Jerry Moyes to Gary Bettman: Up Yours

Yesterday was a huge day as far as the Phoenix Coyotes saga goes as the NHL and Jerry Moyes headed to court to hash out this whole bankruptcy issue. When they got there, however, the big dust up was over who, exactly was in control of the team to decide it's future.

And you thought this would be easy, didn't you?

Apparently since that entire issue is still a sticky mess, like I was talking about a little bit here the other day, Judge Redfield Baum said, "Screw you guys you're going to mediation." Well not quite like that, but he did say that's how this thing will get squared away.

In the aftermath of that decision as well as the choice by Judge Baum to have a relocation hearing in June just a week ahead of the draft has turned this already ample PR game into a sideshow of Bearded Lady proportions.

The good news out of this for fans in Phoenix is that their team probably isn't going anywhere next season. The bad news is that their maybe/maybe not owner Jerry Moyes is busy scorching the earth to make it impossible for anyone with the money needed to make hockey in the desert work to make the investment.

"Even a winning team would not stop us from losing money unless we received some concessions," Moyes said in his letter.

He made no apology for trying to abandon the Phoenix market by selling the team to Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie, whose $212.5 million (all figures U.S.) offer is conditional upon moving the franchise to Hamilton.

"I have a responsibility to all of the creditors of this business," said Moyes. "No one other than Canadian businessman Jim Balsillie's company has offered enough to pay the creditors, which led to my initiating a court-supervised sale process. This process will be open and transparent, and all offers current and future must be fairly examined; guaranteeing an equitable offer."

In other words, Moyes had this to say to Gary Bettman for butting in on his attempt to backdoor Jim Balsillie into owning and moving the franchise:


Dear Anyone Trying To Keep Hockey In Glendale: Up yours!

Unfortunately for Jerry Moyes and NHL fans in southern Ontario, the NHL and Gary Bettman are always able to unearth someone who wants to keep the show around locally. In this case, word has come out that Coyotes minority owner John Breslow wants to right the ship in Glendale and keep the team there.

Well if that ain't a spike strip on the highway for the trucking magnate.

Of course, since Breslow is a bit late to the party and given how well him stepping up to save the franchise in Arizona would work out for Bettman, you'll have to forgive me if I worry about his full-fledged financial credentials.

After all, the last guy that stepped up this big to keep a team in a struggling market seemed to have some issues of his own.

I certainly don't think that Breslow is a crook here, but this is the bed Herr Bettman has made for us by putting his faith in people who are scumbags, scam artists and all around pricks.

That's not even taking into account Len Barrie and Oren Koules in Tampa Bay who have made it their mission to ruin Tampa, Florida as the shining example of how the NHL can work in a non-traditional hockey market.

I know that sounds goofy and all, but the attendance figures speak for themselves in the case of the Lightning.

2009: Lightning were 22nd in average attendance (out of 30) filling up at an 85.6% rate and over 16,497 per game.

In previous seasons?

2008: 8th (18,692 per game)
2007: 3rd (19,876 per game) filling at 100.6%
2006: 2nd (20,509 per game)
2005: No Season - Thanks Gary

Forgive me if I don't completely buy into John Breslow being the knight in shining armor for the Coyotes because Gary's track record in being able to pick a winner is less-than stellar.

Even better still is that Jerry Reinsdorf was the guy Bettman was pushing as the guy who would get the sweetheart deal even though his plan was to fire Gretzky and move the team to Las Vegas in two years.

That makes me wonder if Bettman refers to Reinsdorf as "Boots" just out of habit. You know, since Boots Del Biaggio's whole plan with the Predators was to supposedly move them to Kansas City yet Bettman was completely unaware of all this.

What a joke.

Bettman's Cloak and Dagger in the Desert

It's quite amazing what this hurricane of scheisse that is the Phoenix Coyotes and Jim Balsillie Dance has done for the appearance of Gary Bettman the commissioner.

To the folks in Canada, he solidifies his position as the most hated man in the country by continuing to apparently deny Canada their seventh professional hockey team. Never mind that 15 years ago Canada used to have eight, that's beside the point here. Canada wants to bring a seventh team back "home" and Jim Balsillie is their cult leader at the helm.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not against Canada getting another team or two - I want it to happen and I want it to happen badly. My issue is with Jim Balsillie going about things the absolute wrong way to make it happen. That's all. I think Jim Balsillie would be the most fun owner to join the "club" in a long, long time and would help draw more attention to the league and for good reasons.

I maintained a couple of weeks ago when this story broke that there was something really wrong with how things broke down with the situation in Phoenix and while onwer Jerry Moyes being desperate to get out of owning an NHL team that's bleeding money is part of that and Jim Balsillie looking to grossly overpay for a team and move them back to his home is key here, there are other parts to this story that aren't getting the airtime or notice and guess who that all falls on?

That's right: Herr Bettman.

Who am I not going to take issue with here are the folks in Phoenix who are the tried and true fans of this team and are caught in the middle of this mess like kids in a divorce settlement. There's only one way the kids really win out here and that's if their parents can reconcile and get a solution worked out and that doesn't appear to be on the horizon.

After all, when you're a fan in this situation you're completely helpless and you have to hope that a solution that works well for you can be had. Let's face it, this is an ugly and dire situation in Phoenix and a team that loses this much money isn't marketable to other owners in it's current location and a solution to make money has to be found to be able to pawn it off to some other sucker, I mean owner.

What sucks about this situation for the fans in Phoenix is that their hero is also the guy looking to save his own skin and why he's operating a sick sort of cloak and dagger operation.


80s movie reference so deep Dennis Miller is at a loss for words.

Leave it to Gary Bettman to play the part of the parent who bad-mouths the other parent to the kids to show how much he loves them while saying things to his attorney (PDF), in this case Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, that contradict those sentiments completely.

It would figure that Bettman would manage to find a way to drag fans that had their team run away from them as part of the Great Southern NHL Manifest Destiny and get them all excited all over again all in a means to save his own skin while chapping the ass of the guy that's looking to fork over nearly $100 million dollars more than what's being asked of others for a team that's been losing $30-$40 million a year.

It would also make sense that Bettman would make sure to keep it a big secret that the NHL has been in control of the Coyotes since November 2008 while it sniffed around to find other potential owners of the club.

Meanwhile, in this story from AZCentral.com dated April 29th, the Coyotes denied that the NHL was in control and that everything else was just fine. Well who in the world would ask them to stay hush-hush about this because it might hurt the prospect of finding new buyers for the team?

Oh, right.

Look at this quote, it's amazing considering that it would just be days later the truth would be revealed.

Coyotes President Doug Moss refuted that report late Wednesday night, saying the league has not assumed control of the Coyotes.

"We are not reporting to the league," he said. "We report to (owner) Jerry Moyes. I'm dealing with things in my area, the business side, and Donnie (General Manager Don Maloney) is dealing with the hockey side.

"It's business as usual. He's preparing for the draft. I'm preparing for next year on marketing and sales."

This is stunning that a team could just spin the tires in the mud like this. This portrays the Coyotes management acting like the Wizard of Oz after they've looked behind the curtain.

This means that since November, since the second month of the season, the NHL has been pulling the strings of the Coyotes, a team that wasn't fully out of the playoff hunt until there was about a month left to go in the season, you know, around the trade deadline when Phoenix started lopping off valuable baubles like Olli Jokinen and Derek Morris.

