Does anyone still wonder why no free agents want to play in Montreal?
Last night during the Sharks/Kings game I was checking headlines during a break in action, and ran across James Mirtle’s piece on the (at that time) breaking crisis in Montreal.
It got my attention, because it seemed to be a lot more than “gee, this kid likes to party”. Looking at the quotes from the French press, like Jaques Demers ” I swear to you, I thought about Mr. Beliveau tonight … and I just hope I’m dreaming.” or Michel Bergeron’s “it looks like the foundation is going to be shaken. Not just for the Quebecois but for anyone who wears the Canadiens sweater around the country” had me wondering just what was going down. (if you haven’t seen the details, Mirtle’s got a good overview, including how the information flowed out into the public eye, so you can get a sense of how this evolved over time).
My first speculation, honestly, was some kind of legal problem involving claims of non-consensual activities between the players and some “friends”. Maybe it’s unfair of me, but honestly, with the rumors of the partying and the history of complaints against pro athletes about unwanted companionship — whether it’s the players from Duke or Kobe Bryant or any number of quietly handled incidenents — it’s always something I worry is going to end up in the press.
Then word started to come out that a mobster was involved and the police were meeting the team at the airport. Invovled with drugs? Were the players playing mule with their gear bags? Oh, the mind wanders after a couple of coffee-and-Bailey’s… But I was expecting the worst here.
Silly me. I should have remembered that this was the Montreal French Press and stopped worrying. For all Quebec professes to love it’s Canadiens, there are far too many there who aren’t afraid to use them to grandstand and use as a target for their public rants (thereby making sure the journalists get plenty of attention, which they seem to crave). The press isn’t alone here — the police have been known to grandstand and time things to maximize the pain of the team, and let’s not forget the politicians that have been happy to jump on the Canadiens and hockey players when people aren’t paying enough attention to them (just ask Shane Doan).
So I guess I should have really expected that the real problem, the one that caused Bob Hartley to claim he was going back to Atlanta (he was kidding, but that’s the level of rhetoric here, folks) was that a couple of the Canadiens players liked to party and liked girls.
Oh, and one of their party pals happens to have organized crime connections, but there are no connections known by the police beyond partying, girls, and some bootleg vodka the guy brought in for them.
Oh, the horrors.
Yes, the French Press is at it again. We can all stand down and stop paying attention for now. Next time, we should maybe be smart enough to not pay attention to begin with.
Does anyone still wonder why the Canadiens have so much trouble keeping free agents or attracting them to the team? Who other than Saku Koivu is insane enough to want to play in a city with newspapers this hostile? And better, they’re hostile because they love the team. Ah, the irony. the bullshit, the insanity.
Now, am I saying that this is not an issue at all? No — there are some significant issues here. The players are associating with someone they should know better than be around. This kind of “not thinking clearly” seems endemic in Montreal — remember Jose Theodore? There’s a problem with players enjoying the joys of the city of Montreal a bit too much there.
That’s a tough nut to crack; you can only talk and lecture so much. Ultimately it comes down to knowing the personality of the players and only bringing in those that know how to handle the situation appropriately. Montreal has to find a way to help players learn to avoid these problems, but ultimately, this is up to the individual players themselves.
Especially in a town like Montreal, where the players not only live in a fishbowl, but one wher ethe fishbowl has a 24×7 webcam and paparazzi waiting for an unprotected moment, and writers and broadcasters who seem to want to make their names by putting these people up on pedestals and then using them for target practice.
In reality? There’s a whole lot of “nothing to see here”, other than a bunch of press and broadcasters taking a molehill and turning it into a ski resort. Here’s hoping that it stays a molehill and there aren’t more and dirtier details to be found out at the investigation continues, but right now, it seems like this whole “foundation is going to be shaken” disaster scenario is a figment of the overactive imaginations of the French Press (again) insisting on proving there’s nothing they can’t turn into front page headlines.
No wonder nobody wants to play in Montreal. With “friends” like these, would you want to?
Could Balsillie bring Gretzky home?
Balsillie could bring Gretzky home.
Now wouldn’t that be an ideal title on the front page of every single Canadian newspaper! I think so.
