The Dany Heatley Trade
- At July 8, 2011
- By Chuq Von Rospach
- In Sports - Hockey
0
No, I did not see the Dany Heatley trade coming. I was at dinner with friends (at Tigelleria, in fact, with a nice Italian Barolo and a charcuterie plate) when my phone bleeped, and it was a pair of text messages telling me about the trade.
Am I surprised at the trade? Yes, but no. Setoguchi was clearly my disappointing player, but Heatley was a guy that was generally criticized for his play, and while it came out he was playing hurt — many including myself still seemed to feel there was a piece of him missing from the equation. My gut told me Seto was gone, but it also told me if there was another player likely to move, it would be Heatley. I wasn’t sure the contract was moveable, and I didn’t think Wilson would move BOTH. But Wilson is never shy and shaking it up when he thinks it’s warranted, or being timid at doing so.
Heatley reminds me in a way of Todd Elik from the Sharks past, another player that seemed to move to a number of teams around the league in his career, adn consistently seemed to have strong years with a new team followed by declining numbers and criticism. It just seems some players need the “got to prove them wrong” edge, and as they settle into a team and get comfortable, lose it and fade a bit, even though they don’t recognize that as happening. And for those players, it just looks like changing teams every 2-4 years may be the best thing for their careers and production.
Look at Heatley’s past, and that seems to have happened. Look at his Sharks numbers, and it seems to roughly fit that mold, too. if I can see this trend, one can only assume Doug Wilson does, too. Havlat, coming to the Sharks in return, is the same age and has a self-admitted motivation problem playing for a team that isn’t making the playoffs; that’s what drives him, and so playing on a rebuilding team like the Wild was tough for him.
So this is a place where two teams trade their “problems” for each other, solve issues with the team (the Wild were like 26th in scoring, with setoguchi gone, the sharks top six forwards were pretty slow) and this seems like a trade that honestly benefits both players as well. hard to see a loser here, and I like havlat as a fit with the Sharks.
I was a strong critic of the Heatley deal before it happened. Heatley convinced me otherwise after he got here, and I have zero criticism of him and his time in San Jose. And yet, I’m not surprised he’s moving again, and I don’t think this’ll be his final stop in the NHL. Some players just seem to have a career like that. I wihs him well, except when the Sharks are in town.
Seto and Heatley in Minnesota should definitely improve their scoring. I’m guessing they’re not a playoff team, but they’re definitely better. and Burns and Havlat here? Burns is a nice addition, and Havlat, if not an improvement, at least leaves the forwards at par with what we had before.
So no complaints here.
How to become a better informed, more knowledgable hockey fan in one easy step.
- At July 7, 2011
- By Chuq Von Rospach
- In Sports - Hockey
- 2
Here’s how to become a more better informed, more knowledgeable hockey fan in one easy step:
Outcry over Spending falling on buffalo’s deaf ears
here’s the step: stop reading Ken Campbell, Bruce Garrioch and Steve Simmons. You stopping the wasting of your valuable time with their writing will stop confusing your brain with their overtly negative “everything about the hockey universe sucks because that drives page views” writing, and you’ll get more thoughtful, more balanced and intelligent hockey writing into your head simply by subtracting theirs from your consciousness.
Try it. You’ll thank me later. These guys are only there to find reasons to rip hockey, the NHL, and especially Bettman, adn that serves no useful or constructive purpose other than them convincing folks to read their stuff. Which is mostly crap and not worth the electrons it takes to stuff it into your monitor’s window.
the ever changing social landscape
I hadn’t planned on this nor intended to make changes, but the social landscape online keeps changing, and so I’ve been thinking through whether to make changes in my personal landscape and if so, what that means.
The big change? Google’s getting serious about the social area of the net, and they’ve started to roll out Google+. It’s bones look a lot like facebook, but it’s not a direct rip-off by any means. It’s tight integration with other Google properties like Gmail means that once you get access (it’s still in limited roll out) the friction point of dealing with it is minimal; that makes it a serious competitor to any service who’s functionality it overlaps.
And that includes not only Facebook, but through Picasa (being rebranded as Google photos) Flickr and the filesharing photo sites like Instagram. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all falls out.
Will it take on (or take out) facebook? I have no clue. It’s still incomplete, it’s still fairly empty with a lot of people outside wanting to get in, and so there’s a lot left to happen before we can decide if it succeeds or not — but it being to ubiquitous within google properties, it has advantages other sites don’t have. And honestly, after using it for a few days and getting a feel for how it operates, I’m moderately impressed, and I didn’t expect to be. It’s pretty well done, unlike Buzz and Google Wave (remember those?).
Still, there are lots of ways it could become the nets Quora, which, as Yogi Berra once said, is so popular nobody goes there any more. I was an early user of Quora and found it interesting, as it got “discovered”, it mostly became forgettable and noisy, and I’ve pretty much stopped using it beyond checking to see if Quora’s figure out how to solve these problems (answer: no).