The catch here is that Coyotes GM Don Maloney isn't a sham of a general manager and was able to get a nice return or else everyone's red flags would be waving all over the place, especially after how well Olli Jokinen and Derek Morris worked out for the Flames and Rangers respectively. It still doesn't sit well with me that a team that was still within a distant shot of the final playoff spot decided to pack it in rather than empty both barrels and go for the playoffs.

It's all water under the bridge now and Phoenix will help load the youth coffers in the draft yet again, something that a smart and wealthy person will recognize with the Coyotes. Something that one disturbingly wealthy Canadian has already recognized and is willing to throw money at anything possible to bring his team home.

If I'm on the board of governors and I've got some wild-eyed Canadian crazy man who is busy sponsoring just about everything that he can on the United States network that covers the NHL (that being NBC) and even starting up websites like Make It Seven to serve as the PR mouth of his operation... Isn't that the kind of attention-getting guy you want to have on your side rather than working against you?

Instead, the NHL chooses to look at Balsillie as an enemy combatant looking to horn in on their Good Time Fun Club any way that he can. Balsillie thinks that money can buy his way in and the owners tell him to get lost, meanwhile Bettman operates behind the scenes to try and play the role as Savior of the Coyotes meanwhile coming up with a contingency plan that finds a way to stick it to Balsillie and still find no one interested in buying the team to even move them to Winnipeg or Kansas City or anywhere else.

Well, maybe Jerry Bruckheimer can be convinced to bring them to Las Vegas for that other AEG tie-in, but that's just an even goofier side-plot.

Is this really how things operate in the big grown-up world of professional sports? Amazing.

What's hilarious here is how the public relations game played itself out from the get-go. Balsillie rides in to save the day for Jerry Moyes and his failing and bankrupt empire and Balsillie is set to ride off to Canada.

Meanwhile Bettman and gang step in to say that's not going to happen (and legally that's absolutely correct) and rather than be completely upfront about the situation in Phoenix all along, the league says all is well and that everyone will stay the same. And yet, all along, Bettman is searching around for someone to swoop in for the save (namely Jerry Reinsdorf) and keep the team in Phoenix so he doesn't suffer an epic PR hit for taking a team out of Canada and moving them to the desert where they ultimately failed and then had to tuck tail, literally, to move back to Canada.

Got all that? I'm sure there's a run-on sentence in there somewhere.

Unreal. No one is being truthful, at least no one was before all of this shit was thrown into the fan, and now that attention has been turned to the entire fiasco the scramble is on to save face and make sure no one is turned off to the NHL... at least in Phoenix.

Canada? Yeah, well, they're the ace in the hole Gary can count on. Canadians love hockey no matter what and they're not going to give up on the game. He can suffer the PR hits in Canada all he wants because he knows that Canadian fans aren't going anywhere and that they'll stick to the NHL for life. For fans in Winnipeg, Manitoba or Hamilton, Ontario they're going to be watching the Maple Leafs or Flames or Oilers every Saturday night on CBC and all season long on TSN whether there's a team in their backyard or not.

The Canadian NHL Fan is the closest thing Bettman has to a sure thing in his operation, they are his easy money. Getting more money out of Canadians by putting another franchise there doesn't excite him, especially if it means a team playing in an arena that doesn't pass the sniff test (like Copps Coliseum in Hamilton) or one that doesn't hold as many folks as they'd ideally like to see (MTS Centre in Winnipeg).

What can't Bettman afford to do? He can't afford to do what David Stern did so egregiously with the Seattle Super Sonics and just pick up stakes and move to an out-of-the-way place like Oklahoma City all while giving Seattle the finger and lecturing them about how to cave into the NBAs demands.

After all, we're not talking about the Coyotes demanding a new arena they've got that in Glendale with Jobing.com Arena. We're talking about a team that is bleeding money in a market that, media-wise, didn't give a damn about the Coyotes until they were about to run out of town and leave a hulking monument to failure in their backyard.

Bettman and the NHL can't afford (literally and figuratively) to have an empty year-round Jobing.com Arena stand as their legacy and run out of town screaming leaving one of the United States largest cities franchise-free with any and all of the fans they had left behind pissed off and hating the NHL forever. This isn't the kind of situation that happened when the Cardinals of the NFL left St. Louis for Arizona only to have the Rams move from Los Angeles to St. Louis later on.


If the NHL leaves Phoenix, this is what they'll be doing: Not just burning the bridge down, but blowing it up.

There may be a lot of fans in Phoenix and surrounding cities that love hockey, but they will never trust nor care about the NHL ever again should they leave town and every bridge out of town would be exploded and set ablaze to never come back to again. Phoenix would be Gary Bettman's failed experiment in expanding the NHL to new and unthinkable locations.

This is what is at stake here for the NHL and the fans in Phoenix, Scottsdale and Glendale are all caught in the middle. Bettman's e-mail to Bill Daly expressing his thoughts of going back to Winnipeg are a sign of fear.

After all, if things cannot be sustained or saved in Phoenix you might as well bring the team back home before exploring something new and different in Canada and deal with the legal wrangling that would have to take place with the Maple Leafs and Sabres not to mention potentially screwing Jim Balsillie out of his wishes to join the ownership club.

If Bettman were to take the Coyotes back to Winnipeg, he's viewed as a hero and a humbled one for righting a wrong and bringing a team back to Canada and back to a place that once had a much beloved franchise. If things are saved in Phoenix, then it's all status quo and the financial eye just locks in on the Coyotes even more for the time being and the new owners that come in get to play the part of saviors all at Gary's urging.

The only thing that will stay constant in all this is that Jim Balsillie will not be the knight in shining armor for southern Ontario because that's the side in all this that everyone wants no part in...

Unless your name is Jerry Moyes and there's $215 million at stake in the matter for you.

Something Rotten In The State of Arizona

Tell me where we've heard this one before.

Team in a non-traditional hockey market is in financial trouble.

A whimsical super-rich maven from southern Ontario wants to grossly and disturbingly overpay for the team and move them to his home, back in Gary's Hate Zone in Ontario, Canada.

Not sure where you read about this before?

It was right freakin' here.

It's like Jim Balsillie wants to keep me busy writing because after going after the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Nashville Predators and now he's hot after the Phoenix Coyotes.

Why the Coyotes? Because their owner Jerry Moyes has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

"Extensive efforts have been undertaken to sell the team, or attract additional investors, who would keep the team in Glendale," said Coyotes' Chief Executive Officer and Managing Member Jerry Moyes.

"Creating a process under the supervision of a judge assures that anyone wishing to purchase the team will have the opportunity to bid. Likewise, the City of Glendale, which has been very cooperative with efforts to keep the team in Glendale, will be able to provide potential buyers assurances of the City's willingness to offer incentives to keep the team as a tenant in the Jobing.com arena, the lease for which is subject to rejection in bankruptcy," Moyes stated.

"The process assures that the identities of the new owner and the team's location will be known by June 30, 2009, thus enabling the NHL to include the team in its 2009-10 schedule."

Cutting things awfully close, aren't we Jerry?

Then there's the... Let's call it "timeliness" of Balsillie's offer to buy the Coyotes.

This evening myself, as well as other NHL bloggers, received an e-mail from the Managing Director of causeacommotion.com, letting us in about the efforts to help get the word out about Mr. Balsillie's bid to buy the Coyotes and their urge to get folks to get connected at their website Make It Seven, a nod for the push to get a seventh NHL team to come to Canada.

