Tonight was the Ottawa vs San Jose game, Dany Heatley playing his old chums (and half of Canada’s sports journalists in town to cover it), with Michalek and Cheechoo coming back for their first visit since the trade.

Cheechoo had a really solid chance early on a wrap around that I still don’t understand how he didn’t score, and then was more or less invisible the rest of the game. That kinda sums up why Cheechoo is now a Senator (and on the 3rd/4th line there) and not a Shark. Great hustle, great guy, fading talent on the depth chart.

Michalek had a hell of a game. Heatley had a hell of a game. It was a lot of fun. The Sharks won pretty handily, but both teams made it interesting.Tonight’s three stars: Heatley, Michalek and Marleau.

But here’s what really made it fun tonight…

An old friend and Apple cohort is from Ottawa, and boring the hell out of everyone around us talking hockey was a time-honored tradition back at meetings we were at together. He was at the game tonight, so before it started, I texted him and set a bet — loser buys lunch.

Then I spotted him a goal.

THEN I found out Thomas Greiss was starting in goal instead of Nabokov.

So I spotted him TWO goals, just to poke at him a bit.

And I won the bet.

A good time was had by all, I get to have lunch with an old friend — and he’s paying….

How much fun is that?

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at The fun of Ottawa and San Jose. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. The fun of Ottawa and San Jose

Many years ago, when I was doing book reviews for Amazing Science Fiction (at that time owned by TSR. I did say “many years ago!”) a common question I got was ‘How can I get paid to read books?’

It may sound like I’m picking nits, but this is an important semantical detail: I didn’t get paid to read books. I got paid to help readers decide whether to read (and buy) books.

Typing is a skill. Writing is a craft. You don’t get paid for writing. You get paid for selling what you wrote. What you wrote is an asset, and your income depends on how others value that asset and what they’re willing to pay for it.

Ditto photography. The act of taking a photograph is a skill. The act of making a photograph is a craft. You don’t get paid to make a photo; that photo is an asset; it has to be valued and bought to generate income. (or more wonderful thoughts on making vs. taking, see Scott Bourne and Chase Jarvis)

Nowhere in here have I mentioned the word “art” or “artist”. To a good degree, it’s an irrelevant concept in the discussion (except it’s not). In my way of seeing things, to be a craftsman, you have to master the skills. To be an artist, you have to master the craft AND have a specific inner spark or vision that drives your work beyond the typical. Few are true artists, but in some fields, defining yourself as an “artist” is a marketing tactic used to increase your value and and improve sales. That’s not a crticism — it worked wonderfully for Andy Warhol (but is what he did art?)

Stephen King is a craftsman. So are John Scalzi and Terry Goodkind and John Le Carre. Gene Wolfe and Michael Swanwick are artists. Joe McNally is a craftsman. Art Wolfe is an artist. One s not superior to the other, they are different (and many times highly subjective) paths down the same road — and I tend to believe that the louder someone declares themselves an artist, the less likely they really are.

This is a somewhat round-about way of pointing out that business of selling your work has very little to do with the act of creating it. If you don’t understand this, I can’t believe you can succeed as a business — but you may still be a great writer or photographer.

Which is a round-about way of bringing forward the idea that there’s going to be very little discussion about making great photos. It’s a given that you can do that; you can probably market yourself to some level of success if you’re craft is technically mediocre, but you’ll be constantly shooting yourself in the foot.

So this conversation is really about what to sell. It’s about how to market it so people know you’re selling it. It’s about making sure that someone who wants to buy it can. It’s about maximizing the value of your assets, and making sure that what you sell it for makes you more than it cost you to make it.

It’s also about when to give it away, because many times, the best sales tool you have is the free sample.

But the trick there is how to give it away, without, well, giving it away. Because if it’s free, why should someone pay for it?

And that issue is core to success in the internet-enabled universe, and is both a massive challenge — and a bigger opportunity.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at You don’t take pictures for a living…. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. You don’t take pictures for a living…

As I noted the other day, I expect posting frequency on the blog to go up soon. About this time last year I started serious planning on my “what’s next?” project — that being my long-term look at how I want to make the shift into the second career. I see a time where I’m not going to want to work in Silicon Valley and hack high tech 24×7 (gasp), but I certainly have no plans on retiring.

The elevator speech: I want to earn a respectable income from my home office in Astoria, Oregon without telecommuting.

Yes, you could potentially contract and consult from there (although if I were going to do that game, I’d do it from Ashland or Medford — like, it sometimes seems, half the population of those towns) but that’s not the point. At some point, I know I want to get out of the Silicon Valley rat race and do something else. The question is — what?

I want to emphasize something: this is a long term (3-5 years) thing; in fact for about the last 15 years I’ve been keeping (with more or less intensity) a 3-5 year plan. That’s the first lesson in something like this: planning is good, because it helps you map a path, but it should also be flexible because as you do the planning, you’ll change your mind, new situations come up, the unexpected happens. For me, the planning on the second career wasn’t so much about implementation, but on understanding where I wanted to end up and to influence decisions now that will make it happen someday. And occasionally, after a really bad day at the office, as a way to keep my sense of humor and sanity. Well, okay. My sense of humor.

Now, the day for that second career is closer. I’ve known for a few years roughly what I wanted to aim at here. Various decisions I’ve made over the last couple of years have been driven by this long-term planning. My move of the blog from Typepad back here to chuqui.com was because I knew I wanted total control over my online environment, and I wanted it under my own domain name for branding purposes. I chose Wordpress because I really like that tool as a platform for it’s flexibility and the community ecosystem that exists around it (my second choice, even thought I’ve occasionally described it as sportfishing off of an aircraft carrier, is Drupal, and the drupal community has done a really nice job of cleaning up issues that bothered me back when they couldn’t even run the Drupal site on the Drupal 6 release).

Another decision I made was shutting down the “Two for Elbowing” blog on hockey and de-emphasizing my hockey writing. I did that for a few reasons; originally, that blog was supposed to be for both myself and Laurie to write about hockey (“two for… get it? heh. heh.). Laurie’s life took her in other directions and it turned into a solo gig (although the hockey world is missing out on a damn good hockey geek, and I’m not talking about me); as a solo, I much preferred putting all of my writing into one place (the branding thing) again. Also, think about my long-term goal: moving to Astoria. Building an income around writing about hockey and the Sharks and moving to Astoria conflict. Just a bit. Besides, there are plenty of good hockey writers out there now, and if I was 25 (instead of 50+), I might take a run at doing something like what Rich Hammond is doing with the Kings. Instead, I made a decision to enjoy hockey, not sweat about what to write about it — and I only write when I want to. This is a feature, not a bug.

I’m firmly convinced that what Hammond and the Kings are doing is the future model for journalism in pro sports as the newspaper business continues to evolve and implode. NHL teams that haven’t figured this out yet should take a close look and find a good beat guy to bring on board and nurture. The Sharks could do a lot worse than hiring Dave Pollak and bringing him in-house, for instance. Having been writing about hockey online since before the Sharks existed, I do sometimes wish that the online environment that exists today had existed 15 years ago, but it didn’t. Sometimes timing is everything, and understanding that is a key aspect of designing success into your plans.

To succeed in ANY career path, not just a second career, it’s important to know what NOT to do, what not to sidetrack yourself on, what not to invest time and money in. That may be even more important than knowing what to do, in fact, because that’s how you stay focused and moving in the direction you want to end up.

In any event, this is the first in a series of articles on the idea of a second career and my thoughts and plans. I’m hoping this becomes a conversation, not a lecture; I’m doing this in public both because I hope you find it interesting and learn from it to help refine your own plans and ideas — and because I hope you will help me improve my own ideas and fix the flaws in my thinking and make my own second career success happen as well. I hope you find this interesting and useful; I know I’ll learn from your feedback and comments and end up the better for it. Together, everyone wins — and how can that be bad?

So, onward. The future starts today.

