Serenity Now!

As I pointed out here yesterday, the Board of Governors were going to sit around and be rich old farts and talk about ways to further disturb the NHL.

Turns out they may actually be getting wise as Tim Wharnsby of the Globe and Mail in Canada tells us.

There is an arena ready to go in Kansas City and one planned for the near
future for Las Vegas. Last week, deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league
hopes to have teams based in Europe in the next 10 years.

But despite the apparent fascination, expansion was not a topic on the
agenda at the NHL board of governors meeting in Toronto yesterday.

I'm faint, my head is spinning with this news - I demand further quotation as proof.

"We like our 30 teams now and we don't feel this an appropriate time to do it,"
commissioner Gary Bettman said. "What the future may hold, I'm not prepared to
predict, but it's not on the agenda."

Well how about that. Do I believe any of this for a minute? Not really - these owners and Bettman are famous for talking out both sides of their mouth. I'm sure there were some enlightening conversations behind the scenes about these cities.

One quote that I was foolish enough to look past but has been brought up in discussion on Kukla's Korner was this from Herr Bettman courtesy of Pierre LeBrun at ESPN:

"At the present time, we're not ready to engage in any sort of expansion
process," Bettman said yesterday. "If that changes -- and it doesn't mean it
will, but it could at some point -- then we'll open it up and see what the
interest is."

Without any prompting, Bettman himself brought up Vegas.

"There were some articles indicating that there's no building deal yet in
Vegas," Bettman said. "We've had expressions of interest from lots of places,
both north and south of the 49 parallel, and at some point we may deal with
them. But not right now."

The NHL will be Vegas one day. You can bet on it.

Is Gary tipping his hand here or what? Then again, I kicked the tires on this happening a while back. While I did speculate that the Kings might be just that team to go to Sin City, Wharnsby's story brought up something that's a bit more worrisome.

What else comes to light, and has come up elsewhere recently, is that the fervor which the NHL gained steam behind the Canadian dollar is slowing up in a very noticable way, especially to the owners who have capitalized greatly on hockey's success in Canada and the "extra money" that has come flowing in thanks to the relative strength of the Loonie compared to the U.S. Dollar.

Mind you, it's not as if the U.S. Dollar is the world beater it was years ago, that's not the case at all - but while the Loonie caught up to our Benjamins, with it went NHL revenues and the salary cap. It begs our attention to keep an eye on what the Loonie will do because that will tell us if the Salary Cap continues to shoot up or leads to chaos in the front offices.

A weakened Canadian dollar against the U.S. Dollar means less money for everyone since Canada is obviously the NHL's cash cow. Shocking, I know. Less money means that teams in trouble like Nashville, Atlanta, and Florida could be looking for greener pastures. Hell, even Calgary could throw its hat in the ring once again if things got bad enough for the Loonie - Calgary was supposedly close to peril before the Canadian dollar leveled out with the U.S. dollar.

While expansion may not have been on the table, I'd bet more than anything Kansas City and Las Vegas were being discussed in great detail about the sweet deals and opportunities that await in these cities (Kansas City especially) and while no one is looking to move right now... things change. And when things change in this situation, these cities might just get to pick and choose from who they'd rather come to fill up their AEG owned arena.

Did you ever get the feeling that while the NHL owners were doing right by the CBA and their own revenues and what the books were saying that they'll still find a way to get caught with their pants down?

Yeah - so do I.

Warning! Board of Governors to Meet!

The NHL's Board of Governors will meet today to discuss a few things. Pierre LeBrun, who now writes for ESPN, a surprising step up in quality for the worldwide leader in three sports, highlighted what the Board will focus on. From Pierre:

1. There will obviously be an update on the ownership situation
in Nashville, the league still reeling from the bank fraud charges laid on
part-owner William "Boots" Del Biaggio III. There will also apparently be talk
of "preliminary qualification procedures for ownership transfers." I can only
translate this as meaning the league wants to somehow set more rigid guidelines
for future owners or future franchise sales.

2. Owners will also discuss "new potential franchise markets" from groups who have expressed interest. This is standard at these meetings; it doesn't mean the NHL is
planning to expand any time soon. But there will be the usual update from groups
interested in Las Vegas and Winnipeg, among others.