The NHL has admitted its involvement in helping a Phoenix Coyotes franchise deal with some financial difficulties as well as look for potential new backers/owners of the team. On a recent Phoenix telecast, league commissioner Gary Bettman mentioned that they are looking for new partners for Phoenix owner Jerry Moyes or even at a possible sale of the franchise.
The NHL hopes to resolve the situation in Phoenix by season’s end in order to be fair to the players, staff and fans.
So the question has to be asked: why-oh-why has a deal not been had with Research in Motion co-chief executive officer Jim Balsillie?
The arena lease in Phoenix pretty much dictates that the Coyotes will remain in Phoenix for quite some time unless a substantial amount of money is paid to the region. The NHL is currently attempting to renegotiate the lease for Jobing.com Arena with the city of Glendale, Ariz., to make it more attractive for potential buyers. However, the time needed to renegotiate such a deal may be attractive to Balsillie. It would give him time to build an arena (Western Ontario) or upgrade a current facility (Hamilton) for his new team.
via CBCSports.ca – Blogs – Could Balsillie bring Gretzky home?.
Well, for now, Balsillie can’t.
Jim Balsillie, the co-founder of Research In Motion, and two other executives will pay $77-million to “make the company whole” as part of a record settlement with the Ontario Securities Commission over improper options backdating to compensate executives.
[....]
Mr. Balsillie, who also agreed to step down from the board of directors of Waterloo-based RIM for at least 12 months as part of yesterday’s OSC settlement, told reporters after a hearing in Toronto that “mistakes were made.” He added that the firm is “very, very happy to put this behind us.”
Part of the settlement over the RIM backdating problems is that Balsillie can not hold an officer position or serve on a board of a company for at least a year. That precludes him investing in a company in any way that gives him operational control in any way. If he were to invest in a hockey team, that investment would have to be a passive one through the terms of his probation — it’s unclear if he could actually own a majority stake, but he definitely couldn’t be the managing partner, couldn’t attend meetings or serve on the board, and would probably have to be completely hands-off until this restriction ends. Any company he invests in would probably be watched to make sure he really was staying hands off. This would be a tough sell on any number of levels for the league, other investors, the temporary managing partners, etc. Even assuming Balsillie would be willing to passively invest in something, even a hockey team.Which I wonder if he’d be willing to do.
So I think he’s on the shelf for a year or two, until this options problem clears out. Lots of potential traps here he could fall into if he’s not careful.
The Phoenix arena issue is an interesting problem (as in “interesting times” interesting). Personally, I can’t believe the Coyotes signed a lease deal that ugly, but that’s just me. That was the best they could do? But since Glendale financed all but about $20 million of the arena, one could argue that most of the arena revenue should go to them. In retrospect, I think if the team and the NHL were being purely honest about things, they ought to admit they should have looked at relocation BEFORE moving into Glendale, because the lease terms in my view were never going to allow the team to be viable. In this case, the “moving is a last resort” policy hurt the team and the league because it forced the team to sign a lease it never should have signed, and probably removed a negotiating tool the team could have used for better terms. Oh well. The Coyotes were likely headed down this path even before the economy went south, it just went south faster.
So, now what?
Short answer: the league can look for new capital infusions all it wants, but I can’t see a situation where any sane person invests in the Coyotes unless there’s a new, viable lease. So either the lease is revised, or the Coyotes will ultimately go into Chapter 11 and bankruptcy can be used to void the lease.
Glendale has this huge, new, expensive arena with hundreds of millions of dollars of debt. They can’t really afford to have the Coyotes fail or move, because an empty building will cost them even more. So sanity implies that the two sides will find a middle ground and a new lease, one where the Coyotes have a better revenue stream and Glendale still have a tenant to help pay the bills.
It was a tough road in Nashville — but the Predators actually are predicting to make a tiny bit of money this year. Some of the pundits have smirked at that, but they forget that in that city, they ultimately DID get new owners and a new lease, and the changes were enough to make things viable in Nashville. That’s the model the NHL is pursuing in Arizona. Based on what we saw in Nashville, it’s going to take some time, it’s going to be occasionally painful, but as long as all sides involved keep a focus on getting the job done, it will get done.