From the official press release put out by the Make It Seven:

Jim Balsillie tabled an offer today to purchase the PhoenixCoyotes, following the team's bankruptcy filing. The offer to purchase the team for $212.5 million (U.S.) is conditional on relocation to Southern Ontario, to become the seventh NHL franchise in Canada.

"The current team ownership asked that I table an offer to purchase the Coyotes and significant discussions resulted in an offer that is in the best interests of the franchise, the NHL, and the great hockey fans of Canada and Southern Ontario," Mr. Balsillie said.

"I am excited to move closer to bringing an NHL franchise to what I believe is one of the best un-served hockey markets in the world, Southern Ontario. A market with devoted hockey fans, a rich hockey history, a growing and diversified economy and a population of more than 7 million people," he said.

At the request of the Coyotes franchise owner, Mr. Balsillie has also agreed to post
debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing of $17 million (U.S.). Debtor in possession
financing is bridge financing provided when a company is in an insolvency proceeding which allows the company to continue to operate through the proceeding in advance of a restructuring or sale.

Prior to a final decision being reached on the proposed sale, he called for Canadian fans who want to see a seventh NHL franchise in Canada to make their voices heard.

Obviously, that's a nice hand-picked piece of PR cotton candy fluff and you can't expect me to eat it up.

So I'm not going to.


Balsillie's Blackberry Moving Company: I wonder if he's got a hook up with Swift Trucking?

There's something amiss here about how all of this just happened to blow up on the same night. It's probably not out of the realm of possibilities that Moyes and Balsillie have been working on a plan together that is mutually beneficial, something hinted upon here by James Mirtle.

It gets Moyes out of being an NHL owner with an obscene lease agreement with the city of Glendale, Arizona that agreed to build him a new arena and back fully into his trucking company, Swift Transportation.

It then gives Balsillie the open door to play the White Knight and save a financially addled team and bring them back to his home in Canada.

Sounds great, doesn't it? I know I sure thought so when Balsillie was doing this dance with the Predators before. The difference between then and now is that back then, it really seemed like he was doing the right thing.

This situation with Jerry Moyes and the Coyotes stinks to high hell and it's so obvious that there's something wrong here that even the NHL has declared shenanigans. From NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly:

We have just become aware of today's Bankruptcy Court filing purportedly made on behalf of the Phoenix Coyotes. We are investigating the circumstances surrounding the petition, including the propriety of its filing. We have removed Jerry Moyes from all positions of authority to act for or on behalf of the Club. The League will appear and proceed before the Bankruptcy Court in the best interests of all of the Club's constituencies, including its fans in Arizona and the League's 29 other Member Clubs.

You see that? Balsillie and Moyes served the NHL, the NHL served right back - now it's officially on.

The response to all this from blindsided Coyotes fans is not pleasant. There are too many posts to link over at Five For Howling, but I urge you to give it a look and a bookmark to keep tabs on this situation because over the next few weeks there's going to be a lot happening with this.

You would think that after going through this song and dance with the NHL and the Board of Governors twice already that Balsillie would have a better plan of attack and would actually, you know, really try to sweeten up to these old farts and curmudgeons and make them want to take his millions of dollars.

Instead (let me flex my geek muscles here) he's playing the part of Admiral Ozzel in The Empire Strikes Back thinking that surprising the Board of Governors was the best way to go about getting his way.

Now's the part where I get to bust out with a Darth Vader comeback for Jim Balsillie, and it's tough for me to say this considering the guy is the inventor of the friggin' BlackBerry but: You're as clumsy as you are stupid.

Since the NHL has basically seized control of the Coyotes until the bankruptcy hearing on Thursday and depending on the outcome of that what we've got brewing here is a situation that makes folks recall the plight of the Montréal Expos in Major League Baseball.

Think about it. Shifty ownership making a brash move to get what they want, the league shuffles pieces around to make it work all the while taking control of a team while they search for a new owner.

Remember how that turned out? Yeah... not so well for Montréal.

So what is the end game here? Obviously for Balsillie it's to obtain the Coyotes and get them moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It always has been and it always will be his motive and he's obviously got the money to burn to pull it off... Just so long as he plays nice enough with the NHL to make it work - something he seems to either not know how to do or not want to do.

I always was quick to side with Balsillie and bought the whole push before about just wanting to do right by the game of hockey and bring a team back "home" to Canada. Now that he's teamed up with a shyster like Jerry Moyes to try and fast track a deal to get himself a team and run screaming away from a situation that while dire and God-freaking-awful with that wretched lease agreement

For Moyes it's to get out of owning the Coyotes and away from losing multiple millions of dollars in Glendale, Arizona under a lease agreement that won't allow him to just pick up and leave on his own. Between Balsillie and Moyes, Moyes comes across like the truest villain of the bunch as he's more than ready to just walk away from everything. Considering that the City of Glendale has more often than not helped him out, he doesn't seem to care about the team, the city and certainly not about the fans.

Keep on truckin' asshole.

As for the NHL and Gary Bettman... Saving face. That's always the trick with the league but this time they've been put in a bad place by Moyes and Balsillie alike and after seeing how things transpired this evening, the NHL has a pretty strong case on their hands to stuff it in Moyes' face hard that he's the guy that screwed this up. The catch there is that it still leaves the NHL on the hook with the team and figuring out what to do with the Coyotes and their overbearing lease agreement.

If the NHL and the City of Glendale can get a renegotiated lease agreement figured out, there's no reason why finding a more reasonable buyer for the team can't be found thus giving Moyes what he wants but still boning over Jim Balsillie.

Then again, perhaps Balsillie should've thought better about teaming up with Jerry Moyes to try and pull a fast one on everyone. I dig Balsillie, I dig his passion and I dig his love of hockey. I also like that he's a crazy bastard and would really be a great owner to have around to mess with Bettman.

What I can't believe is that a guy who is this good of a businessman with BlackBerry would be this obviously reckless in dealing with the NHL. It blows my mind that this guy could be this dumb about business and go for what amounts to be a hostile takeover of the Coyotes.

He has to know that if things are that out of hand with the ownership that the league would just step in and take over. He couldn't possibly think this was a coin flip deal where either the team goes bankrupt and folds or he steps in and plays the hero.

What Jim Balsillie apparently hasn't realized is that the professional sports world, especially the NHL, doesn't operate by the same rules and use the same handbook that the real world does and this is a lesson he's continuing to learn the very hard way. The highest bid doesn't always win in the NHL and hostile takeovers just don't happen.

The NHL operates in Bizarro World. Plain and simple and going by the executive world playbook is not going to get it done, especially when everyone else in the board room seems to hate your guts.

ECAC Weekend With A Twist

Normally I'd make this my recap post from a great weekend in which there were three fantastic hockey games played. Yale's 5-0 whitewashing of Cornell doesn't exactly qualify as a great game, but hey, two one-goal games on Friday night including a double-overtime thriller in which both games winners had to come back from a deficit late in the game to win it is pretty awesome.

Something came to light yesterday thanks to a couple of folks dropping me an e-mail to let me know that there were a couple big time hockey luminaries in attendance in Albany.

One of them is TSN's Bob McKenzie. Now I had assumed that Bob would be in Albany since, you know, his son Mike plays for St. Lawrence. Bob has made a couple of posts on USCHO's message board to say that he was indeed in town and that he tries to be there for all of Mike's games.

