply-run teams from creating an “uncle fred” disaster (or a static wasteland) that rubs off on the entire league.

But the more you force all teams into the mold of “looks like nhl.com, but with different colored banners”, the more you stifle innovation. It’s more likely that one or two teams will innovate new functionality (that the league can adopt out league-wide) than the other direction.

This is, I think, the wrong direction here. I’d rather see the league looking towards central infrastructure tools that teams can leverage off of (such as a good email newsletter setup, or a league-based SMS/texting system); build the underpinnings, and help the weak teams use them, and allow the strong online teams (like the caps) innovate.

(hat tip: kukla)

Crazy Apple Rumors Site » Blog Archive » Apple Settle With Apple Corps.

Crazy Apple Rumors Site » Blog Archive » Apple Settle With Apple Corps.:

Apple Inc. and the Beatle’s Apple Corps announced today that they have entered into an agreement to share the “Apple” trademark. This replaces a previous agreement and marks a new – more collaborative – stage in the two companies’ interaction.

While the announcement says that the terms of the settlement are confidential, Crazy Apple Rumors Site was able to obtain the following list of items that are included:

you know, if you don’t read Crazy Apple Rumors — you should. Fake Steve Jobs is amusing, but CARS is what FSJ pretends to be.

And this one is classic.

Off Wing Opinion: Grappling With “The Code”

Off Wing Opinion: Grappling With “The Code”:

Eric responds to my comments on “the code” with some good questions:

What about Major League Baseball? Didn’t Ozzie Guillen blow a gasket just last season when one of his pitchers refused to retaliate in a beanball exchange? That pitcher, Sean Tracey, was demoted to the minor leagues after the incident.

If any hockey player failed to come through the way that Tracey did for the White Sox, I don’t have any doubt he’d be on a shuttle bus back to the AHL — perhaps even before the game ended.

Point taken, although “the code” in baseball is a fading relic. Guillen is definitely an old-style player-turned-manager, so I’m not surprised, but if you look back to how the league did things back in the 60′s, you’ll see “the code” is a whisper of what it used to be in baseball; chalk it up, among other things, to MLB putting the “warning both teams” with ejections into the rules and the designated hitter (one of the classic tactics of the code, throwing at the opposing pitcher who threw at you, can’t happen when they don’t bat).

Elsewhere in his post, Chuqui also mentions how offensive lineman won’t retaliate after seeing their quarterback suffer a late hit. True enough, we don’t see lineman taking things into their own hands like that. But do we really want to believe that nobody ever has?

Denver Broncos defensive tackle Gerard Warren prefers not to discuss the misery in those stacks of flailing arms and legs as players grab and grope for the ball.

[....]

In light of information like that, a stand-up fight can seem awfully civilized, can’t it?

Very true, and in reality, I worded that badly; I didn’t mean to imply that stuff doesn’t happen. It does. It does in hockey, too, with “careless” sticks and certain players who are masters of that technique, plus the normal whacks to the hands, whacks to the feet, whacks to sticks (especially composite ones, hoping to create a weak spot so it’ll break when put under stress, like during a slap shot), whacks to calves, elbows along the boards… There are lots of small things that go on on a regular basis in any scrum or group of players — think about how a glove smells, and how much fun it is to have one stuffed in your nose…

What I intended to say wasn’t that other leagues are clean. But what differentiates hockey from both baseball and football here is that hockey coaches, hockey players, various hockey influencers (like don cherry) — and even GMs and owners — will call for the referees to stop getting in the way and let the players “handle it via the code”. (in a mostly related aspect, you don’t ever hear someone talking about football and saying things like “if it’s holding in the first quarter, it should be holding in the fourth….” or “the referees should stop calling minor stuff in the fourth period and let the boys play”)

To a non-fan (and probably to many hockey fans), this isn’t “letting the boys play”, it’s formal encouragement of vigilantism and thuggery.

In baseball and football, the code exists, just as it does in hockey. But in baseball and football, you don’t see people involved in the league claiming that the sport would be better if the referees just got out of the way and let players enforce the code. In baseball and football (and basketball) fights happen, scraps happen. In hockey, they sign fighters to contracts.

And that’s a HUGE difference. And it’s the difference that keeps hockey on the 11PM local sports geek watch.

The instigator is a rule that is in many ways the difference between teams having someone like Dave Brown on the roster and having guys like Georges LaRaque.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not endorsing what we’re seeing here — something I thought I made clear in the last two lines of my first post on this topic. What I am trying to do is understand the game and see if for what it really is. And the conclusion I’m coming to, one that I’ve hinted at before, is that no matter what team sport we watch, we tend to sanitize what we see lest we realize just how horrible it can really be at times.

Perhaps hockey’s problem isn’t that it’s rituals and mores are more violent, perhaps it’s just that the folks who market other sports do a better job of bleaching that violence out in the wash.