Of course, with sports franchises and arenas, politics and emotions can create chaos, and scuttle deals that make sense from a business standpoint. So we’ll have to wait and see. but my guess is that the league and the Coyotes and the City of Glendale will get this worked out, and as soon as the new lease is in place, some new investors will step in and take the Coyotes over. Just as happened in Nashville.
It won’t be Balsillie. Why? Because under this scenario, the Coyotes will be staying in Arizona, and it’s very clear he’s not interested unless he can move the team into Ontario. So Balsillie will stay away from Phoenix unless it becomes clear the team has to move.
Actually, there’s one scenario that Balsillie gets involved: as a passive bridge investor while the lease is negoiated and the new owners are readied. He might fund the transition — but if does, it’ll only be because the league promised him a team for Ontario later. That might be the easiest way through this mess for the NHL, actually, although I doubt they’d admit to the move-the-team part of the deal until it actually happens. The NHL could do worse than have Balsillie fund the Coyotes for a year (or two) while they work with Glendale on fixing this for real, and if it falls apart, let him move the Coyotes (that would be a nice negotiating tactic); and if they do work it out in Arizona, have him sell his shares to the new owners, at which point either the Lighthouse project on Long Island will have finally died and he can buy and move the Islanders, or the owners of the Thrashers will finally be out of court and ready to sell and give up on the Atlanta experiment. Either way, a team for Kingston could well be available 2-3 years down the road.
The other scenario in Arizona gets nasty. Glendale doesn’t work out a new deal. Long-term lease or no, the league has the option of going into bankruptcy court — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although the anti-Bettman press will make hay about it. It was part of the process that allowed both Ottawa and Buffalo to get things worked out and move forward. In Arizona, taking the team into bankrupcty would allow the team and league to push to void the lease, removing the requirement to pay the relocation fees in the current lease. THAT attempt will hopefully force Glendale’s hand to renegotiate the lease and avoid bankruptcy where they lose a lot of their negotiating stance. But if it gets there, the league also has the option of revoking the franchise — make the Coyotes go away. That would also void the lease, but also would void the player contracts, leading to everyone being declared free agents (most likely). Even if the league resells the franchise to a new owner, it’d likely be treated as an expansion team.
And down this road, only the lawyers win. Everyone could end up suing everyone for years waiting to sort this out. But the end result would be the team moving out of Arizona without paying the lease-breaking fees.
So the league has options here; if Glendale won’t renegotiate the lease (and from what I’ve read, there seems to be a willingness rather than risk having zero light dates — it’s going to come down to what the numbers look like — but if it can be done in Nashville, it can be done in Glendale).
But the most likely scenarios — and the timing, given the backdating problem — exclude Balsillie.
Lindros resigns as PA ombudsman – Sportsnet.ca
The NHLPA ombudsman Eric Lindros has resigned from his post, Sportsnet has learned.
Interesting. It was just a couple of days ago I was wondering where Eric Lindros had disappeared to.
Now, reports are he’s leaving the union.
I’m not surprised. His role was as a watchdog over union management for a membership that was frankly paranoid (and justified to be) over abuses by union management. As Paul Kelly has settled in, he’s made it clear he’s not the enemy and as the general membership has learned to trust him, this has made Lindros’ role in the association less relevant.
I’m sure it’s more complex than that, and I’ll be curious what details (if any) come out, but it probably should be remembered that Lindros was a necessary part of the puzzle the player’s association needed to break free from the previous administrations and rebuild the association with good leadership. Kelly continues to impress me both with his ability to help the players understand the business they’re in and keep civil relations with the ownership and league officials — but never allowing the league to think that the union is just going to rubber stamp things.
If Miller and Fehr’s view of the role of a player’s association is “MORE”, it looks like Kelly’s view of the role is “a say” — and I think moving forward in pro sports, that’s going to put the league ahead of the other pro sports and really improve the competitiveness of the league down the road.
However, it looks like Eric’s role in all of this is at an end. That’s too bad in a way, given how much he’s given to the game over the years.
Something I just realized about All-Star Weekend
I’m listening to XM radio, and they just led in with Paul kelly opening his press conference where they announced they weren’t re-opening the CBA (good move!). With him were six players, including Joe Thornton and Vincent Lecevallier. Also with him were some other NHLPA officials including Glen Healy.