Pretty cool dad, wouldn't you say?

Bob was on NHL Live this afternoon discussing his trip into Albany where he let it be known that it was indeed true he wasn't the only familiar NHL face there that weekend. The other guy that was here?


Some might say he's got a complex.

That's right - Gary Bettman.

I'm sure you're wondering what in the world would Gary Bettman be doing at the very poorly attended ECAC Championships in Albany. Perhaps he was learning a few more tricks on how to think a half-empty arena is acceptable for attendance.

Maybe...


Gary might've thought he was in Atlanta, not Albany.

Turns out he was there to support his alma mater.

You see, Gary is a Cornell University graduate, something which Cornell is proud of. I'd like to think that Cornell might want to, you know, keep that one a little more under wraps considering he's not exactly a glowing example of academia.

Oh sure, the title is great, he runs a major professional sports league - a fantastic level of achievement and distinction. Then again, he's helped make the sport into a joke and has mismanaged it into a consistent punchline of how not to do things.

Wonderful.

Now here's where I'll out myself a little bit as I was a faceless, anonymous Internet blogger and make it seem as if I knew he was going to be in the house to throw things in his face. I came dressed for insult for Gary.

Any of you who were in attendance at the ECAC Championships may have spotted one suave individual wearing the finest of old school throwback NHL jerseys and it turns out you can really stick out like a sore thumb when sitting in amongst the red and white clad Cornell folks when you're wearing these fine relics of past NHL greatness:



Hockey Joe on a Friday night.



Hockey Joe on a Saturday night.

No, I wasn't decked out in a Red Wings jersey meant to fit in with the Cornell folks. I wasn't wearing a new, snazzy, overpriced Reebok Edge jersey to show how much more money I was willing to fork over to Gary's Empire of Bad Ideas.

Old school, baby.

Old school squads that Gary's Raw Deal helped run out of existence.

I'd love to say I knew that he would be there and I did it on purpose to shove it all in his face and have it be my way of providing him with the middle finger that only Ken Holland can give him best.


You still can't hear me Gary? Allow me to turn it up.

I'd love to say that.

But I can't.

It's pure coincidence that it worked out that way and while that sucks for me that I didn't scheme up this MENSA brainchild of a reminder to Gary that the way things used to be are more beloved and more cherished than anything he's schemed up since taking charge of the league.

I will pat myself on the back for pulling it off anyhow.

I'm just a little disappointed that either I didn't spot Gary myself or he didn't spot me and then commend/berate me on my choice of fashion. I think it would've gone down similar to an infamous movie encounter...


Dream Sequence: Hockey Joe (left) runs into Gary Bettman (right) at the ECAC Championships.

OK so that's a bit overplayed, but that's how it plays out in my head.

Bite me.

Gary, next time you're in Albany I'd love to chat. I'll be easy to find as I'll have another relic from the past to help me stand out, just don't think I'll go changing up my site after we get to talk though. I know you pulled some fun on Wyshynski over at Yahoo because after you talked to him, his link for "Gary Bettman - Commissioner For Life" topics seems to disappear from the right side of his page (although it still can be found at the bottom of entries).

The invitation is always open, just drop me a line next time.

Kisses!

An Opening Night Sing-Along

You know the song well, and frankly, I've been sitting on this video for a while.

It's made some circulation around the hockey blogosphere, but it's either going to be me or the guys at www.FireBettman.com that should bust this out to kick off the new season.

Without further ado - it's time we got this thing started. Sing along as loud as you can when Herr Bettman rears his trollish midget self out on the ice at Joe Louis Arena tonight.

Paranoid and Mistrusting

Hey, remember when I was spitballing the idea that Phillip Anschutz and Tim Leiweke of the Los Angeles Kings were scheming their way towards finding a way to fill up the Spirit Center Arena in Kansas City, Missouri?

Sure you do, you read it here and you're a loyal reader and enjoy when I get rambling about things that aggravate me.

Apparently the New York Post's Larry Brooks is big enough and important enough (read: writes for a New York City paper) to get a direct explanation from Leiweke himself about what it is that they're up to.

Consider me distrustful of those in great power with great wealth:

"Our interest was in the facility, not in the team," Leiweke said. "The
loan did not come from AEG Sports, but through AEG Facilities.

"We analyzed the situation and concluded that the Predators would be locked
into Nashville for a long time. Our interest had nothing to do with Kansas City,
but rather in getting the long-term management rights to [Sommet Center]."

Basically, all of this speculation and questioning of the situation surrounds Boots Del Biaggio being a lying scumbag who managed to pull one over on everyone involved in the situation. Leiweke, Anschutz, and Craig Leipold were all suckered in by this trickster. Gary Bettman, at least according to Leiweke, carries no blame.

"I'd been assured by Boots that [the loan] had been fully vetted with Gary,
but believing that is just one of the mistakes I made that I regret," Leiweke
said. "I should have disclosed the information myself.

"The loan was through AEG Facilities and not the corporate ownership of the
Los Angeles Kings. We had nothing to hide. The commissioner not knowing about it
makes it looks worse than it is, but we have nobody to blame for that but
ourselves."

OK so Gary is blameless and knew nothing about the financial dealings of his friends (possible) and in the financial dealings that affect the teams in the league that he runs (highly doubtful).

Pardon me if I feel the slightest bit skeptical about this.

Also pardon me if I feel really skeptical about what Leiweke is dealing out about how there's no plans and that there's nothing actually going on and that AEG's involvement is strictly with the building and not with the team that inhabits it.

Obviously with such entangling alliances between businesses this can make everything look very convoluted (which, it is) and it allows for this kind of admittedly asinine speculation - but sometimes, real life likes to interject a little fun into things to feed the fire.

Case in point, the NHL preseason schedule offers this fodder for further Mel Gibson in "Conspiracy Theory" type of overreacting:

Monday September 22nd

Los Angeles (split squad) vs. St. Louis, at Kansas City, Mo.
(Sprint Center), 8 p.m.

You know, I get it that it's likely AEG doing their part to throw a bone to one of their other arenas, especially one that they're trying to fill up with a team or two since, you know, that helps these arenas and their owners make a lot of money. Generally what happens (although not so much) is they send the big team to play a game in preseason at the home of their minor league affiliate.

Sure, that would seem like a hiccup and AEG is just looking to audition, right?

Not so fast! More rampant speculation ahead!

Saturday September 27th

Colorado vs. Los Angeles, at Las Vegas, Nev. (MGM
Grand), 10 p.m.

So now the Kings are playing two games away from Los Angeles and they just happen to be playing one of them in an AEG owned arena in Kansas City, a city and arena desperate to add an NHL or NBA team and they're playing a game in Las Vegas, a city that many have been pushing to add an NHL team and to break the stigma of having professional sports in the gambling capital of the United States.

I just wonder if we'll spot a picture of Phillip Anschutz cozying up to Jerry Bruckheimer at the game in Vegas. Why? Oh, I don't know... seems like they could be good friends too.

A group led by Bruckheimer, an avid hockey fan, is the front-runner for the Las
Vegas expansion and has been in talks with NHL officials for months, sources
said. Additionally, Bruckheimer has had discussions with AEG officials about
that group potentially building and/or operating an NHL arena in Las Vegas. AEG
President & CEO Tim Leiweke would not comment on that, but said in a
statement, "Jerry is like a brother. I will be there to support him anywhere he
wants to go." Bruckheimer is said to be the leader of a group of entertainment
execs, including MGM Studios Chair & CEO Harry Evans Sloan, who want to own
the Las Vegas team.