The rituals exist in every sport. The code exists pretty much anywhere two or more people compete (even duels; especially duels). But in football, enforcement of the code is at the bottom of a pile where cameras can’t go. In baseball, enforcement of the code leads to a bruise on someone’s butt; in extreme cases, a rib. In hockey, enforcement of the code, it seems, means we have to stop the game while two guys take off their gear and beat the crap out of each other. And there are enough guy’s like Cherry out there claiming that’s how it OUGHT to be.

Me? I’m claiming the code needs to be enforced within the context of the game. You hit my batter, I hit you (or your batter). You clip my superstar, your superstar will find my elbow in his nose. you touch my goalie, I run yours. twice. I’m not suggesting any of the grit, intensity or emotion be taken out of the game. Just the gladiator contests. And that’s why the instigator is a step forward for the league; it’s a conscious move away from thuggery to hockey, because it’s designed to encourage teams to think in terms using the game to get even. Unfortunately, the “old school” types really prefer simply beating people up. After all, it’s manly. And a great way to get on the 11PM local news (while the local talking head smirks)

handicapping the goalies: St. Louis

One more from the archives of Laurie — because it’s just too much fun to not post. In 2003, Laurie griped about the Blue’s inability to develop (or keep) a decent goalie. Here it is, 2007, and the Blues are depending on Manny Legace and Curtis Sanford.

Actually, Legace’s not bad. And he’s a damn sight better than what they were working with in 2003; much as Laurie and I both like Freddy Brathwaite, he’s not going to be your #1 goalie… And his backup was?

Yes, Brent Johnson, last seem rumored opening doors for Olaf Kolzig. Who’s career GAA of 2.55 wouldn’t seem so bad, except it’s the average of a bunch of 2.1-2.20 seaons and a bunch of 3.5-3.8 seasons, with nothing really in between…

Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 16:02:32 -0800

To: sharks@plaidworks.com

From: Laurie Sefton <lsefton@plaidworks.com>



Handicapping the goalies: St Louis:

I really have to star wondering what it is about the St Louis

organization in that they don’t seem to be able to draft, develop,

and then *keep* their goalies. The last one who wasn’t traded away

while he still was on top of his gam was Ed Staniowski, which takes

the Blues back to the mid 70′s. The it’s a series: Davidison, Liut,

Millen, Joseph–heck, even Grant Fuhr made a pass through St Louis,

while a number of other goalies, including Riendeau, Casey, Hrivnak,

Hebert, and Jablonksi wandered in and out for a quick pass–that’s

not an exhaustive list, since I want to finish this before the game

starts. I haven’t counted it all up, but they may exceed the Sharks

in “your name here” goalie jerseys

So, what do they make noises about, after Freddy Brathwaite carried

the Blues through the first part of this season? They talked about

*trading* him! Luckily, someone in the organization developed some

sense and let Barrasso ride off into the sunset.

Fred Brathwaite: The Stats

Age: 30, Ht 5ft7, Wt 174, Catches: Left

Year Team Lea GP W L T Min

SO SA GA GAA Sv%

2002-03 St. Louis NHL 26 11 7 4 1463

2 578 64 2.62 .889

2001-02 St. Louis NHL 25 9 11 4 1446

2 543 64 2.24 .901

2000-01 Calgary NHL 49 15 17 10 2742

5 1181 106 2.31 .910

1999-00 Calgary NHL 61 25 25 7 3448

5 1664 158 2.74 .900

Saint John AHL 2 2 0 0

120 0 70 4 2.00 .940

1998-99 Calgary NHL 28 11 9 7 1663

1 796 68 2.45 .910

National Team CAN 24 6 8 3 989

2 - 47 2.85 -

1997-98 Manitoba IHL 51 23 18 4 2737

1 1492 138 3.02 .900

1996-97 Manitoba IHL 58 22 22 5 2946

1 1695 167 3.40 .900

1995-96 Edmonton NHL 7 0 2 0 293

0 140 12 2.45 .910

Cape Breton AHL 31 12 16 0

1699 1 858 110 3.88 .870

1994-95 Edmonton NHL 14 2 5 1 601

0 292 40 3.99 .860

1993-94 Edmonton NHL 19 3 10 3 982

0 523 58 3.54 .880

Cape Breton AHL 2 1 1 0

118 0 50 6 3.05 .880

TOTAL NHL 229 76 86 36 12638

15 5717 559 2.65 .902

Ephemera

Flexibility: *** 1/2–he has to be flexible, given he’s playing a

bunch of different styles

Crankiness: *–very, very, mellow

Maintenance: *–just a really nice guy

Against the Sharks:

2002-2003

GP W L T GAA SV%

1 0 0 0 0.00 100

2001-2002

GP W L T GAA SV%

N/A

2000-2001

GP W L T GAA

3 1 0 1 2.81

1999-2000

GP W L T GAA

2 1 0 0 0.65

1998-1999

GP W L T GAA

1 0 0 1 2.77

According to the Blues sheet on NHL Total Access, Brathwaite is now 5

ft 8. Unless someone smacked him repeatedly on his head before taking

his official height, someone’s nose is longer than Brathwaite’s tall,

which I put at 5ft5, which is his OHL height.