3. A discussion of the collective bargaining agreement and the players' union. The
NHLPA can opt out of the CBA after this season, although I would be shocked if
the players did.

4. An update on the lack of an international player transfer agreement, the league's talks with the IIHF and the goings-on in Russia.

Obviously, the first three things on this list are of the highest interest to yours truly as they involve subjects that have been addressed ad nauseum here. While Pierre has no seeming angle to his reporting, unlike some folks we're familiar with, I can take what he's outlined here and translate it for what they're actually going to discuss. Let's take it point-by-point:

1. Let's face it, the Nashville situation is getting some pretty sweet General Schultz treatment by most everyone who has been unfortunate enough to get their name tagged along with the franchise sale to a group of Nashville investors and the dubious "Boots" Del Biaggio. The owners say they want to discuss things concerning Nashville and to see how they can avoid these things from happening in the future.

A couple of tips for you guys concerning this. First off, never look a gift horse in the mouth - even if the horse comes from Canada and is desperate to take his new barn back home. The Board and Bettman's refusal to allow Jim Balsillie to buy the Predators is where all this nonsense began in the first place. Balsillie, of course, was radically different than Boots because he both actually has money and was open about his wont to bring the team somewhere else - two things that Boots was not open about.

Hint to future buyers: Don't disclose anything about yourself to the Board, just show up with a reputation for throwing around a lot of money and you're golden. Idiots.

2. I know Pierre made it very clear that discussing other markets and potential means to move to these places are always discussed it makes me wonder what exactly this pack of old farts discusses. You've got a handful of franchises in bad situations currently and at least three areas that are dying to get a team, two of which are in the precious western part of the United States.

I've been critical already about how both the league and prospective owners have pussyfooted around and half-heartedly talked about things to either help address these current failing situations or to do something to fix it.

The problem is that the markets that are in trouble (Phoenix, Miami, Atlanta, Nashville) are all prominent American cities and highly viable professional sports markets. Some places have clauses written into their deals that make it impossible for them to go anywhere else (Phoenix). The other three, however, are key to Herr Bettman's proliferation plan. Vacating any of those cities to go to Las Vegas, Kansas City or anywhere in Canada would be a step down in the eyes of the suits and to most everyone else as well, regardless of how sweet the package would be in Kansas City.

Those cities aren't answers for what plagues the NHL with the ones that are lagging behind, but if expansion is the talk that comes up most often, that's foolish to a degree so high science can't come up with it and would signal a huge financial problem amongst the owners because expanding the NHL again would mean these greedy morons are out to pick up a check from expansion fees once again. I just pray that LeBrun is right and this is just typical idle chatter and nothing of any substance.

3. There is NO WAY the NHLPA opts out of this Collective Bargaining Agreement but the first owner that mentions the CBA will likely be subjected to a severe spanking. If the owners talk about anything concerning this that doesn't involve lots of four-letter words and venom over about how "those darn kids" got one over on them again, I'd be shocked. If anything, this could become a brainstorming session on how to better formulate a plan to ruin the league with an even longer work stoppage.

Basically this is setting up to be a league-wide gnashing of teeth and bitchfest. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for this just to soak in the heaps of ridiculousness that get thrown around amongst these Mensa failures.

Dear Fans: You're Boned. Signed, The NHL

The Denver Post and ESPN's Terry Frei is taking up the cause for us. That's right, he's standing up for Joe Consumer who gets to continually take it in the backside from the Greed Collective that are the NHL Owners:

Ticket prices keep going up, in part to keep up with the payroll demands
created by the rising cap, which includes a floor and also pressures to at least
get in a "competitive" payroll realm; and the cap goes up in part because of the
additional revenue generated by the increased ticket prices; and …

Or is it the other way around?

What matters is that it's a continuing cycle, and the NHL didn't do much to
try to stop it after it got its alleged idiot-proof cap system.

You can't really say it any more succinct than that. Good on you Terry.