Chuq

Footnote on Astoria: For those not familiar with Astoria, it’s about 2 hours from Portland on the coast, and it’s a very nice, small, homey town, but has some really nice places like the restaurant Baked Alaska and Cellar on 10th that make it more than a small rural town — and it’s well located to a lot of great photographic opportunities). It might not be Astoria (I’m really falling more and more in like with Morro Bay, for instance, and I love the northern Oregon Coast so it could be anywhere from Astoria to Newport…), but that’s a nice placeholder for what I’d like to do.

Small, inviting, not urban, on the coast, lower cost of living but with some nice amenties and close to civilization when I want it. The kind of place most Silicon Valley Geeks seem to wish they lived, unless they’re the hard core urban type. I’m not, but Vancouver tempts me to convert…

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Thoughts on the Second Career. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Thoughts on the Second Career

That’s the question I’ve asked myself after watching the past few SJ Sharks games.

via Should the Sharks break up the top line of Thornton and Heatley? | The Hockey Writers.

That’s the question Chelsea is asking.

The question I’m asking is why you’re asking this question with a team that’s 8-0-2 in their last ten, gaining 18 out of a possible 20 points?  Given their success (they have not lost in regulation two games in a row yet this season), whatever McLellan is putting out on the ice is working. So why are we trying to fix it?

Now, sometimes — to try to answer my own question seriously — a team can be winning but clearly not playing good hockey. The Sharks, however, are a team that is starting to get on a roll to my eyes. They just got Pavelski back, and he really makes the 2nd line dangerously good, and it looks like the chemstry is coming together and the team is starting to play its game.

So my short answer is — it ain’t broken. In fact, it looks good. I’d leave it alone. And with a team playing this well and winning this consistently, I’d ask myself why I’m looking for things to kvetch about.

But that’s just me.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Should the Sharks break up the top line of Thornton and Heatley?. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Should the Sharks break up the top line of Thornton and Heatley?

Now that we’re in November, I wanted to take a look at the Dany Heatley trade and the Sharks in general. Given I wasn’t a huge fan of the trade before it was made (look here), what do I think now?

I like it. Heatley is doing pretty much everything I could ask to convince me that Doug Wilson knew better than I did about this trade. Gee, that’s a surprise — the GM knows more than I do (but it’s surprising how few fans are willing to admit that. Hi, Tom!).

Michalek is — well, he’s Michalek. What you see is what you get. Cheechoo is just floundering, and I feel bad for the kid, but… well, am I surprised? Not really. So what we gave up I don’t miss. And what I see I like.

Heatley has kept his mouth shut, he’s worked his butt off on the ice, he’s produced, and he’s fit in well with the team. Exactly what he needed to do. Even better, he’s shown himself to me to be a grittier player than I expected — he’s no brett hull, he actually gets his nose dirty around the crease. And the Sharks have had him playing penalty kill, which I didn’t expect, and he’s okay at it (his defensive coverage is sometimes a bit — lax — but he’s decent and he tries. He also has a nice edge to him, which I also didn’t expect.

So what can I say? He’s the player I hoped we’d get, and more. I have no real complaints here. And what we gave up? expendable..

And the Sharks? took a bit to get the chemistry going. right now? they’re looking somewhat unstoppable. I was all for some adversity early in the season, given that last year it was easy early and they put it into coast mode and couldn’t get out.

This year? I’m not seeing that. The big difference is on the third and fourth line. No offense to Mike Grier or Marcel Goc or the third liners last year, but they were good defensive players, but weren’t able to impact or change momentum. Bringing in Nichol and Ortmeyer has made a huge difference, and changed the mix witwh the younger role players, too, and now we’re seeing that the third and fourth lines are really changing the flow of the game.

Most notable change from last year? These two lines still do a lot of cycling on the shifts, but this year, they’re doing it in the offensive zone and creating problems for the other team, rather than last year, where we saw these lines mostly in the defensive zones preventing goals. Over a season, this is huge.

I give this team an A- so far. And they’re fun to watch, too.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Looking at the Dany Heatley trade. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Looking at the Dany Heatley trade

For all you really old Sharks fans out there, a quick where are they now — Ed Courtenay.

Ed’s still playing hockey, and playing in Britain.

Courtenay is teh subject of one of my favorite all time radio “moments” in Sharks history:

Dan Rusanowsky: It’s a breakaway!

Dennis Hull: No, it’s Courtenay.

Dennis Hull was right. Never the fleetist of feet in the NHL, Courtenay still was one of those guys who brought the effort every night in the early (really sucky!) days of San Jose Sharks history….

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I can only think of one thing to say about tonight’s game against the Capitals:

LOOK! A PUPPY!

(seriously, Sharks didn’t look terrible; a step slow, and they couldn’t handle Ovechkin tonight. Well done game by the Caps, the two quick goals took the fight out of team teal tonight)

So instead, some quick ramblings about the Sharks Hall of Fame. They were talking about team hall of fames on XM this morning, which got me thinking: if I were running the Sharks Hall of Fame, who would be in it? My list. Feel free to add your own, or complain about mine:

Players:

• Kelly Kisio: Kisio is one player that gets forgotten in the early years of the Sharks — perhaps he wants to forget the pain, I dunno. But the reality is, while Doug Wilson was the first captain and the goal was for him to lead the sharks out of expansion hell, injuries prevented his being much of an impact on the ice, and it was Kisio that really held the early years of the team together. Some nights, he was the only player that seemed to be fighting the good fight, and if there was a real “first captain” that set the tone of what the Sharks wanted to be, it was Kelly Kisio. He’d be the first player I induct into the the Sharks hall of fame.
• Arturs Irbe: was the player that kept the Sharks competitive night after night. He was nevera “pretty” goalie, more of the squeal-and-lunge school of goaltending, but it worked. He made the Sharks a lot better than they were, and deserves to be one of the initial inductees into the Hall of Fame.
• Jeff Odgers: Odgers more than any other players defined the lunchpail ethic of the Sharks and was the guy who brought his heart and work ethic to the game every night. Not the most talented guy in the game — but his stint as captain really helped create the shark’s team identity.
• Igor Larionov, Sergei Makarov, Johan Garpenlov: I don’t know that these three players are Sharks hall of famers individually (even though Larionov and Makarov are hall of famers for their contributions to hockey overall) — but this was the first true “identity line” that played together for a significant time and really showed magic on the ice to the fans. So they go in as a line, as they played on the team.
• Owen Nolan: Another player who defined “what it takes to be a Shark” and the Sharks first true All Star.
• Brian Marchment: Okay, okay. Just kidding.

Honorable mentions:

• Mike Rathje: who doesn’t get the credit he deserves for what he did, because the fans could only see what they thought he ought to be.
• Tony Granato: for taking what Jeff Odgers started and helping it mature.
• Jeff Friesen: who had a better career as a Shark as many (including myself) gave him credit for, because he never quite lived up to his draft position.
• Mike Vernon: just isn’t quite enough of a Shark in my eyes.
• Mike Ricci: ditto, but it came down to Odgers or Ricci (but not both) in my eyes, and Odgers won.
• Jamie Baker: most dramatic goal in franchise history, great player for the Sharks — but not quite the team hall of fame to me.

Future inductees: Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Evgeny Nabokov. (maybe Dan Boyle, depending on how long he stays…)

Builders:

• George Gund: let’s not forget how much time and energy (and money) he put into making this team successful
• Dan Rusanowsky: The voice of the Sharks. Always will be.
• Frank Albin: who really has defined how the Sharks look on TV and made them very entertaining and accessible.
• Dean Lombardi: for how far he took this team, even if it wasn’t the final prize. Don’t underestimate how much of the team’s recent success is built on his shoulders.
• Tricia Sullivan: because I know who really keeps this franchise functioning.
• Joe Will and Tim Burke: the two people who make the draft work and understand which players in the system are expendable (and which aren’t). They’re the core of the foundation of the young players that the Sharks keep bringing into the team, and you simply can’t succeed unless you develop your own stars.
• Doug Wilson? — probably as a builder, but he still has some unfinished business before he gets nominated.