I can't imagine where I'd get such crazy conspiracy ideas from that maybe, just maybe, Phil Anschutz and AEG don't have the best of intentions for the L.A. Kings and that they're scouting out other locations to see what works best.

I must be crazy!

Even Larry Brooks Gets It!

Larry Brooks of the New York Post is a guy who doesn't often get things right and he's hell-bent on sticking up for the Players Association which, by default, makes him an enemy of Gary Bettman's state. This is something we appreciate - it's what I do here after all.

Apparently someone told Larry that there is hockey news going on in the offseason and a lot of it circles around Gary Bettman being a bumbling idiot who looks the other ways when his ownership buddies get involved in floating loans to broke other ownership buddies.

No, really, Larry noticed - have a look here.

One thing of note here that Brooks or the interns and bloggers he's getting his information and creativity from, to which I didn't even think of and my slant isn't exactly hidden here, is that Phillip Anschutz, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings and one of the guys propping up Boots Del Biaggio, might be working an angle of his own to get a team to Kansas City. Their plan to get the Penguins fell through, Boots Del Biaggio went broke so there went the Predators. Now what?

How about his team.

The Los Angeles Kings.

Say what?!

Tell it to us Larry:

The NHL may have looked the other way during the first week of 2007, when
Kings governor Tim Leiweke visited Kansas City and did his AEG ownership's
bidding by lobbying for the Penguins to move to the AEG-owned and operated arena
in KC should things have fallen through in Pittsburgh, but the league doesn't
appear to be looking away now.

It isn't looking away at what from the outside appears to be a blatant
conflict of interest and from the inside might be violations of the NHL
Constitution and League By-Laws by AEG, which secretly agreed to loan the
now-indicted "Boots" Del Baggio $7 million for use toward becoming part of the
ownership group of the Predators, coincidentally enough another candidate to
move to Kansas City.

Oh really?! Well what in the world would one of the big wigs with the Los Angeles Kings be doing in Kansas City? The Kings are doing fine in Los Angeles. Clearly this is just a case of Tim Leiweke trying to help his other business arrangements make more money, right?

Preach on Larry:

But AEG, LA owner Phil Anschutz and Leiweke have somehow amassed real power
within the league despite running one of the NHL's eyesore franchises. The Kings
have missed the playoffs five straight seasons and in eight of the 12 seasons
Anschutz has owned the team. They have won one playoff round (in 2001) since
their 1993 trip to the Cup Finals.

They are likely to have the league's lowest payroll this season while GM
Dean Lombardi sheds anyone with market value over the age of 25, yet have raised
prices this offseason while promising to do so again next summer.

Ownership could not care less about putting a winning product on the ice,
instead it's consumed with manufacturing a scheme that will place an NHL team in
AEG's arena in Kansas City.

Well, my mistake then.

So let me play the role here of the junior detective in this game of Clue:

Tim Leiweke and Phillip Anschultz are both financially involved with the L.A. Kings as owners.

Leiweke works for AEG Entertainment.

Phillip Anschultz is the "A" in AEG Entertainment.

Leiweke and Anschultz supported the sale of the Penguins to a group ready to move the Pens to Kansas City in an AEG owned and built arena.

Anschultz floated money to his friend Boots Del Biaggio to help him buy a stake in the Nashville Predators.

Del Biaggio apparently had plans in place ready to both buy the majority share of the Predators and then have the team bolt town for Kansas City to the AEG owned arena - an arena owned by the group once the Predators, presumably, fell short of ticket sale commitments and broke the lease with the Metro Group of Nashville.

Anschultz is currently running an L.A. Kings team that is, as of this writing, $12.3 million dollars under the NHL salary floor ($27.7 million in salaries, the floor is $40 million).

Anschultz raised ticket prices for Kings games this year despite the team being one of the worst in the league last season and doing so under the promise of bringing a winner to the Staples Center in the coming seasons.

Anschultz Entertainment Group has a stake in ownership of the Staples Center and makes plenty of money from ticket sales of the NBA's Lakers and Clippers as well as the Kings and other events held there.

Anschultz Entertainment Group also owns the Sprint Center Arena in Kansas City, Missouri which currently has zero major professional sports tenants.

Now, I don't have to be a genius here to see that adding a professional sports team to the Sprint Center Arena would help fill up a lot more dates (about 41, maybe more depending on playoff success) on the schedule. The Staples Center currently hosts 80+ NBA games a season with the Lakers and Kings as well as numerous large arena rock concerts and whatever else they want to come to Los Angeles.

In short, the Staples Center won't lose out at all if the Kings were to go away. The Anschultz Entertainment Group would help line their pockets a lot more by bringing a professional team to Kansas City and filling up their spanking new 18,000 seat arena.

Interestingly enough, part of the agreement AEG signed with Kansas City to build the Sprint Center Arena was this:

Anschutz Entertainment Group of Los Angeles has signed an agreement to
contribute $50-million of the $250-million cost of the project, which will
replace Kemper Arena as the city's main indoor sports center.

The agreement calls for Anschutz to cover any cost overruns AND operating deficits,
manage the arena for 35-years and work to attract both an NHL and an NBA teams.

And lookee what we have here... two failed bids to bring previously floundering NHL franchises to Kansas City and now the guy who has a binding agreement with a city to fill up his new arena with a professional franchise who has a majority stake in a current franchise that he's running into the ground.

And, amazingly, out of all of this - with guys like Anschultz and Craig Leipold (who is as guilty as sin in this as well for floating loans to Del Biaggio) who are great friends of Gary Bettman - Bettman knew NOTHING of his friends sending money to a broke loser to help keep the dream alive of sending the Predators to Kansas City so Anschultz wouldn't have to fill his new arena himself.

Right.

Who wants to start crafting the Kansas City Kings logos now?

Lies and the Lying Liars That Cut Deals With Them

Ahem.

Gary, we need to have a talk.

Quoth The Tennessean:

Doug Bergeron, a California-based Canadian investor and entrepreneur and
president of DGB Investments, was among those to whom Del Biaggio tried to
market a share of the Predators.

Bergeron said Del Biaggio told him in December that
National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman's office had given special
permission for Del Biaggio to buy a share of the team without being subjected to
all the scrutiny the league usually gives to prospective owners. Del Biaggio
told him the commissioner's office did not require him to show audited financial
statements before it approved him.

If that wasn't fun enough, here's the verbage straight from Bergeron's mouth.

Boots bragged to me that he was able to convince Bettman's office to overlook
the need for his audited financial statements because it was too
much work.

Not that I needed to say it but, emphasis mine in that quote.

Too much work? Really? So, let's run down Herr Bettman's magic hit list of wonderment:


Tradition? Hates it.

Canada? Hates it. A little less so now that they make money, but still, not a fan.

Fiesty Canadian billionaire geniuses? Hates them.

Doing his job? Not a big fan.

Finding the easy way out every time?

Oh hell yeah!

I know, I'd rather be writing about fun hockey news, but this nonsense is too much to ignore.

Ladies and gentlemen - your commissioner. The garden variety weasel:

To be somewhat fair to Bettman, the facts unleashed in this story out of The Tennessean are quite damning of Boots Del Biaggio and his terrible management of money and ability to massage other people and glad hand his way into getting involved with the Nashville investment group and making others believe he was awash in cash.