And listening to it, I suddenly realized there was a big name missing.
Where’s Eric Lindros, NHLPA Ombudsman? There were rumors of friction between Kelly and Lindros a couple of months ago, but they quieted down, and since then, not much.
But — now that I think about it — I can’t think of any reference or sighting of Lindros at the All-Star Weekend. Anyone know if he was there?
Because it sure looks, given that he wasn’t included in a very important set of meetings at THE in-season get-together for the NHL and the NHLPA, that he’s been purged or exiled.
Anyone seen Eric Lindros recently?
The only reference I can find of him is his speaking at the Concussion symposium. Lindros simply isn’t talking about it. Kelly is merely saying “Lindros continues to work for the NHLPA”. But clearly, something is going on here, because Lindros really should have been at that press conference, and not only wasn’t, doesn’t seem to have been mentioned.
Hmm.
Fixing the All-star game (well, not really)
I can’t take credit for this idea, but I dig it and I’m going to tell you all about it anyway. I read this suggestion somewhere yesterday as I was browsing the various blogs where Wing haters were sobbing about this and this. I’ll try to track down who mentioned it yesterday and give credit where it’s due. Also, it’s been done before…back when hockey was hockey and Gary wasn’t in the picture.
Here’s the idea: Next year, when the Wings are defending their twelfth Stanley Cup title? Select an All Star team who will play the Cup Champs.
via KuklasKorner.
I have a couple of problems with this.
First, yes, the league did this before. Yes, All-star games back then were more intensely played games. The problem I have is that nobody can actually show that going back to this old format will actually bring back the old intensity. It just seems there’s this big “and magically, everything is fixed” box in the flowchart here. I don’t buy it, I don’t believe it. We shouldn’t make changes just because.
More important to me, though, is how a change like this can and will affect the real games. What was one of the major speculation points going into this season? Yes — how the Detroit Red Wings would cope with and overcome the “Stanely Cup Hangover” and how most of the recent teams have struggled with it (look at Pittsburgh this year; that hangover is at least part of their problem).
So what’s the plan here? Take the team what’s played the most hockey, the hardest hockey, and when the entire league gets a few days off to rest and get ready for the 2nd half of the season, make the entire team play a hockey game against the league all-stars. Of course, even though it’s an exhibition, we’re expecting them to play hard and physical, make it a “real” game, even though it’s an exhibition, because that’s the point of this change.
In other words, take the team likely most in need of rest across the break, and instead of having a couple of their players (well, this year, NONE, but I don’t blame the Wings for pulling that stunt) involved, have the entire team involved.
How is this good for the game of hockey? How is this remotely good for the team involved? Why do we even want to consider making it HARDER for a champion to repeat a second time — and that’s exactly what this idea would do. Heck, we get back to back cup winners so often, let’s throw another obstacle in their way.
This is simply a bad idea. It’s a “I remember the good parts of the 70’s, if we just do that, everything will be great” concept. The problem is, when you start looking at what the idea means in the larger context of the game today, it has a lot of negatives, and it’s a bad deal for the team and for the league. Fixing an exhibition by messing up the real season seems like a bad tradeoff to me. The players need this time off to rest up and heal; taking a player or two from each team to play in the All-Star is one thing. Taking the entire team and throwing away their downtime? I can’t see any team seriously going with that idea without a fight.
Especially since there’s no real reason to believe that it’d fix the problem people seem to be trying to fix, which is that this is an exhibition, and the players play like it is. Just swapping the players around won’t change that basic reality — just as moving to the North America vs. the World format didn’t a few years back. Honestly, does this really need fixing in the first place?
Is the NHL dying?
I guess it depends on who you prefer to believe…
For instance….
Attendance: Trending up or down? – A hockey journalist’s blog:
I take my monthly look at NHL attendance over at Globe on Hockey today, something that shows just how well hockey’s being received in St. Louis these days.
The news isn’t quite so rosy in Columbus, Detroit, Florida, Carolina, Phoenix, Colorado, Tampa Bay, Nashville, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Let’s just say I don’t think we set any records by season’s end.