Honorable mentions: Roy Sommer, Mike Aldritch, Ken Arnold, Tom “Woody” Woodcock, Bob Friedlander, Dieter Ruehle, Warren Strelow.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at A quick comment on the Sharks/Capitals game (and Sharks hall of fame ramblings). This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. A quick comment on the Sharks/Capitals game (and Sharks hall of fame ramblings)

the NHLPA firing Jim Kelly: If you needed evidence that the PA was in trouble, you have it. My take on this is simple: the firing was done by a very small group of people without consulting the larger membership. Effectively, it was the thirty team reps — and it looks to me like a small group manipulated them with carefully crafted and biased information that wasn’t distributed ahead of the meeting and where the team reps weren’t given time to think it through or consult with the rest of the players they represented.Was it really so urgent that the NHLPA COULD NOT wait two weeks for camps to open, when all of the players would be in town and the team reps could discuss the information with them and make them all part of the process?

via The summer of hockey’s discontent.

well, the membership seems to be figuring out they got gamed:

It’s possible, according to player sources, that one or more NHLPA members will insist on an immediate, thorough, and independent investigation of not only the process that led to Kelly’s dismissal but also of those who perpetrated it. Clearly, some players are finally waking up to smell the reality that, as one veteran told me last week, “Paul got sewered.’’

The stench has reached the membership, and it is leading them to do something about it.

via Firing generates heat – The Boston Globe.

And something tells me this is both going to get really ugly before it gets better, and it’s going to totally screw over the effectiveness of the player’s association for a good period of time — at a time when they desperately need to have their act together before the start of the next CBA negotiation. And hopefully, the membership will realize that it’s because a few people were willing to destroy the union rather than let it be run in a way they didn’t like — and deal with those people appropriately. I can name one obvious name right from the top… But do I really need to?

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Remember a few weeks ago when I said….. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Remember a few weeks ago when I said….

I’m a bit late to the party, perhaps, but some thoughts on the Heatley trade.

My initial reaction was — and it somewhat surprised me — that since Marleau wasn’t part of the trade, that maybe it was okay. Heatley still has to prove to me he’s bringing the right attitude, but honestly, Doug Wilson’s a much better judge of that than I am, and I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. And honestly? It fits in line with something I said back in 2008, which Puck Daddy was nice enough to dredge up for me and point to.

My bottom line is that I’m happier because the trade didn’t involve Marleau, but I still need to see Heatley bring the right attitude and the right game, and if he does, then  this is a great trade. if he doesn’t — Wilson will have to deal with it.

I’m not unhappy at seeing Michalek and Cheechoo go. Well, I’ll miss them because I enjoyed watching them play, especially Cheechoo, but I always felt Michalek had a “next step” he never figured out how to use consistently, and I think we saw the best of Cheechoo and he had no real upside. With any luck, new teams and fresh starts will help them, but they weren’t going to get better in San jose.

One question brought up to me, since I’d mentioned Larionov and his demanding his way off the team — why do I give Larionov a pass on that and not Heatley?

I had to think about that one a bit, and here’s why: Larionov had a strong track record as a player for his ethics and his committment. he was also a winner with multiple organizations. Because of that when he speaks up about something taht’s wrong — and time really proved him right in San Jose — you listen.

Heatley doesn’t have that. Heatley’s proven that in the NHL, he can score lots of goals, but he’s never proven himself as a winner. he’s also indicated through his actions in Ottawa that when he doesn’t get his way, he pouts and quits. He now has to prove himself NOT to be a quitter — and only time will tell about that. Right now, though, he doesn’t have that track record to stand on, and his actiosn the last few months put him in a negative light to many of us. He has to prove that wrong. And I’m willing to let him, but he doesn’t get a free ride, because he hasn’t earned one yet.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Some thoughts on the Heatley trade.. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Some thoughts on the Heatley trade.

We asked Scott Emmert, director of media relations for the Sharks, about the snubs and he encourages fans “not read into them.” He said that just because a particular player isn’t listed doesn’t mean they aren’t going to be featured in another promotional venture for the season. One look at the online season-ticket info page reinforces that: Marleau and Nabokov are still among the players pictured.

via Nabokov, Marleau snubbed in promo letter; Sharks respond – Puck Daddy – NHL – Yahoo! Sports.

Many years ago, the Sharks put Igor Larionov on the cover of the in-game magazine, just as Igor and Kevin Constantine got into a fight that led to Larionov demanding a trade and ending up a Red Wing (and winning a stanley cup….). The Sharks were left handing out magazines for a number of games that  featured a player that was no longer on the team, and had left rather loudly and unhappy. It rankled the fans, and it rankled the Sharks.

And since then they’ve been careful to not put players on long-term promotional items (like tickets) unless they were sure that they were going to be sharks (barring unexpected things). So while I normally recommend not reading too much into things like ticket pictures, in this case, the Sharks have a track record of being careful — if Marleau and Nabokov aren’t on the tickets, then someone must think these players have a chance of not being here by the trade deadline. Current “three way marleau to the kings” rumor notwithstanding, one shouldn’t read into this as a short-term probability as much as a long-term possibility. Doug Wilson is clearly looking to make sure the team is fixed for the playoffs (if it already isn’t), not opening day…

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This seems to have been a good summer to decide to get away from hockey for a while. Last season was a lot of fun, and a lot of great things happened — good attendance, the Winter Classic in Chicago that Laurie went to, great playoffs (except for the Sharks. sigh), improved TV ratings. The NHL came out of the lockout looking like it had things going well and this last season showed me it was building on the momentum.

And now, here we are, almost at the start of training camp, and what’s been going on?

• The Dany Heatley “I want out” whine-fest.
• The Coyotes saga
• Jim Balsillie
• The Versus/DirecTV pissing match
• The NHLPA firing of their leader

And last — and perhaps least –

• The Sharks playoff collapse and off-season moves…

That is, unfortunately, more than enough grief for one league in one year, and we haven’t even touched on the economic downturn the league faces this year.

What’s all this mean for the league? Some thoughts:

Dany Heatley: Just what I really want to hear about; another spoiled athlete who demanded lots of money and a no-trade clause bailing on his team as soon as someone doesn’t wipe his nose when he sneezes. Gee, that sucks. Dear Dany: Please shut up and play hockey. One reason I love hockey is that athletes like you are really rare in the game. I hope that never changes.

Dany Heatley Part 2: Dear Doug Wilson. Without asking whether or not the rumors of the Sharks trying to get Heatley are true or not, an earnest question: ARE YOU CRAZY? He can score goals, but he hasn’t shown his ability to be a winner (as opposed to a whiner, which he’s proven quite nicely). He’s a chemistry problem waiting to happen, and bringing him to San Jose will be the worst mistake the Sharks could make since, um, Ray Sheppard and Craig Janney. Please don’t.

The Coyotes Saga: What a mess. It is, of course, easy to blame Bettman, but in reality, Bettman was working the ownership into an agreement to sell, and Moyes decided to slip the knife in from behind and jump to bankruptcy court with Balsillie. Why? Because Balsillie structured a deal that got money back to Moyes and cut his losses, even if that deal (as we’re showing) fraks over the Coyotes, the city of Glendale, the League, Coyotes fans, hockey fans in general, the players, especially the Coyotes players, and other creditors of the Coyotes. This is standard procedure for both guys — don’t worry about anyone else, just take what you want and let the court sort it out.

And once it hits bankruptcy court, it’s a crapshoot for everyone. Moyes and Balsillie may have thought they had this scoped out, but the bankruptcy judge has an amazing amount of leeway and isn’t necessarily interested in playing the fool. I’ve been quite impressed with how the judge his handling this case — including a very careful and obvious intention to not end up in legal casebooks as the person setting any kind of significant precedent here. He’s handled this like the live grenade it is in the legal world, and I give him a lot of credit for moving carefully and conservatively.

What can be presumed about the outcome? About the only thing I can guarantee is that at this point, anything coming out of the bankruptcy court will head right to appeals court. Every time I see a media person or a blogger say “we’ll have some answers at the hearing today!” I chuckle, because this is just the beginning.  Sit back and pop popcorn. We’re still in Act I. Moyes showed that the legal agreements he had with the league only mattered while he benefitted from them, and then he did what he wanted — and the league will ultimately clean up the mess, while the fans will blame Bettman. Wanna know what a “bad owner” is in a league? Here’s one.