It can't be stated any clearer that while this CBA agreement made it seem like the Owners and Players were going to tie up all the loose ends, especially with the fans by bringing the game back and being more entertaining to watch all while the owners were going to stick it to the players and make them learn for wanting more. Never, ever doubt that the owners merely care about the bottom line - problem is, the owners managed to give the players the key to the city.

What's more is that the owners are also busy chewing on each other to the point where it's nearly collusion against the fans. Case in point behold the wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge reborn in the form of Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs:

"The attendance in Buffalo is strong. Buffalo has had a very low ticket price
for a number of years. As long as the interest is strong as it is, it may be
painful, but people may have to pay more for tickets… On a comparative basis,
when you're paying comparative salaries, you need comparative income."

In other words: "Hey Buffalo! You're ruining it for the rest of us with your success and lower prices!"

Some of these owners, Jacobs among them since he's the head of the NHL Board of Governors, have even gone as far as to accuse Golisano for keeping ticket prices down so the Sabres could collect on revenue sharing from the rest of the league.

As you can see at this link, the ticket revenue levels have stayed about the same for the Sabres the last two years, even improving slightly last season when the team missed the playoffs. Consistency is good, especially when it means having a full house - at least, that's what you'd think.

It's incredible to me that teams who can't fill their own house get to point fingers at those who do. The Sabres have done great to sell the game and the experience to the fans since Golisano took over as owner, so much so that there's a waiting list to get season tickets to see the Sabres. However since the Sabres aren't "taking advantage of that" and jacking up prices at will across the board and cut off their nose to spite their face, they're at fault for their woes and they're the ones stealing from the other owners.

Talk about your bully pulpit.

We know how these owners enjoy working together to make sure they get the most money possible. Just revisit expansion of the 1990s if you need a refresher course.

Perhaps its my upstate New York mindset or awareness or just flat-out common sense that tells me that maybe, just maybe, Golisano and the Sabres recognize that Buffalo is a tough town to squeeze folks for their money and that he recognizes that the Buffalo market isn't as financially strong as the bigger cities, something the Ilitch family could take a lesson on since Michigan's economy is about as fragile as Buffalo's.

While I can appreciate the NHL owners for wanting to make sure everyone is doing their part to keep up appearances and no one is dogging it just to pick up a welfare check, in Buffalo's case I don't know that its the same thing. If you jack up the prices in Buffalo, you'll turn it into something eerily similar to what you see in other formerly successful attendance markets. Just look at the numbers from last season attendance-wise.

Buffalo checked in, as a non-playoff team, with a capacity percentage of 109% Yes, greater than capacity thanks to standing room tickets. If Jeremy Jacobs is so insistent on Golisano and the Sabres doing things his way, apparently selling tickets to 82% capacity is how to get things done. It's not quite half-assing it, but it's close.

That's where the question that's akin to "What came first: The chicken or the egg?" comes into play. The Sabres are doing premium priced ticket plans where certain teams will bring with them a certain cost to the tickets. It's a reasonable approach to make to capitalize on games you know are going to be sellouts. Every game the Sabres play with Toronto is guaranteed to sell out because you've got folks from Buffalo and Toronto looking for tickets. Leafs fans especially enjoy coming stateside for a game because Sabres tickets are vastly less expensive than tickets to see the Leafs at Air Canada Center.

The problem you run into with raising ticket prices across the board, and this is where the Sabres and other teams that have gone this way got it right with premium games, is that no one wants to pay the same price to watch the dumpy team you never see as opposed to seeing the blood rival you'd pay out the nose to get in the building. The advantages all work for the team here.

Sadly this is the NHL - a league where mediocrity is the ultimate goal of the owners as far as what the fans get and what they want out of the players all the while making absolutely sure their pockets stay heavily lined and if anyone isn't doing their part to greed up...you get smacked.

At this point, multiple relocations and expansion (God help us all if it comes to that) are the only solutions the league will consider to help rebuild the coffers if it comes to that. The NHL has enough teams playing the role of the "weak sister" and for the time being, the Board of Governors and the Commissioner's Office are saying all the supportive things. You have to know that if teams are bleeding as much money as some say they are (Phoenix and Los Angeles respectively) then the rest of the owners are not happy because they're dragging them down hard and virtually flushing money down the toilet.