Brathwaite hasn’t been able to buy a break during his time in the

NHL. He played for an Edmonton team that had gotten too old and too

expensive (and therefore, traded off) and it showed. He was put up on

the altar of “it’s all the goalie’s fault” and landed in the minors.

He was playing for the Canadian team in the Spengler Cup when he was

hauled out of IHL oblivion to play for the Flames during that season

where they might have gone through more goaltenders than the Sharks

ever did.

Brathwaite won the hearts of the fans in Calgary, and was able to

train under Vernon and Fuhr. Vernon and Fuhr’s styles don’t have a

lot in common, except that they both are good examples of how a

goalie doesn’t have to be 6 ft 4 to be effective. Moreover, they’re

both gregarious and relaxed (for goalies) before a game. Unless

you’re Glenn Hall, making pre-game anxiety an art form is not the

prescription for a long term relationship. Both veterans imparted a

number of tricks of the trade to Brathwaite, and if you watch him

play, you can see Vernon and Fuhr peeking through. Not a bad pair to

emulate.

So, what does Calgary do? Time to trade Brathwaite, more as a player

to be named later, to St Louis. St Louis really, really thought that

they were in the race for Hasek, and did a “don’t repaint your just

yet” on Brathwaite. Then the season began, Hasek was in Detroit, and

St Louis had Brathwaite and Johnson on the ice.

Brathwaite will likely not end his career with St Louis, but wherever

he ends up, he’ll be a fan favourite, and he’ll play goal with

everything he has.

Brathwaite’s not a 60 game a season goalie, which means the later he

plays this season, the more likely he’s going to be tired and let in

the odd goal. And even though all you have to be is taller than the

crossbars, at his height, he’s not able to take up a lot of the goal.

He’s gotten over a tendency to fall to the ice and swim, but if he’s

down, he leaves a lot of goal exposed. He’ll hug the posts, so a

wrap-around isn’t a good percentage shot, as well as shots over both

shoulders.

Brent Johnson: The Stats:

Age: 25, Ht 6ft2, Wt 198, Catches: Left

Year Team Lea GP W L T Min

SO SA GA GAA Sv%

2002-03 St. Louis NHL 25 12 8 4 1352

2 572 53 2.35 .907

Worcester AHL 2 0 1 1

125 0 125 8 3.84 .881

2001-02 St. Louis NHL 58 34 20 4 3491

5 1293 127 2.18 .902

2000-01 St. Louis NHL 31 19 9 2 1744

4 676 63 2.16 .900

1999-00 Worcester AHL 58 24 27 5 3319

3 1815 161 2.91 .910

1998-99 St. Louis NHL 6 3 2 0 286

0 127 10 2.09 .920

Worcester AHL 49 22 22 4

2925 2 1402 146 2.99 .890

TOTAL NHL 120 68 39 10

6873 11 2668 253 2.20 .905

Flexibility: ****: He has to be–he’s playing butterfly

Crankiness: *: He’s been pretty quiet-even going back to his OHL days

Maintenance: ** 1/2: Long term high ankle sprain causes worries

about whether he’s going to be fragile. On the other hand, I’d rather

have his ankle than his head needing tending.

Against the Sharks:

2002-2003

GP W L T GAA SV%

1 1 0 0 1.00

2001-2002

GP W L T GAA

4 3 1 0 1.75

2000-2001

GP W L T GAA

1 1 0 0 1.00

What you might not know: Bob Johnson, Brent’s father, played 12 games

for St Louis in the 72-73 season. He ended the season 12-6-5, with a

2.52 GAA.

Johnson sprained his ankle back in September in training camp and

opened the season on the IR. He returned in December, and has since

carried his weight with the Blues, playing better than league average

in all areas. The length of time he spent out, and the location of

the sprain does raise questions about how effective Johnson will be

later in the season, when all the little dings and nicks start to

wear.

The plan in St Louis was to bring in Johnson and have a veteran

around to help Johnson along. So far, he’s shown he really didn’t

need an NHL mentor. Johnson, even though he ran into a few bumps

during his sophomore season, ended with a 2.18 GAA, which is

impressive by any number of standards.

Johnson’s one of the taller goalies in the NHL, and plays to his

height and size. He’s playing a modified butterfly these days, which

helps to take advantage of his height. He takes up a lot of area in

front of the goal, which forces shooters to come in close to make a

play. It looks like he’s being broken of his habit of taking a

stroll behind the goal, which lead to pucks being stolen and shot in

the goal around him. He’s also learned that to get the puck out of

the crease, *get the puck out the crease*–they don’t award style

points for puck-handling. Johnson would try one too many moves, and

once again, the puck would be stolen and shot past him.

Given Johnson’s modified butterfly style, and suspect ankle, his

five-hole may not close as quickly as it could. As he still likes to

puck-handle a lot, he doesn’t tend to get his stick side up as often

as he should–he can be beat with a high shot on the stick side. If

he takes off for a tour behind the net, the puck can be stolen and

shot in before he can react.

–

lsefton@plaidworks.com

“All the best defencemen have goalie eyes.”