NHL sets record attendance in November:
Yet…
The National Hockey League posted record attendance for the month of November, attracting 3,367,547 fans to 199 games for a per-game average of 16,922. The per-game figure eclipsed the previous November high of 16,818 set during the League’s successful re-launch season in 2005 and was 2.3% ahead of last season’s 16,538.
Season-to-date, the total NHL attendance of 6,603,908 and per-game average of 16,890 through 391 games are 1.9% ahead of the corresponding figures from the record-setting 2006-07 campaign.
Hmmm……
And a meme going out among some bloggers and hockey pundits is “it’s going back to the way it was”. Of course, the numbers don’t back that up (but then, the easy answer is to just claim the NHL is futzing the numbers. If you can’t prove them wrong, wave your hands a lot and yell loudly…):
globeandmail.com: Contrary to what Hockey Night preaches, scoring is up in NHL:
f you watch Hockey Night in Canada, you may assume there has been no increase in NHL goal scoring, despite the crackdown on restraining fouls.
And even if there has been a small improvement, you may believe it is attributable to the large number of power plays being called.
A big part of the Hockey Night message is: Zero tolerance has not helped improve the game offensively.
But the first assumption is wrong and the second is questionable.
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* No clear winner in battle over the airwaves
The Globe and Mail
After all, goal scoring is up 10 per cent from 2003-04, which was the last season of the “old” NHL, when obstruction fouls weren’t being called.
The argument that a massive increase in the number of power plays – Ron MacLean of Hockey Night used the figure 18,000 last Saturday – has inflated goal-scoring statistics doesn’t ring true either, because even-strength goal scoring is up 9 per cent from 2003-04.
The number of power plays has certainly increased, starting in 2005-06 with zero tolerance. But it hasn’t gone up as much as you might think.
In 2003-04, referees called 8.9 power plays a game (defined as a one-man advantage). In 2005-06, when coaches, players and referees were grappling with the new rule enforcement, the number rose to 12.5. Since then, the number of power plays has decreased. Last season at this point, there was an average of 10.6 a game. This season, it’s 9.1, a small increase, 2.2 per cent, from the 8.9 in 2003-04.
Let’s look at power-play goals. In 2005-06, the total jumped to 857 at this point in the season, compared with 573 in 2003-04. But last season, the number dropped to 695. This season, it stands at 631 before last night’s games, an increase of 10 per cent from 2003-04.
It’s wrong, therefore, to assume more power-play goals are being scored because of a proportional increase in the number of power-play opportunities.
Power-play goal scoring is up 10 per cent, while the number of power-play opportunities has increased only 2.2 per cent.
It’s the elimination of the traditional forms of obstruction that is allowing teams to enjoy more success with the man advantage.
It is true, however, that even-strength goal scoring has decreased from last season. At this point in 2006-07, 1,537 goals had been scored. This season, the number was down to 1,453 before last night, a drop of 5.4 per cent.
But, as we’ve noted, even-strength goal scoring is still up considerably from 2003-04, and the guess is it won’t decrease much more, because of measures planned that include the further reduction of goaltenders’ equipment. As well, Buffalo Sabres managing partner Larry Quinn is proposing that an independent committee look into ways to rid the game of the neutral zone trap.
One obvious way to do that, in the long term, is to increase the width of the ice by seven or eight feet. That would give the team with the puck more room to get around the checkers.
But the important point is this: 118 more even-strength goals have been scored this season than in 2003-04. That’s progress.
And of course, the league is in financial trouble, just ask some of the pundits. Of course, the NHL just announced revenue is trending up, and that the salary cap is expected to go up again next year. This, of course, is used as proof by some that the league is in trouble because salaries keep going up.
Unfortunately, some of the loudest and most influential voices out there are the ones that seem determined to convince the public that the league is in trouble. Does the league have issues? Sure. Name any operation of any size that doesn’t? But if you compare the league to where it was before the lockout, it sure seems like all of the arrows are moving in the right direction to me.
more importantly? the hockey is a damn sight more watchable than it was before, and games are generally more interesting and exciting on a night to night basis. This, of course, is somehow bad for the league’s longevity….
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