This makes Bettman one of many who got fooled by Del Biaggio and would normally lend itself to feeling bad for him and others, like the Nashville Metropolitan Council, who took it on the chin from this scumbag.

Nashville Metro, however, is only a victim because Gary's backroom dealing with a friend by convenience (convenience in that his name wasn't Jim Balsillie) made it all possible. After all, The Tennessean makes this point as clear as day:

Metro had such confidence in the thoroughness of the NHL's vetting process that
it relied heavily on the league and the chief lender, CIT Group, to do the
financial vetting of the prospective Predators owners.

This says a lot about what happens when you fish out the work you should be doing for yourself and it's a lesson that isn't lost on the Metro Council now, I'm sure.

The point being here that the NHL goes through a painstaking process to approve new owners and they've got a pretty good recent history of turning down verified big money people that want to buy teams. Jim Balsillie wasn't the first billionaire to get shot down for the Pittsburgh Penguins, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban got it too.

Bettman opened the door here though. Do not forget this.

By skirting the process and speed delivering Boots to not only make sure that the Predators didn't go anywhere but also to shut out Balsillie, Bettman nearly commits to the self-fulfilling prophecy in that the Predators may not have much time left in the city of Nashville. Nashville and their investors were at least smart enough to get legally binding assurances and protection from anything that might go wrong in the process, but the fact is, this team is in trouble again and this time, the league and Gary Bettman are doing them no favors by mishandling their dealings.

What a nightmare.

Bettman should be ashamed of himself for this, but he's already put Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly to work spinning the company line that they dotted every "I" and crossed every "T" in the process, but thankfully, we know better thanks to the words from Doug Bergeron.

A Modest Proposal

It's interesting that in this hockey-centric blog that the word "modesty" is being mentioned at all this time of year. NHL general managers can't wait to get rid of the money the owners make and spend it recklessly on players who may, and likely, may not have earned their new paychecks. A statement like that should be linked with articles talking about such insane money-tossing, but those are too numerous to count right now.

Suffice to say, a guy like Jeff Finger, who only two years ago I was watching carve up the ice in Albany for the AHL River Rats, is now making $3.5 million a year for the Maple Leafs and he hasn't even played 100 NHL games yet nor could he crack the starting lineup more often than not for the Avalanche in the playoffs last year.

But I digress.

I'd like to talk about how Herr Bettman's love of all things American could be put to best use, rather than ripping him for doing so ad nauseum, which I've developed a bit of a penchant for doing.

My source for this inspiration actually derives from a miserable failing of Bettman's former boss and role model, David Stern who recently acted as the hitman for the murder of professional basketball in Seattle.

That's right, the city to a former NBA Champion, the Supersonics won the NBA Championship in 1979, you know, when the NBA was a floundering league that had its title games aired in tape delay on CBS and was overwraught with drug problems.

Seattle's only professional sports championship is courtesy of the Sonics. Seattle also is a big time legitimate city in the United States, at least as far as media market rankings go. Seattle/Tacoma is 14th largest in the United States and has been a city without a professional, NHL-level team since 1924.

Hell, the first American Stanley Cup Champions were the Seattle Metropolitans in 1917.

What's most heinous here is that the main beef for the Sonics shuffling off to the wilds of Oklahoma City (Market size 45 according to Nielsen) is the way Stern has basically told Seattle, "If you ever want to see the NBA again, you'll build us a new arena."

It's this sort of attitude that the NHL and Bettman should take advantage of and work with the city to show that they care and are willing to play the role of the white knight.

During the ridiculous Nashville ownership wranglings, writers and speculators made it a point to pick out different U.S. markets that are interested in and would love to take on NHL franchises. Cities like Las Vegas (thanks to Jerry Bruckheimer's interest in owning a team) and Kansas City (due to the availability of a spacious new 18,000 seat arena) were the places picked out as most logical.

Seattle rarely, if ever, entered into the equation.

Why? Well, it's pretty likely that the answer lies in Canada.

A move to Seattle would, almost assuredly, get the dander up of the Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini. Seattle sits 140 miles to the south of Vancouver and Vancouver's claim to the region would be highly challenged putting a team in a large, U.S. market that, the Canucks would argue, watches and loves the Canucks.

I'm sure there are many arguments into the validity of this, but let's face it, 140 miles isn't that far away, a two to three hour drive away at most. Such closeness is surely a great argument in favor of the Canucks keeping their hold over the market and them having any fans leeched away from a team being located in Seattle must be valid.

Wait... what's that? Buffalo and Toronto are only 93 miles apart? Both teams sell out their arenas? They have a thriving rivalry? Toronto fans go out of their way to get tickets in Buffalo to see games there because they're cheaper tickets and easier to land than Leafs tickets? All of these things happen and neither team loses anything being so close?

Huh...

Well then.

So, tell me Gary, why wouldn't you want to do this? Why wouldn't you want to ride in and work out a deal with the city of Seattle to move say... the Florida Panthers or Atlanta Thrashers to Seattle with the help of Starbucks owner and champion of all things Seattle, Howard Schultz? After all, Schultz wants to bring a law suit against the NBA and the owner of the now Oklahoma City NBA franchise, Clay Bennett.

Schultz loves pro sports in Seattle so much, you'd like to think he'd be behind a project to bring a floundering NHL franchise to the city, you know, to fill the void. Think of the marketing potential Gary. Starbucks is the biggest brand of coffee in the world now. Their shops are everywhere, and in the western U.S. there is none bigger to compete with them.

You hear that Gary? A product known worldwide and has a foothold stronger than anything in the Western United States! Think of the potential!

It's been pretty clear that hockey in South Florida is a miserable failure. No, I know Gary, they made the Cup Finals in 1996 and leaving a city that's had a taste of success would be tragic.

What about Atlanta then Gary? They're currently a two-time failure at holding the interest of the fans. Nevermind the fact that Atlanta is a brutally awful professional sports market, this is a place that still finds it necessary to point out the most mundane aspects of hockey to its paying customers by announcing them over the public address.

Yes folks, we know the rules to icing are confusing and maybe the rules to offsides might be a bit hard to understand, but don't worry, the Thrashers PA guy will tell you what it is every time it happens. Brilliant move Gary - you should make sure they stick it out in Atlanta.

If Bettman isn't going to find a way to contract franchises and if he wants to make the right move and play the good guy for once, sweet talk Howard Schultz and tell him there's another sport that plays games between October and June. Tell him there's another way to bring fun to the people of Seattle. Tell him you'll work out a way to help pay for a new arena in Seattle and make sure that the people of Seattle don't have to pay for it.

Be the good guy Gary. Save face on one of your failed southern experiments and send them north. No, not to Canada. Send them to Seattle and resurrect the ghosts of the Metropolitans, much like the NHL did in Ottawa with the Senators.

Oh, and, uh, Gary, ignore this little connection of Blackberry and Starbucks while you're at it - I'd hate for you to toss out this idea spitefully.

Hockey Christmas Eve - And I'm The Grinch

All through the NHL houses, visions of Sundin and Rolston and Campbell are dancing through many GM's heads and here I am ready to tip over the tree, set it on fire and set to pee on the train set because the engineer is a real creep.

No, seriously - this guy needs to get thrown out of office, and fast.

You're probably wondering where my analysis of which free agents are going where and why I think they're going to these places. That's all well and good, but I know just about as much as every other yokel on the internet who writes about hockey.