Jim Balsillie: When you look at it that way, it should become obvious why the league isn’t interested in having him as an owner. Too many fans only see the possibility of a team in southern ontario or that he has lots of money and declare him to be a good owner — and forget that one part of being a good owner is a willingness to work within the rules of the league and work with the other owners to make the game better. Balsillie’s failed miserably at those aspects, multiple times, and again here with the Coyotes. So why are people surprised the other owners see him as a problem?

Let’s not forget that Mark Cuban wanted to buy the Cubs. Given his — attitude — as an owner of the Mavericks, whether you appreciate his candor or not (I generally do…), was I surprised that major league baseball made damn sure his bid wasn’t ever seriously in the running? You can complain that the owners group is a “club” — but there are reasons for that, including a need to cooperate for the good of the game. Has Balsillie ever shown any hint he’s willing or interested in diong that?

I think Balsillie owning an NHL team would be a huge problem for the league over time, for the same reason Moyes owning the Coyotes did: ultimately, they are similar types of owners, ones that have no problem screwing over the league (and fans, and players, and everyone associated with it) to get what they want. How is that good for hockey?

And before my friends in Canada come raining down scorn for trashing the guy — I’m fully in favor of a team in Southern Ontario. Just not owned by Balsillie. And preferably not in Hamilton (I’m far from convinced the $100 million upgrade will turn that arena into a real NHL building, any more than $100 million would have turned the Cow Palace into anything other than an ugly old barn with lipstick), but perhaps more in the Kingston area. Not gonna happen, probably, but I’d like to see it. My worry about Hamilton is that a team there would affect the Sabres, and that’s a bad thing. A team in Kingston might draw more from Leaf territory, and the best thing you can do to make the Leafs more competitive is to make them less fat and happy and complacent… Of course, the Leafs owners wouldn’t agree to that easily…

The Versus/DirecTV pissing match: my short answer: pay zero attention until the season starts. Negotiations like this, and labor negotiations, never get settled until the very last minute (or some time after it…). Everything until then is posturing by both sides. I’ll take “one week into the season” in the pool for when this gets solved. Personal opinion — I think Versus is being somewhat too greedy in their demands, so my sympathies are somewhat with DirecTV here. And frankly, I’d probably be a lot more annoyed at not having Versus if they paid a little attention to the West Coast once in a while. Here in Sharks territory, Versus is pretty useless with the eastern conference lineups and games that are mostly over when you get home from work… So I don’t see it as a great loss, personally.

The NHLPA firing Jim Kelly: If you needed evidence that the PA was in trouble, you have it. My take on this is simple: the firing was done by a very small group of people without consulting the larger membership. Effectively, it was the thirty team reps — and it looks to me like a small group manipulated them with carefully crafted (and biased) information that wasn’t distributed ahead of the meeting and where the team reps weren’t given time to think it through or consult with the rest of the players they represented.

Was it really so urgent that the NHLPA COULD NOT wait two weeks for camps to open, when all of the players would be in town and the team reps could discuss the information with them and make them all part of the process?

No. Which implies that whoever orchestrated this knew that if this information was distributed to the membership and evaluated, it would be rejected. So this was an orchestrated coup by a group that knew it could manipulate the team reps and knew the membership at large wouldn’t buy in, so they made sure the membership didn’t get a voice.

If the general membership lets them get away with this, they get what they deserve. It’s clear there are serious factions within the union, and at least one faction is willing to destroy the union rather than let some other group run it. And they may well be succeeding. Given that so many players in the union really don’t care as long as the paychecks keep coming, if the NHLPA thinks it is going to succeed with a hard-ass attitude, then the owners have to be thrilled at this. Kelly knew that, and had a plan I really liked for moving things forward — but he got taken out back and shot in the middle of the night (literally).

And I think the union will get what it deserves out of this, and is going to be royally unhappy when it happens.

And finally –

The Sharks playoff collapse and off-season moves…

I’m pretty satisfied with what Wilson has done in the off-season. I’m happy we do NOT have Heatley. I’m willing to bet that Wilson tried just hard enough to land “the Monster” to come in second, which is a nice way to put pressure on Nabokov without actually having to commit the money. Stripping Marleau (and everyone) of the “C” and “A” is an interesting tactic, also.

Fans (and media) complaining about the lack of the “blockbuster” move to shake up the team are being impatient. Wilson has until the start of the playoffs, not the start of the season, to fix this team. What he’s done instead is spend the summer doing things that cause the players to stew on the failure rather than write it off — and I’m sure he’s waiting to see if the players respond by showing up ready and angry and committed. Any player that doesn’t will likely get purged. San Jose is a franchise where leaks simply don’t happen. this summer there have been leaks and statements — aimed at two key guys, Marleau and Nabokov — that seem clearly designed to put the pressure on them to respond, and respond on the ice. It’s now up to them to respond. If they do, the Sharks get better without disrupting the roster. If they don’t — Wilson has his answer, and changes will be made. The fact is, Wilson is still evaluating those players, and evaluating them the only way that really matters: by waiting to see how they respond on the ice.

Fans (and media) have also complained that “all” Wilson’s done is make changes on the third and fourth lines. That’s correct. The fans (and media) also forget that the playoff failure was in large part because the third and fourth lines fell apart and played really, really badly; that failure has been addressed. I’m sorry to see Grier go, Goc go, and Roenick retire — but all three are clearly the right moves.

Also the right move: trading Erhoff. I’ve generally been a strong supporter of his, and early last season he was playing amazing hockey, but over the season, he went from playing amazing hockey to playing inconsistent, enigmatic hockey. I have no idea why, but some nights, he was most notable for what he didn’t do — it’s one thing to be Mike Rathje and play 22 minutes a night and never be noticed, because Rat was always a shutdown guy. It’s another to be Erhoff and play 20 minutes and be noticed for a lack of expected offense and for those really visible mistakes. His ultimate failure in San Jose was a lack of consistency, and all of his good play kept getting sidetracked by those really bad shifts every game or two. I’m ready to see if a fresh start on a new team lets him grow past that. So, evidnetly, was Doug Wilson…

So I’ll give the Sharks off-season a B for now. Ask me again ten games into the regular season.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at The Summer of Hockey’s Discontent. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. The Summer of Hockey’s Discontent

Happy American Independence day! (and a few days late, Canada Day, aka hockey player independence day..

I wanted to make  a couple of comments on the Sharks off-season so far. Back in may I made my proposals for “fixing” the Sharks. Since then, Huskins, Clowe and Blake are signed. Semenov, Lemieux, Goc, Plihal and Grier are moving on. Of those, I had Goc and Plihal on my roster, but both of them no higher than Black Aces — so for the most part Doug Wilson and I are on the same page. Well, I’m on the same page with Wilson, let’s be real here…

Where he and I disagree slightly: I called for the trade of Thornton and defended Nabokov; Wilson made Thornton and Boyle untouchable, and Marleau and Nabokov visibly in the “tradeable” pile. Craig Button was on NHL Home Ice after the Sharks went out of the playoffs and more or less mirrored Wilson’s idea here on Thornton; it’s the support crew around Thornton that needs to help him get the job done because he’s being mobbed.

Intellectually, I can agree with that; emotionally, I still feel like both Thornton and Marleau (and Nabokov, for that matter) look to me like they aren’t taking it up that one final notch in the playoffs. That’s probably because that notch is in use much of the season as well, not because they aren’t using it.

All in all, I’m happy with the off-season so far. Wilson didn’t do anything dramatic at the draft — but didn’t make any stupid grandstanding moves, either. Ditto free agent day; he focussed on keeping the players he wanted here in San Jose, and got Huskins and Clowe signed, and worked out a deal with Rob Blake. All great signings for the team. Wilson’s made it clear that July 1 is the day GMs will definitely overpay because of the way the market is structured, and he’s right. Unlike some fans, I’m not interested in watching GM’s “make a splash”, I want a better hockey team. Patience is a good thing many times.