So, in the meantime, how do you make up for them? You cough it up out your ass for tickets.

Congratulations, you're paying for rotten miserable owners.

Right When You Think They'll Get It Right

The NHL Board of Poorly-Defined Misers have decided to pull the rug out from underneath their Man of the Hour, Gary Bettman, for once. Don't get too excited, Captain Dumb-Dumb still very much has a job as Commissioner. This decision, however, does make sense for the league; they're ditching the unbalanced schedule.

While they couldn't get it right to have the home teams go back to wearing white at home (for some reason this was a hard decision to make with the new OMGWTFRBKEDGE jerseys this year where each team only has a white and a dark uniform, no thirds) they did get this decision right to stop having divisional opponents play every other game against each other.

Sort of.

This story from The Hockey News makes mention of a few plans that the league was looking into to readjust so that each team will play everyone else in the league at least once. However, this blog's good friend Brian Burke, the ever quotable media slut, has chimed in to USA Today to say that the leading sentiment amongst the executives is to decrease the number of games against divisional opponents to seven (it is eight right now) which would help to up the number of interconference games from the laughably awful and boring 10 up to 15.

They're going with the baby steps approach apparently. It's probably smarter to do that since big steps seem to be the ones the league screws up the most, however, how hard would it really be to just go back to the old way of drawing up the schedule? They did it that way for years upon years but now they need a cute little mathematical equation to get things done.

The reasoning for doing the unbalanced schedule was boneheaded from the start. The NHL thought that by having teams duking it out for the divisional crown play each other eight times in the regular season that it would help spur on rivalries and make those games the most cutthroat of them all - to create a playoff atmosphere in the regular season and get teams to really dislike each other then so that when/if they face off in the playoffs that'll REALLY set the stage for good TV....I mean, hockey action.

Funny thing about the best laid plans though... the NHL in an effort to create more rivalries like Avalanche v. Red Wings; two teams that only played a handful of times in the regular season and made their killing on each other in the playoffs. They figured on familiarity breeding contempt, and last season it looked like we'd have just that with Buffalo and Ottawa. After Chris Drury got blown up unknowingly by Sens semi-goon Chris Neil, all hell broke loose in that game as well as their follow-up game in Ottawa.

When the playoffs rolled around, the tempers had cooled because all matters had been hashed out on the ice during those regular season matchups. The result? Along with a stone-cold gameplan by the Sens to muck things up and slow down the game - there were no brou-ha-ha's, no cutthroat play and most importantly, no seven-game series chock full o' drama.

With that failed plan out of the way, now the NHL can fall back on their much hated Plan B:

Learning to market itself and its stars to all 30 cities and beyond.

Yes, I know, it's a daunting mission that the NHL tried their damnedest to avoid what with the unbalanced schedule making sure that some cities wouldn't see some superstar players for up to five or six years. Considering the bulk of the new supertalent is in the Eastern Conference and many of the hockey fanatical cities are in the Western Conference this presented the NHL with a huge problem. What good is it to have Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin on the same team if some Western Conference cities will only get to see them once every five or six years? They might as well be Halley's Comet.

That's where this new plan for scheduling still manages to fall short. Instead of every five or six years, these new stars may get to come around once every two (if I'm understanding the plan correctly that is). Sure, comparably that's better - but back in the good ole days, everyone got to see every city in the league.

Is that so freakin' bad? Western Conference teams don't care about the travel since they get hammered on travel as it is already. Eastern Conference teams are excited that they'll get to either go back to home cities in Canada or get to go to Los Angeles once a year to star gaze and party or visit Minnesota and find out what its like to play hockey in an American city that really gives a damn about the game.

OK so that's the only reason to be excited to go to Minnesota in winter - let's just move on.

What I like most about this move by the Board of Governors is that its a direct shot across the bow of Gary Bettman. The unbalanced schedule was his big fat stupid idea to generate false drama and interest in the game. Much like other Bettman bad ideas, this one fell haplessly short of expectations and in my idealistic mind I'd like to see that this move to reverse direction on the schedule will be the first of many reversals to bring the game back.

Of course, that's probably being way too optimistic and thoroughly unrealistic.