So, I don't come by the hockey love quite as genetically as my esteemed colleague and co-author. I was born in Denver, and moved around a bit. My earliest memories of hockey are of watching the North Stars and the Blackhawks beating the hell out of each other when I was a teenager living in Wisconsin. Yes, the Minnesota North Stars. I liked hockey, but I wasn't totally live-or-die with it from birth like some people.
Overall, I'm honestly a winner in the whole relocation wars. I live in Colorado now, and when I first heard that the Nordiques were coming here, I thought that I'd been given a Christmas present. Which, it was even better when my dad told me about the Colorado Rockies franchise, that became the New Jersey Devils. It was a Christmas present that lasted for 8 months, and when we finally carried the Cup to Denver, me and a friend had a sign that we held up that said "Merci, Quebec". Because it was our win, but it was still their team on a certain level.
Now we fast forward a few years, and I'm divided. The NHL honestly doesn't belong in Phoenix. The ice is cruddy, the team is weak, the novelty has honestly worn off, and most importantly for the league as a whole, the team is hemmhoraging money. It's been given a fair shake, and it honestly has been given more chances to succeed than Quebec, or Winnipeg, or several other cities in Canada were given.
Mister Bettman, please. I know you hate admitting defeat as much as anyone, but some places just do not roll well with hockey. Stop taking it personally, and accept that you can win with this. Every Canadian hockey team turns a profit. Every one. The canadian teams are honestly what's keeping the league afloat. You could make so many people happy so easily. With one simple sentence:
"Mr Balsille, move this team to Hamilton."
The fans of Phoenix may never forgive you, but if they're real fans, they'll follow the Coyotes or they'll transfer their love to other teams. Heck, work with the CHL or another league, put a minor league team there. They may love you more, because the seats will be heinously cheaper. Win-win. But don't do what it looks like you're planning on doing because...you'll be cutting off your nose to spite your face again. Not many people can do that more than twice and keep their job. Worst case scenario...the profitable teams fold and reconstitute as the MoneyMaking Hockey League, with you on the outside looking in as someone else (Jim Balsille is a name that springs to mind) makes mad cash and touches the Cup every. Single. Year.
BTW, still mad about the Def Leppard thing.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
A hockey team in CANADA? How peculiar...
There is a short list of things that I dearly love in my life, and hockey and my Blackberry are up there in the top five. Imagine then, my gleefull, girly squeals at the very thought of Jim Balsillie marrying, in a sense, two of my loves. The fact that he wants to put a team back in Canada was just the icing on the puck.
I'm a Michigan girl at heart, and grew up in the era where the Red Wings were more often referred to as the Dead Things, and Lord Stanley's namesake coming to reside in the Great Lakes state was little more than a fond memory. The loyalty never wavered though, and while Wings fans always knew that we'd have our turn again someday, there was always the Saginaw Gears to keep that love alive. Seats could be had in Wendler Arena, thoughtfully furnished with seats in tangerine and turquoise to match the team's colours, in the glory years when the Turner Cup meant as much to the small town fans with ice in their blood as the Stanley cup did to the state as a whole. The well known joke around Michigan that we have two seasons - construction and hockey - is well earned, and well deserved.
Wings fans share the elite and sometimes snobbish honor of being part of the Original Six. As the league expanded, there were mixed feelings of glee that hockey was taking hold across the country and abject horror that teams were popping up in places where ice will never occur naturally. I'm transplanted to Utah now, and even so if I had my selfish way. one of the requirements for a franchise team would be that it be in a place where kids grow up playing pick up games on the local pond all winter.
Hockey is Canada. Canada is hockey. There's a reason why more people in the States know the words to "Oh Canada" than likely any other anthem but our own. The money, the legalities, and the feelings of the snowbirds aside, the league should be jumping for joy at the idea of one of Canada's power players wanting to rescue a failing team and bring them to a city, any city. where they can thrive. Yet once again, Bettman is proving with every stubborn, dug in step that he cares less about the fans and the sport than he does about his own agenda. Sadly, it's impossible to really guess what that agenda is, since he keeps demonstrating that his grasp on what the sport means is sub-Bantam, at best.
Bob McKenzie of TSN said that "Bettman and the NHL will take a beating in that court of public opinion in Canada". Add Utah to the list. Anyone care to join us?
I'm a Michigan girl at heart, and grew up in the era where the Red Wings were more often referred to as the Dead Things, and Lord Stanley's namesake coming to reside in the Great Lakes state was little more than a fond memory. The loyalty never wavered though, and while Wings fans always knew that we'd have our turn again someday, there was always the Saginaw Gears to keep that love alive. Seats could be had in Wendler Arena, thoughtfully furnished with seats in tangerine and turquoise to match the team's colours, in the glory years when the Turner Cup meant as much to the small town fans with ice in their blood as the Stanley cup did to the state as a whole. The well known joke around Michigan that we have two seasons - construction and hockey - is well earned, and well deserved.
Wings fans share the elite and sometimes snobbish honor of being part of the Original Six. As the league expanded, there were mixed feelings of glee that hockey was taking hold across the country and abject horror that teams were popping up in places where ice will never occur naturally. I'm transplanted to Utah now, and even so if I had my selfish way. one of the requirements for a franchise team would be that it be in a place where kids grow up playing pick up games on the local pond all winter.
Hockey is Canada. Canada is hockey. There's a reason why more people in the States know the words to "Oh Canada" than likely any other anthem but our own. The money, the legalities, and the feelings of the snowbirds aside, the league should be jumping for joy at the idea of one of Canada's power players wanting to rescue a failing team and bring them to a city, any city. where they can thrive. Yet once again, Bettman is proving with every stubborn, dug in step that he cares less about the fans and the sport than he does about his own agenda. Sadly, it's impossible to really guess what that agenda is, since he keeps demonstrating that his grasp on what the sport means is sub-Bantam, at best.
Bob McKenzie of TSN said that "Bettman and the NHL will take a beating in that court of public opinion in Canada". Add Utah to the list. Anyone care to join us?
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