The Sharks pursuit of Gustavsson (“the monster”) is fascinating. I don’t think they’ll get him, but it’s clearly a shot over the bow at Nabokov. Greiss is probably the backup in San Jose this fall (Boucher was a real trooper, but solid backups are fairly easy to find, and it’s time to let a kid step up) — but Laurie and I aren’t convinced about him. We’ll see.

Free agent day in general? I was fascinated by how many players moved around and how they shifted. There was a real levelling of talent across the league, as players moved to “less good” teams to clear cap space or to keep their salaries at par, while top tier teams worked the cap and ended up with “not quite as good, but cheaper” talent. Parity kicks in hard core; unless you are a fan of a dynasty (and more specifically, a dynasty that involves your team — yes, talking about you, Red Wings fans) this is good for the league. Lots of solid, competitive hockey, and teams in the chase most of the season. It only sucks if you somehow believe your team should be awarded the Cup on opening night adn the rest of the season is a formality.

Detroit has some serious challenges; they lost a lot of talent in free agency. OTOH, they have a lot of talent in the minors, for all some pundits are pointing and declaring it’s over, come next April, we’ll likely be talking about 2-3 Red Wings who ahve stepped in from the AHL and are surprising the crap out of everyone. Except, of course, the Detroit organization.

Big winners? I really like what Burke is doing in Toronto. And Dean Lombardi has the Kings moving in the right direction.

Losers? I don’t understand the Brashear contract. I do understand the Hossa contract in Chicago, but I think they’ll regret it down the road. These decade-long contracts get scary and limit your options, and you just have to hope you guess right. Gaborik is another one: I wouldn’t have gone beyond two years in the deal, not because he’s not good, but because he’s never healthy.

The biggest loser this off-season is Dany Heatley, though. More on that in another post.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at The Sharks off-season so far. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. The Sharks off-season so far

Game seven. Stanley Cup Final. Detroit. Pittsburgh.

Tomorrow the hockey season ends.

Part of me is looking forward to this with glee. Part of me, like most season-endings, wonders how I’ll fill the void of not having hockey to watch for a while. Part of me is really, really ready for a break.

Some of that latter is driven by “the media” — as we go further into the playoffs, more and more writers chase less and less news and still need to fill those stories and columns, and it all gets so unbelievably over-analyzed and silly. Or sad. Writers burn out on the season  as well, and they take on a “can’t we just get this the hell over with?” tone that makes them sound like they don’t really like the sport. They do, they’re just worn down. Too bad they don’t see in their own attitude the players, who have to fight through a much harder, longer, more physical season and aren’t allowed the same grumpy mood.

Of course, then there are the writers who have that “this all sucks” mood year-round. Why do you folks out there read them, anyway? But that’s for later. Maybe.

Tomorrow, either Detroit or Pittsburgh takes the Cup, and the season is over. Will Detroit do the almost-impossible and win back to back? Will Pittsburgh do the even more almost-impossible and come back from 0-2 to beat the champs? You can’t script stuff like this; yet it’s real.

I no longer care who wins. Both teams deserve it. The playoffs have been some of the best damn hockey I’ve seen since I started watching hockey again after San Jose got a team. Period. I”m going to do what I’ve done most of these playoffs, and just sit back and enjoy the show. (do me a favor, those writers who hate everything about the NHL? Don’t tell them what they’re missing…)

So just sit back, relax, and enjoy the hockey. It’s been great. I expect the game tomorrow will be at least pretty good; my gut tells me no blowouts. I’d love overtime, just to give it that final edge.

And — I admit — I chose the Penguins, but I’m quietly rooting a bit for Detroit, just to see Osgood get the Conn Smythe, because he’ll deserve it, and to listen to everyone try to justify how he’s not REALLY a hall of fame goalie. I used to think that; I’m convinced. Flamboyant? No. Dramatic? no. Had rough spots? Hell, yes. But he’s running out of fingers, folks.

There’s so much that I could probably write about: the ongoing (and misplaced) whining about Bettman, the ongoing (and mostly misplaced) whining about the refs, the Phoenix problem, the Balsillie “cure”, the TV deals.

But so much of that is driven by people who seem to not actually care about the game, but only want to complain about it. There’s plenty of time during the summer to consider the challenges in the game. To me, playoffs are about the game on the ice, and that’s one reason I haven’t written much  about it this year; I wanted to step back, sit down, relax in front of the TV and just watch hockey.

You know what? it was pretty damn good hockey. Too bad the people so busy talking about anything but hockey missed it.

So drop the puck, and may the best team win, and may their best players lead them to victory.

That’s what matters. And that’s why I’m a hockey fan. Tomorrow’s game sums it all up in one neat 60 minute (or more) package.

I can’t wait.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Game 7. Tomorrow the season ends.. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Game 7. Tomorrow the season ends.

I’ll get this in before the series counts, so people don’t think I’m doing anything funny…

Picked both conference finals, which puts me over .500 (6-4) for the playoffs, and guarantees I’m over .500. that and $5 will keep you happy at Starbucks for a bit…

Now, I’ve been pushing the western conference as the dominant conference all year, since before the season started. I still think so. And that’s why I’m picking the Penguins to win the cup in six.

Make sense? No, not really. But…

I think Fleury is playing very well right now.

Detroit’s got some injuries, adn they seem weak on depth on defense. Look at how they’re playing Chelios (very sparingly) — not sure if it’s dinged up or at the end of the road, but this is a relative weaknesss.

I think the Hossa factor, while blown way out of proportion by the media (as usual), benefits Pittsburgh. Except Hossa to try to elevate his game to prove his going to the Wings was correct. But if ten of the Penguins all elevate their game a bit for the opportunity to say “nyah!” in the handshake line, that can be a benefit for penguins. On balance, this benefits Pittsburgh.

It should be a close, fun, interesting to watch series. And then it’ll be the offseason, and everyone will start complaining about no hockey….

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Stanley Cup Final Predictons. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Stanley Cup Final Predictons

It’s a bully pulpit his fellow sports commissioners wish they had. Every Thursday, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman hosts his own private klatch on The NHL Hour on Sirius XM Radio. For the most part, Bettman has played harmless interlocutor on his program, hockey’s version of Art Linkletter asking, “Don’t players say the darnedest things?”

But with Jim Balsillie at the door, Bettman has used the unfettered radio access to talk over the heads of conventional media to fans. Bettman plays the reasonable fixer, the man who only wants solutions, not conflict in Phoenix.

via sports.theglobeandmail.com: Bettman uses radio show to make his case.

Horrors! That evil nasty Gary Bettman is taking his message to the fans, rather than doing what he should do, which is allow the media people like Bruce Dowbiggin take the message and reshape and filter it so that it promotes the opinion wants us to hear. The scum, that Bettman.

He had me at “bully pulpit”, folks. Dowbiggin’s primary gripe here seems to be that Bettman’s bully pulpit is making it harder for people like Dowbiggin to use theirs.

Oh, and hint to other sports commissioners: any of you can do what Bettman did. Point it, Bettman did it. And, of course, the people who don’t want the fans to hear Bettman’s message directly and want to be able to spin it and alter it before you hear it hate this idea… Evidently in the mind of some, the only people allowed to talk directly to the fans are people like, well, Dowbiggin. Who, I guess is trying to convince us he would never, well, spin an opinion at his fans. He’s purely objective. Just like in this article.

(phhhttt. yeah, right).

(hat tip: Kukla)

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Bettman uses radio show to make his case (Bruce Dowbiggin). This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Bettman uses radio show to make his case (Bruce Dowbiggin)

well, after going 3-1 in the first round, I went 1-3 in the second, so I’m 4-4 for the playoffs. Not impressive, I only caught Pittsburgh. Even if I include in m real picks for the first round east that I never posted, I’d only be 7-5, not a good year for my picking.

The hockey, however, has been awesome.

For the conference finals?