One of the first reactions to Google+ was from Facebook, which blocked users who tried to grab their address book data out of Facebook to use it at Google. This is nothing new, Facebook has long held that data belongs not to the user, but to Facebook, but it just reinforces the reality that Facebook wants all sites to set up things so they share into Facebook, but Facebook doesn’t see a need to share back — and I find that annoying (as do many other users, like OM). Months back I decided not to create original content on Facebook for just this reason, but now, with Google+ as an alternative, this “roach motel” data model really seems like an increasingly unacceptable concept in this social universe that’s evolving on the net. This “as long as we’re in the center and in charge” is a problem, so I’m taking another step away from Facebook just to distance myself from this — I’ll continue to let my other content sources funnel into Facebook and interacting with the content of other users there, but where there are options (whether it’s Google+ or going back to the original source of data funneled in there by others) I will go to those options and interact there. and I (obviously) encourage others to do the same.
Facebook doesn’t want to play fair with the other sites out there, and now that there are some growing options, I think we should consider using them — as long as those sites DO play fair with their peers, and Google+, so far, seems to be. But it’s a good example of why you don’t want to be too dependent on services you ultimately don’t control. Especially sites that have a reputation for blocking stuff they decide they don’t like, sometimes in what seems to be arbitrary or punitive ways. (google, fwiw, is no saint here, either, and both have poor support systems for appeal and reconsideration. But that seems part for the course for social sites, sad to say — so diversify and control what you can, and don’t depend on these sites as your primary point of contact).
I’ve also, as I said, been experimenting with 500px. I’ve been increasingly — uninterested — in flickr, mostly because Yahoo seems just as uninterested. Taking a look at how Google is handing images within Google+ (using Picasa technology) and how well those images are presented and shared, it really shows how little Yahoo has innovated Flickr over the years; then when photo module of Google+ out-flickr’s Flickr, Yahoo has a real problem. And 500PX blows them all away with their beautiful design and presentation.
So I’m trying to decide if I want to stop contributing to Flickr. Most of the communities I’ve been in are at best stagnant or hibernating. There’s very little there there, unless you want to get in the race to show up on the interestingness pages (which I don’t). It’s even unclear to me if anyone cares if you’re on those pages any more.
I don’t plan on removing any content from flickr, but I may stop contributing, instead using (maybe) G+ for my “casual portfolio”. I’m thinking I might set up 500px to do my Saturday and Sunday photo posts, and Smugmug for me “serious” portfolio. Still thinking it through, but that seems like it’ll be appropriate uses for all of those services, at least once google+ fully rolls out. I don’t see flickr having a role in my social space long term unless something radical changes there soon.
And like I did last year, I’d originally planned on a blog redo for my birthday this eyar, but with everything going on at work, had no cycles. But I’m thinking of doing that when I get a chance. Duncan Davidson recently redid his blog, and I love how he built the design, especially his wonderful presentation of his photos, and I’m thinking seriously of — borrowing — from it heavily. With credit, of course.
There’s still an amazing amount of innovation going on in the online world, especially the social spaces; if you don’t innovate and adapt and adopt, you’re falling behind (as flickr has found, and they’re going to have trouble catching up again, IMHO). And if you don’t learn to share and cooperate — that’s another problem (I’m looking at you, Facebook). I have enough history and content on Flickr I can’t just leave, but I can let it hibernate. I’ve been smart enough not to over-commit on Facebook, so I don’t have a lot of digging out to pull free of that site to get to a degree I’m comfortable with. And while I think we have a lot to see come out of Google+ — unlike Buzz or Wave, I think it’s something worth wathcing, exploring and encouraging. So I will.
Wednesdays in Review: Spectacular Yosemite
So this week was my birthday, I’m now officially a year older than I was a year ago. More importantly, I officially declned to fo find out what exists on the “other side” for one more year, a task I hope to continue for a number of years.
Birthdays tend to be problematic. I get asked what I want, and I have no idea. This year, I simply pointed at my Amazon wish list and said does this help?
It did, and Laurie was nice enough to get me a copy of Spectacular Yosemite, text by Stuart Booth, photos by Quan-Tuan Luong.
It is a large, oversized hardcover with overf 150 images, many taken in medium or large format, and well displayed using full page or double-page layouts. In all honesty, the photography is spectacular. You can get a nice sample here on the PDN site.
I was blown away. My honest first opinion while browsing the book the first time was actually “why do I even bother picking up a camera?”, after a bit, I decided to turn it into a challenge. His work has a very distinct style, especially in his larger format works — but you can still see the influences of some of the other photographers that have worked in Yosemite. His use of dramatic lighting reminds me a lot of William Neill.
A lot of the imagery is done on the valley floor and from easily accessible locations, meaning that as a visitor or visiting photographer, you can find many of the places Luong shoots from and investigate your own visions of the park. He also, however, hauls his here into the backcountry and brings those parts of the park back for your enjoyment as well.
All in all, an an exceptionally well done book both both photographers and lovers of Yosemite. I’ve gone through it twice now, and am planning on going back and studying the images with some care, becasue I feel like there’s a lot I can learn from seeing how Luong is interpreting places I know I’ve photographed as well.
Don’t forget to check out Luong’s web site and blog. And since I mentioned him, you might also check out the work of William Neill.
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