OK maybe I know more than that guy, but that's not saying much at all. After all, I'm convinced he comes up with his super-secret rumors and sources by using one of these.

That's all besides the point here. Back when I started this silly enterprise last year, the hot story that I jumped on was that of the yellow-journalism PR machine victim Jim Balsillie. At the time, all we knew about this guy was that he once wanted the Penguins, but he dared to say that he would think about moving them closer to his Research In Motion home of Hamilton, Ontario. Then he stepped up with an asinine bid for the Nashville Predators, something I said the NHL and the Board of Governors would be crazy to not approve.

After all, Balsillie is a Canadian awash in money as the inventor of the greatest technological marvel this side of the iPod and all he wants to do is bring even more hockey home to Canada...and isn't afraid to tell everyone and their family about how he wants to do it. Balsillie's problem, however, is that he was too brash. He was too obvious about his plans for the Predators and his wont to move them to Hamilton, even going so far as to start taking advance season ticket sales at the Copps Coliseum for the eventual Hamilton Predators. After all, how was the NHL going to turn down that much money for what for all intents and purposes is a loser franchise?

Easy. He wants to move them to Canada and he wants to be very hands on with the operation which goes against most of the current NHL "standards" of operating a team like an absentee landlord. The NHL and Balsillie were being tempted by the people in Kansas City offering up a brand new mega-super-amenity-filled arena and 18,000+ seats to fill, an avenue I've no doubt Bettman is keeping in his back pocket for another loser team. Balsillie resisted and started figuring out what he could do about building a new facility in Hamilton, how long it would take, what the costs would be - all of it.

This kind of forward thinking and action is something that upsets the NHL Suits, especially Bettman - a man best known for his ability to hold a grudge and to be petulant at the drop of a hat. He didn't appreciate Balsillie or anything that he was doing all without the go-ahead from the Board of Governors or himself. He claimed there were issues with Balsillie's bid and that they were "skeptical" of Balsillie's plans for the team. Talk about foolish.

It's foolish considering Balsillie couldn't hold back from tipping his hand about what he wanted to do. Foolish in that the league and the other owners would ultimately turn down that much money from a legitimate source all because he wants to rain on Herr Bettman's Sun Belt U.S.A. Road Show. Remember that?

Turns out that the Board and Herr Bettman are still hanging on to that dream. Why? Because they trusted that a guy with no money. Oh sure, he claimed to be worth multiple millions of dollars and was even good enough to at one time have a stake in the San Jose Sharks as well but the problem is, he claimed a team that loses money annually and partakes heavily in the NHL Revenue Sharing to help stay afloat was his top asset.

Oops.

If there's anything that will attract the attention of the IRS and the FBI, it's claiming something in the red as your top earning point. In fact, one could argue that perhaps Boots Del Biaggio thought he was escaping to a different country by moving from California to Tennessee. How else can you explain this:

Del Biaggio lists $88.43 million due to creditors, including $10 million to former Preds owner Craig Leipold, according to a summary of his assets and liabilities filed in federal bankruptcy court in Northern California on Monday. He lists $53.9 million in assets, including $12.1 million in real property, all in California.

He still owes money to the guy he bought his stake in the team from, he's filed for bankruptcy and the Feds are still snooping around on him.

All of that and he is still a better option for Bettman and Co. Why? Because Boots guaranteed the team would stay in the good ole U.S. of A! Whether it was in Nashville, if the lease thing came apart, or in Kansas City or Las Vegas or wherever else - Del Biaggio getting a piece of the action meant the team was staying put because Del Biaggio made sure to make that the case.

What's all the more concerning with this situation is the fact that two very close Bettman confidantes floated Boots big-time loans. Kings owner Phillip Anschutz and Wild owner Craig Leipold, the same guy Boots bought his stake in the Predators from, floated Del Biaggio a $17 million loan to help him buy his stake in the Predators.

I repeat the important part of this story and cannot stress this enough:

"Anschutz and Leipold are on Gary's executive committee," says one
high-ranking NHL source. "These are guys who are at the power centre of the
league, close to Gary, and supposed to be his best allies. And here they were
lending Del Biaggio money, and not telling Gary, at a time when they were
supposed to be reviewing his offer to become an owner.

"It stinks."

Take what you will that this comes from the ever-mistifying anonymous source, but my cynicism lends me to believe it. Take that for what it's worth.

What's the cake topper of all of this, the part that screams to me that Gary is the most crooked and spiteful of all. No, its not his good friends helping bail out a broke scam artist. No, it's not Gary looking the other way and then pretending he knew nothing of what was going on. It's none of that.

It's this:

Del Biaggio attempted to sell his 27% stake in the Predators to none other than Jim Balsillie and it was SHOT DOWN BY THE LEAGUE.

Read and be amazed:

According to sources familiar with the events, a tentative deal was
arranged that would have seen Mr. Del Biaggio's combined one-third minority
interest, with an estimated book value of US$30-million, transferred to Mr.
Balsillie for a "significant premium."

Apparently, the talks held at a San Francisco hotel did not directly
address the possibility of relocating the team, which was sold last year for
US$193-million to a Nashville-based local group of investors, led by David
Freeman.

However when an advisor to Mr. Del Biaggio, who was brought in to bid
against Mr. Balsillie for the Predators last year, informed NHL Commissioner
Gary Bettman of the discussions, sources say the 40-year-old investor was
discouraged from proceeding with a deal. Mr. Del Biaggio and officials at the
NHL were not available for comment yesterday.

Gary and the Board of Governors are so terrified of Jim Balsillie, his money and his ideas that even owning a quarter-share of a team is too frightening to them. Sure, the league PR folks are saying the right things, like no one was discouraged from doing anything but given how Gary and the League Of Extraordinary Geezers works, we know this is not the case.

The sum of all this is that Gary desperately wants to hang on to his dream - a dream of having popular, solvent markets in non-traditional hockey areas. To this degree, there's been success in San Jose, Anaheim and Tampa Bay. The flipside of this is that the teams that are struggling are doing so in terrible ways. Florida, Atlanta, Phoenix and Nashville are bleeding money like crazy and can't sell out their games with any regularity. You know who does do this?

Canada does.

I'm not all for a Canadian revolution in the NHL, but the pillaging that went down in the 90s because Quebec City can't get its head out of its ass, even to this day, and because Winnipeg wasn't winning enough was shameful. That coupled with the move of the North Stars and Whalers was a gut-shot this league hasn't really recovered from from a credibility and novelty standpoint.

I'm also not saying move 'em all back to Canada either. What I am saying is, however, that if you've got a guy swimming in money, actual real money that can be verified by banks and the government, and maybe... just maybe he might want to take a team back to Canada, perhaps taking him up on the offer might not be a bad idea.

This crazy billionaire and his track record of huge success might be a drastic change to all these failed losers on the Board of Governors, but an upstart guy like this that wants desperately to win and be at the helm of a dominating Canadian hockey franchise can't be bad for the game.

Game 1: Not Without My Nonsense! -- Detroit wins 4-0

Turns out Herr Bettman did learn some lessons from David Stern while he was an NBA Goon. The NBA runs strongly on hype and made-up storylines and most importantly, controversy, has indeed shown Gary Bettman the way.