In the west, I’m doing with detroit in 6. Chicago is up and coming, but I’m just not convinced it’s their year. Great run, but Detroit just keeps impressing me.

In the east — pittsburgh, also in 6. Too much firepower for the Canes to overcome.

Mostly, though, I’m going to sit back and enjoy watching it…

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Conference finals predictions. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Conference finals predictions

Here’s a quick thought for people to chew on and discuss.

Right now, the Ducks/Detroit series has (at least to me) some interesting similarities to the Sharks/Ducks series; Detroit outshooting Anaheim but behind in the series, and Babcock saying things that sound a lot like what McClellan said.

If — and I’m not saying this will happen — the Wings go on to lose in a way that looks similar to the way the Sharks lost, does that reduce the “these guys are losers” feeling I hear among some parts of sharks fandom? If they take out the Wings as well, doesn’t that make this more about what the Ducks CAN do and not what the Sharks didn’t?

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Quick Sharks question. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Quick Sharks question

A meme that’s popped up in the comments and other places…

I have to toss in that I think Nabby needs to go too — it’s not that he’s the “problem” per say, but I just don’t see him ever playing consistant enough for a 2 month stretch to win a cup.

I said upfront that Nabby wasn’t the problem. I still think Nabby isn’t the problem. It’s easy to say “he has to go” — it’s not so easy to improve the team. So, we do away with Nabokov, how do we replace him with a goalie that makes the team better? As opposed to just being a different team… In the system? Greiss isn’t the answer. Nobody in the system is ready — not remotely, as far as I can tell — to step into the NHL and be a potential Vezina candidate? Nabby didn’t make the finals, but to be honest, he wasn’t far from it.

Take a step back for a second and look at the first round:

• Anaheim 2-0
• Anaheim 3-2
• San Jose 4-3
• Anaheim 4-0
• San Jose 3-2
• Anaheim 4-1

two shut-outs, 1 one-goal game, two two-goal games. In reality, what Nabby did DIDN’T MATTER. no goalie can win a game where your offense scores zero. The Sharks only scored 1.5 goals a game. Even if Nabby had a 2.00 GAA, they’d have lost that series. The number of goalies in the playoffs right now that would have a chance of winning a series when the offense is only scoring 1.5 goals a game is — two: Thomas and Varlamov. Put Hiller (1.83) or Luongo (2.06) backstopping the Sharks in the first round, and this team goes down.

So let’s forget about “fixing” this team by swapping out goalies. Nabby wasn’t the problem.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Nabby has to go?. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Nabby has to go?

I took a few days to get the raw emotion out of the system and to mull over my thoughts on the Sharks 2009 collapse.

The first question: is “collapse” appropriate? my thought: given the expectations and talent — yes.

But more correctly, I think, the Sharks simply didn’t recognize the need to “take it to 11″ in the playoffs. They played the first round the way they played rhe regular season. That would have been perfectly acceptable, except against two or three teams. One of those teams was the Ducks, and in the first round,   key Ducks twisted the intensity knob until it broke off, and the key Sharks didn’t.

Now? The Sharks are golfing, the Ducks are trying to do it again against the Wings.  my view is that the Sharks that lost to the Ducks had no chance to get through the Wings, either, so it’s just as well they lost in the first round, because if this team ahd made it to the western final and lost, many of us (myself included) would have downlplayed the problems and gone into “well, almost, try again next year” mode. To some degree losing to the Ducks could be a blessing in disguise, because now we can’t avoid looking at and fixing the problems.

And it may seem strange talking about the team that won the President’s Cup having problems, but it’s true — and they’re problems that tie back to the reality that the playoffs is a different style of hockey, and this team wasn’t prepared or willing (or perhaps able) to play it well.

But before I start ripping the team and its roster, let’s also remember that this team did a lot of really good things, and fought through a lot of injuries in the second half — and this team deserves a lot of praise and credit for what it did.

What it did, though, simply wasn’t enough. And this team, as the roster is currently structured, isn’t — to me — what is needed to take that next step. I can’t call this season a learning experient, I can’t in all honestly say “we’ll be better next year”. I don’t believe it. This team needs changes to step up.

Isn’t it interesting that this team won the President’s Trophy and yet nobody on the team is up for an NHL award — except Coach McClelland? Is that the east coast bias of the voters? Well, partially. But as good as this team was in the first half, it wasn’t nearly as good in the second, and honestly, not seeing anyone nominated for awards didn’t surprise me, and I can’t argue the results. The go-to guys weren’t in San jose, not enough to stand out and be awarded for it. There’s a partial answer to this problem, I think.

What things are NOT the problem?

Doug Wilson: Not the problem. he did a hell of a job putting together a team, a team that ultimately had a couple of players NOT step up to play to expectations at key times. Chemistry and character are the hardest aspects of building a roster; many times, you don’t know until after. His job is now to figure out what needs fixing and fix it. Wilson’s apology to fans and ownership for the failure, and the tone of his statements, makes me comfortable thinking he well understands and will dig in and find the solution

Coach McLellan and staff: Not the problem. McClellan fully desrves his Adams nomination, even if he won’t enjoy it (that, in itself, is a positive to me). Damien Cox came out and proclaimed that this meant that Ron Wilson wasn’t the problem. That’s not quite right. he wasn’t the ONLY problem. This team playing for Wilson wouldn’t have won the President’s Cup, and certainly wouldn’t have been a better team than the one we had this year; it would have likely been less successful. There are rarely SINGLE, SIMPLE problems to solve in situations like this, no matter how much a journalist wants to simplif it.

Nabokov: not the problem. he wasn’t as good as Hiller was, but  kept seeing defensive breakdowns and turnovers in front of him, and I’m not throwing this on Nabokov that he didn’t stop every mistake that happened in key places in front of him. (secondarily: if you decide to abandon ship on Nabokov, the chances the team will open the season with a BETTER goalie is — ’nuff said. Next.)

The Sharks defense: not the problem. Much as some people want to rag on Ehroff, and yes, he does make a mistake here and there, he’s playing 25 minutes a game agains tthe top lines, so mistakes are going to happen. He’s a go-to go. There are no real questions on the rest of the D, excet whether Blake will be back. I hope so.

Forwards? Well… Now we have a problem. I’ve heard people saying we need to get rid of Roenick, or Lemieux, or… The easy choices (if not necessarily right ones); the reality is, the third and fourth lines did fine. the problem is on the first two lines, which needed to step it up — and didn’t. You won’t fix the problem re-arranging the support/depth players. it’s time to shake up the core on that top six forward group.

I’ve been very impressed with Marleau this year; I can’t ask much more of him, especially given playing with a sprained knee MCL. he gets a pass (for one more year). Ditto Setoguchi, Clowe, and Pavelski.

That leaves — thornton and michalek. And I believe it’s time for both to get that “fresh start” we talk about when we want to be nice and not say things like “pack your bags, it’s over”.

it’s time for Joe Thornton to move on; he stepped his game up in game 5, but couldn’t sustain it into game 6. he’s shown a history of not stepping it up in the playoffs; he is what he is. Stars are made in the regular season, superstars show up in the playoffs. Joe Thornton is a star, and I don’t see how he can stay a Shark and lead the Sharks to the Cup final.

Michalek? Hasn’t impressed me; doens’t use his speed well in this system, doesn’t use his strength well. I think he needs that fresh start, and I want to see a different player in the mix.

I hereby announce that I’m starting the rumor of Thornton and Michalek (and toss in some other stuff, maybe, like draft picks) for Lecavallier.

So here’s my thoughts on roster for opening day:

goalies:

Nabokov
Boucher (UFA)

(I see nothing to indicate that Greiss is “it”. I’d bring back Boucher for now, and work to focus Worcester on developing one of the younger prospects. Greiss at the NHL level doesn’t give me a confort level if Nabby gets injured, and Boucher does)

defense:
Boyle Lukowich Murray Vlasic Ehrhoff Blake (UFA)
Change nothing. If Blake doesn’t come back, we need to fill that hole, but I hope they convince him to come back. Unclear how, or if, Huskins fits in. Since he didn’t play, I can’t really judge him.

forwards:

xxxx – Marleau – Setoguchi

Clowe – Pavelski – xxxx

Roenick (UFA) – Mitchell (RFA) – Cheechoo

McGinn – Moen (UFA) – Shelley

I don’t know who slots into thsoe two top-six empty spots, I only know that it shouldn’t be Thornton and Michalek. We should be able to get some nice replacements with those players. Roenick and Cheechoo could fill spots, perhaps, but I like both of them on the third line.

I hope roenick comes back. I want him to, he seems to want to. We need him still. Just don’t over-use him. I’d like to see Moen come back, I prefer him over Grier. If we don’t get him back, then we should make sure Grier returns.

black aces:

C Goc (RFA)

LW Plihal (RFA)

My interest in Goc is fading, but depending on hwo the roster changes shape up, he’s still useful. Plihal is up and coming, deserves a spot on this roster now.

D Huskins (UFA) or Semenov (UFA)

Semenov really impressed me this year, but still seems like a 7th D who can fill in, not a sixth. Huskins? I have no idea.

gone:

Lemieux (UFA)
Grier (UFA, unless Moen doesn’t re-sign)
G Greiss (or Worcester)

Lemieux was an interesting experiment. I’m amazed he made it back to the NHL, he helped show some of the other Sharks what it takes to commit to be an NHLer; but he was at best a black ace. Not Roenick, but — Ozolinsh. worth experiment. Experiment over.

Grier? I think he’s fading; I’d rather have Moen by a wide margin, I think Goc’s speed brings more to the team than Grier’s grit and intensity.

Greiss? hasn’t proven he’s an NHL goalie. time to look at one of the yonger prospects.

And the two key guys I would move as we re-shape this roster. I’m not kidding about leCavallier, either. Something like that. thornton needs to find a situation lke Brad Stuart did in Detroit: he’s proven to me he’s a very good tonto, but he’s not a Lone Ranger type.  Supporting cast, not leader. San jose needs a leader in that spot; he’s not it.

Michalek (4.3)
Thornton (7.2)

One other thought: it’s time to forget the Richard trophy and let Cheechoo be what he’s really good at. Ultimately, he’s got the hands of Brett Hull on the body of Jef Odgers — and he’s a really good 3rd liner who can help generate secondary scoring and fill in on the top lines when injuries hit. I wouldn’t make him a 1st or 2nd liner permanently.  stop complaining that he’s not netting 50, and start appreciating what he does do, which s grit and determination and ccreating some offense on what looks to be a pretty scary checking line.

My bottom line? good team, not quite a great team, president’s trophy notwithstanding. Plays too soft, too perimeter. Needs to be more like the Ducks. We need guys like Detroit has that goes to the net and makes goalies crazy.

We’re 1-2 players away from greatness. And we have some great players. But the players are great in ways that don’t make the team great, so it’s time to shuffle out a couple of players to mprove the team.  And that won’t happen if you only shuffle the depth players, so it’s time for more serious change and replacing players we’ve come to really like over the eyars. tough problems, tough choices, but time to amke them.

Useful references: Dave Pollak on Sharks contract status; PJ Swenson on man games lost to injury;

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at examining the 2009 collapse: what next?. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. examining the 2009 collapse: what next?

I never did post my first round eastern conference predictions. Oh well, this thing called “work” keeps keeping me busy. Some pretty good hockey, though.

But in the West, I chose San jose (bah), Detroit, Vancouver and Chicago, going 3 for 4. of course, the one I got wrong went seriously wrong. bah.

So the second round starts tonight and here’s a quick look at my picks.

In the East, two really good series brewing:

Carolina squeaked by New Jersey, but played a good game of hockey to get into the position of being ready for the opportunity to put a kill-shot on the Devils. They’re going to give Boston a run for the money, and they could well win if Boston isn’t on its best game. Beware the “playing with the house’s money” mentality here. But Boston should win the series, although it won’t be easy: Boston in 6.

Pittsburgh vs Washington?  Fun series to watch. I’m going to have to give the nod to Pittsburgh, because a big question here is goaltending and whether the Caps baby goalie can keep it up. If he can, then Washington has a real shot here. If not? I’ll take the Pens. So Pens in 6.

Out west?

Vancouver vs. Chicago — Going to be a fast, up-tempo, physical war, I think. Both teams are playing well, both teams have goalies that can win a series and stone the opposition, both teams have some strong offensive power. It could go either way; I’m going to vote for Vancouver because of the Luongo factor, but I wouldn’t count Chicago out. Canucks in 7.

Detroit/Anaheim: The Ducks kicked San Jose’s butt. Their reward? Detroit. Speaking of war. This may be the series that decides the Cup, because whoever wins this should come out of the West into the final. But will they be so beaten up so badly they can’t handle two more rounds of hockey? In any event, I will bet on the Ducks and Hiller over the Wings and Osgood. Maybe seeing the Ducks go another round or two might make their beating the Sharks more palatable. Maybe. No, probably not. Ducks in 6.

So right now, I’m thinking Boston/Anaheim in the final. But all of the teams are good and all of the teams have a serious chance into the next round. It could go anywhere from here.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at 2009 second round predictions. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. 2009 second round predictions

I want to give thanks for a couple of things:

First, thanks to the Washington Capitals for making it past the Rangers. Both because I really am enjoying watching the Caps (a really good team with great players and some notable flaws) roll into the playoffs. It’ll just be fun to see how far they get.

Second, thanks to the New Jersey Devils for a game 7, last minute meltdown that both knocked them out of the playoffs (sorry, guys!) AND the Sharks out of the primary slot of the “how could they screw up that badly?” on the talk shows. While the Sharks implosion in the playoffs was bad, the Devils game 7 loss was historic.Doesn’t mean the Sharks problems are less serious, it just means I don’t have to read/listen to everyone dwell on them quite so enthusiastically.

I have my own thoughts on “what next?” for the sharks, of course. Wanted to get away from the emotion of the moment a bit, and I’m waiting to hear what injuries weren’t being disclosed, although to be honest, some of the folks I know who work in the locker room hinted to me there’s nothing significant, at least not among the players I’m most disappointed in. More on this later, but to be blunt about it, the pundits out there (you know who you are) who are looking at Lemieux and Roenick or Blake, or at Nabokov, are looking in the wrong place. This wasn’t a failure of the third and fourth lines, or of the old farts.

Although I did hear an interesting (apocryphal) story that after game 2 in round one, one of the minority owners in the  owners box threw a chair, made a comment (loudly) about “nobody over 30″ and stalked out of the box, not to be seen again the rest of the series.

that said, I’m finding Jeremy Roenick’s comments very interesting and saying more than most people realize, especially given some other things Roenick has done recently. It speaks to me of the direction I see the team needing to go. But — that’s for later.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at post season things to be thankful for…. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. post season things to be thankful for…

Brashear gets six games in the playoffs — well deserved, and well done NHL. The only way you stop this kind of crap is to kick them where it hurts. And Brashear needed a 2×4. Given Betts has a broken orbital bone and is out for a while, I’m glad the league came down hard here.

The Tortorella suspension? Unfortunate, but earned. Same penalty Tie Domi got for watering a fan and turning a small altercation into a bigger one. You simply DON’T DO THAT. And while I have some sympathy for Sather wanting sanctions on the Caps (they’re deserved, from what I can tell), it doesn’t argue away the issue of YOU DON’T DO THAT.  The Tortorella suspension should be ground zero for the debate on how the NHL handles things, mostly because the fans are always complaining that the league is too soft (except when it impacts their team, or “the game”). The league did right here.

As far as the Sharks? I finally saw the kind of game I felt this team was capable of; not perfect, but Joe Thornton finally stepped it up and played a “Joe thornton playoff game”. Will that game appear in game 6 tonight? If it does, the Ducks are done. Am I convinced? Far from it, but at least I’m looking forward to this game with some anticipation instead of resignation. There’s hope in Sharks land again, at least for me, that Thornton has finally figured out what it takes to win in the playoffs. I give the team a 25% to force a game 7, well up from “not gonna happen”. And if Game 7 happens, I expect the Ducks to go down. I don’t, however, expect the Ducks to go quietly. This’ll be a game to watch. Especially Joe.

There are some writers out here putting the blame on Nabokov for soft goals. Fortunately, these are writers who ignore hockey except when it’s playoff time, so it’s easy to realize they don’t have a clue and ignore them, hence I’m not linking to them (Hi, Mark. Hey, Ray, go cover the Warriors in the playoffs instead like you prefer. Oh, wait..). While I don’t completely exonerate Nabby, both of the goals in game 5 were started by defensive and coverage problems that had a lot more to do with the goals happening than Nabby did. When one of your players runs into a linesman and falls down and turns over the puck at the blueline, bad things usually happen… But you actually have to watch hockey to know that, it’s much easier for a columnist to blame the goalie….

Game on!

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Suspensions in the playoffs (and sharks game 6). This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Suspensions in the playoffs (and sharks game 6)

I apologize for the lack of hockey posting the second half of the season. I think maybe my (relative) lack of enthusiasm this season is because, frankly, I’m not surprised the Sharks are in this position.

They got off to a massively positive start, and somewhere along the way, started coasting. That coast has to a good degree continued into the first round.

I was wrong, however, when I said only two teams could beat the Sharks. There’s a third, and that’s the Ducks, and they’re doing an awesome job of keeping the Sharks from executing. The Sharks have had trouble stepping it up that next notch, but if the first round team was anyone but the Ducks (i.e., Columbus or St. Louis) this team would have rolled, if you ask me. At the same time, this team was built — and is capable of — beating any team going toe to toe. It just isn’t.

So it’s not about matchups (an easier first round would be nice, but no excuse). It’s not about how well the Ducks are playing, or Hiller is playing (they are awesome, and if you step back from being a team’s fan, both sides are playing some pretty damn good hockey, but there’s no excuse that the Ducks are outplaying the Sharks given relative talent levels).

It’s all about stepping up in the playoffs and the Ducks have, and the Sharks to a degree haven’t. And when I say “to a degree”, I’m specifically calling out four or five players in the top 3 forward lines, and most specifially, three of the top six forwards. And one in particular.

Yes, him.

I went into the playoffs feeling that anything less than Western Conference finals was a failure for the Sharks. Here we are, merely wondering if the Sharks can get to game 6. I consider game 7 a miracle, and requires heros.

Making it to game six itself requires heroes. Washington found one in Matt Bradley (way to go, Matt!); who’s the hero in San Jose? I’ll give credit to Cheechoo, he’s been pushing, gutty and simply can’t do it alone.

My view — it’s over. The only question is tonight or game six.  I can’t see this team making it out of this round, I can’t really see this team getting to game 7. I just don’t see the people who need to step up doing so.

What makes a star in the game is how they play the game for six months a year. To become a superstar, you have to prove it in the playoffs.

So far, the Sharks have a number of stars, and the ones that could become superstars in the game — aren’t. Or can’t. Or maybe they can, but haven’t before not. Tonight would be a good time to start. I’m not holding my breath.

Now, assuming the Sharks don’t get out of the first round, then what?

Changes. Forward changes. Top six changes. We’ll have to consider something I think we all thought unthinkable going into the season. No, not putting Marleau on the altar, he stays.

But if we don’t make it out of this round, I can think of two players that have proven to me that the best they’ll ever be are stars, and I think the Sharks have to think long and hard about rearranging the roster and move those players and allow some of the players that seem to be emerging to take on the roles that allow them to take a shot at being superstars.

Because, have you noticed it? As the season’s rolled along, he’s gone from being “Little Joe” to just “Joe”?

I’ll be there tonight, rooting them on. I hope to be proven wrong, but I expect it’s our last hockey game of the season.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at game 5 pregame notes. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. game 5 pregame notes

This is going to be one hell of a playoffs.

There are really only two teams that “should” go to the Stanley Cup finals from the west. San Jose and Detroit. Everyone else is a dark horse.

That said — both teams are vulnerable to upsets, and I wouldn’t be at all suprised if it happens.

Detroit: will their goaltending be good enough to support a deep run? the last two games against Chicago indicates that might be a problem.

San Jose: this team had plenty of injuries in the second half of the season, but honestly, they seemed to lose interest as well and coast. The good news is — they still won the President’s Cup. The bad news is: that won’t be good enough in the playoffs. If any team can “flip the switch” and get going in the playoffs, the Sharks can, but if it takes more than a period or two the Sharks could find themselves in trouble.

So either — or both — of these teams could be missing from the western final. I give it about 50-50 one of them will be. Which one? Pick ‘em. But honestly, the sharks problems are more solvable than the Wings are; if the goaltending isn’t there, it’s all over. And I don’t trust either Osgood or Conklin based on their play the second half of this season.

Honestly? With the exception of Calgary, which just looks — off — anyone in the West can go on a run and go deep. Seven of the 8 teams are teams that I think are legitimately dangerous, and there are some goaltenders out there that can kill any other team in a series, starting with Luongo. So the west is really a crapshoot. Other than my believing that Calgary just can’t get past Chicago, the other three series should be tough and fun series.

San Jose/Anaheim: San Jose in 5. This isn’t the cup winning team of a couple of years ago. It tends to look old, and it’s one of the teams where I think the goaltending just won’t be strong enough. I think the Sharks can out-physical them, and the Ducks take too many penalties and penalties at bad times, which plays into the Sharks strength. The best way to beat the Sharks is stay even strength, and the Ducks can’t.

Detroit/Columbus: Detroit in 5. But Columbus goaltending is strong, the Wings didn’t look good this last week, and their goaltending? I’m betting Conklin holds up for a series, but if I’m Mike Babcock, I’m not feeling overly confident right now.

Vancouver/St. Louis: Vancouver in 6. The Blues are a true cinderalla story, but don’t expect them to go quietly. But Luongo will be the difference here. Just don’t expect any “happy to be here” team to show up.

Chicago/Calgary: Chicago in 5. Chicago is firing on all cylinders and plays a fast, physical style I like. Calgary isn’t. This series should be (relatively) easy, but the Flames will get physical and Iginla won’t go quietly. But the Hawks should go into the next round.

If Detroit gets goaltending, the only team that can beat them is San Jose.

The only teams that can beat San Jose are — Detroit, and San Jose. I wish I were more confident that a self-inflicted wound wasn’t likely.

I am picking San Jose to come out of the West, though, but only giving it a 50% likelihood of happening. 25% to Detroit. and 25% to the field, and in the field, I really like Chicago and I wouldn’t put it past Columbus and Vancouver if their goaltending carries them.

Tomorrow, the east.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at The 2009 Playoffs western conference predictions. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. The 2009 Playoffs western conference predictions

Before the season, I (as usual) predicted the season results for the western conference. this year I didn’t do the eastern due to lack of time. But how did I do?

My guaranteed playoff teams?

• Sharks
• Detroit
• Calgary
• Dallas
• Anaheim

Sharks and Detroit? yes (duh). Calgary? Just missed winning the conference to Vancouver, finished 6th. Dallas? well, um, no. And Anaheim is in, but in 8th (and playing the Sharks).

Bubble Teams:

• Minnesota
• Edmonton
• Nashville
• Chicago
• Columbus
• Colorado
• Vancouver

The good news is that three of my bubble teams made it in,t he bad news is none of the ones I picked for 6-7-8 did. In reality, I only picked four of the 8 western playoff teams. Not a good year for me. Nashville JUST missed, but that doesn’t count.

Picking St. Louis out of the playoffs. Ding. better luck next year, but who knew?

All in all? A so so year. Let’s see how I handle the playoffs.

This article was posted on Chuqui 3.0 at Looking back on the season — my predictions. This article is copyright 2009 by Chuq Von Rospach. This content may not be republished on another site without explicit permission from Chuq Von Rospach. Please consider subscribing to my RSS feed so you don't miss a single one of my carefully crafted, emotionally satisfying and Pulitzer-quality words. Looking back on the season — my predictions