In a Stanley Cup Finals that features, arguably, five of the best players in the league, Bettman can leave things hanging in the air basically to just cause problems later on. Remember, this is a guy who thought Sean Avery dancing in front of Martin Brodeur was such a problem that he addressed and reaffirmed the rulebook the very next day.

However, Bettman figures that leaving a ruling up in the air, such as what is or isn't interfering with a goaltender on a shot, is all set and taken care of.

Hoo boy.

We can't have the players be the story - we have to make it up as we go along. Rather, in this case, we can let things fester figuring it won't happen again.

Au contraire mon frere!

The issue set forth earlier this season and then again against Dallas is whether or not Tomas Holmstrom's rear-end or mere presence in the offensive zone is a weapon of mass disruption for anyone wearing the tools of ignorance. The first two times this became an issues, you can attribute that to referee Kelly Sutherland not knowing the rules so well, as he was the official who ruled that Holmstrom was interfering with Jean-Sebastian Giguere earlier this season and Marty Turco in the Western Conference Finals.

Last night, Dan O'Halloran decided that Holmstrom was again getting in the way, this time with Marc-Andre Fleury. To O'Halloran's credit I'll say this: He instantly waived off the goal and actually put Holmstrom in the box for goaltender interference. At least he felt that strongly about things, especially since Sutherland's previous efforts were made only to waive off the goal scored.

That said, O'Halloran compounded an already terrible issue by tacking on a penalty. In these three instances where Holmstrom was flagged for getting in the way, on zero of them did he either stand in the goaltender's crease or make contact with the goalie. The interpretation of the rule that's being passed around as gospel, and not eaten up by the folks in the media, is that Holmstrom is interfering with the goalie's ability to make the save.

Sounds awfully....vague, doesn't it? Don't be fooled, that's done on purpose. It gives the on-ice official, who has all the control in the situation as much leeway as possible to make, or not make, a call. It's an all-purpose bail-out. Leave it to the NHL to have a significant part of their rulebook, Rule 69 by the way (figures, doesn't it?), to be neither black nor white but completely gray...

...except in the handing down of a ruling of goal or no goal - that's written down in black ink.

No replay is allowed because Colin Campbell and Gary Bettman don't want to be saddled with reviewing every goal or play involving the goal line. "It would ruin the flow of the game," they cry out from the top of the mountain of crappy hockey and corporate suits.

Earth to Morons: Every goal or play of the puck around the goal line is reviewed automatically upstairs and in Toronto.

It's incredible how quickly the goalie in hockey has half-heartedly become the same as the quarterback in the NFL...with the exception that I'd guess that goalies get hit more since sometimes its OK to steamroll a goalie. Confused? Yeah, I knew you would be, but that's why I'm here.

What's amusing about all this fretting about where a guy is standing and what he's doing to a goaltender is it reminds me of this year's Memorial Cup - it's the championship tournament in Canadian Juniors. These are the kids that are on the fast-track to the NHL and it makes me think of an early game between Kitchener and Gatineau. The game goes to overtime and....well have a look for yourself at the highlights, specifically, 56 seconds into the video:





Note what the player in front of the net is doing. Note where he's standing. Note how much room the goaltender has to move. Note how screwed the goalie was to begin with since Kitchener was on a 5-on-3 power play.

No referee sprinting in to waive it off. No goaltender screaming at the referee. Players celebrating a hard-earned victory. No B.S.

Amazing, isn't it? It'd be fun if these kids could know that they'll get the same treatment when they reach the pros, it seems pretty stupid that a goal like that would get nullified, don't you think?

This is the situation I'm waiting for right now. Overtime. Crucial game. A shot on goal with the goaltender screened - it gets by - everyone is celebrating...and then it's called off because of a phantomly judged rule.

Hang on, I saw this movie already in 1999 and I know how it ends - bitter feelings, a spruced up rulebook, a fanbase left permanently bitter at the ruling party and, worst of all...

This guy is still left in charge to further ruin the NHL. Incredible.

Thanks to NateA over at KuklasKorner.com for creating such a lasting image of Herr Bettman.

Gary Bettman: Tradition Gestapo

Now that the games are being played and things are getting hashed out on the ice, the way they should be, a pathetic yet fascinating battle has erupted with Herr Bettman and the Detroit Red Wings.

Gary Bettman would like the Detroit Red Wings to stop swinging their tentacles at everyone.

No, I said tentacles. Tentacles. Big difference.

That's right, Bettman and the NHL would like Joe Louis Arena zamboni driver/octopus retriever Al Sobotka to stop inciting the crowd by swinging the octopus that gets thrown on the ice during Detroit home games because, supposedly, the material that flies off the octopus gets onto the ice and makes it dangerous to players.

They make it seem like toxic ooze is flying on the ice, but leave it to Herr Bettman to make a mountain out of a traditional molehill.

All the more fun of this is that not only are Detroit Free Press cartoonists going out of their way to show that Bettman is a moron but scientists have also stepped up to say that he's overreacting to something that's been going on in Detroit for seemingly eons. Have a look from the Free Press:

Dr. Steve O'Shea director of the Earth & Oceanic Sciences Research Institute
at the Auckland University of Technology told me in an e-mail, "There's no
'matter' that could fly off and cause a hazard to players, but should a twirled
octopus rupture and send its guts over the face or clothes of a player I can
imagine there'd be an element of yuckiness." True, but I imagine avoiding
yuckiness isn't the primary concern of hockey players as they dodge hip checks
and flying pucks.

This, of course, means that Gary Bettman is now taking his inspiration from the NCAA. In case you didn't know, at any NCAA event, the host arena has to look and feel as impartial as possible. Have any championship banners hanging from the rafters? Hide them. Team logos adorning the building? Cover 'em up. Signs hanging up in support of the home team? Put them away, they're not welcome here.

Heck, the NCAA doesn't even want any banners at all hanging from the rafters. I noticed this in Albany at the NCAA Hockey East Regionals as well as the Frozen Four in Denver. All of the MAAC banners for Siena College basketball were pulled up and hidden as were all Albany River Rats and Albany Firebirds banners at the Times Union Center. If you went to Pepsi Center in Denver hoping to look at the silliest retired number in sports forget it - it wasn't there.

I will give the NCAA a little bit of credit, however, as they hung up banners in Denver celebrating all of the schools who have won National Championships in men's ice hockey. But that's besides the point and now I digress.

Bettman has gone as far to say that he'll fine Sobotka and the Red Wings $10,000 for swinging the octopus while on the ice and causing a ruckus with the fans. There are many folks in blogland through Red Wings fandom hoping that Wings owner Mike Ilitch will cut Bettman an advanced check to pay for any future octopus lassoing. Probably not a bad idea, really, plus it would have the added effect of making Ilitch even more of a hero in Detroit but also throughout the NHL for making Bettman look like a complete tool.

Not that he has a hard time doing that on his own, but still.

Point of the matter is that this is thorough stupidity for Bettman to make this his angle for the playoffs. He decides that picking on an Original Six team who does this same thing EVERY PLAYOFF SEASON and has for years upon years now is a good idea. This leads me to believe that someone else complained about this and Bettman rather than seem like he's playing favorites decided, "That's it, no one will have fun."

Perhaps he was having flashbacks to 1996 when Florida Panthers fans showered the ice with rubber rats whenever Scott Mellanby scored and thought that all Detroit fans would start bringing octopi to the games to make the ice look like a deep sea expedition.

Sound stupid? You bet it does - so does telling a team to bag an ancient tradition. God forbid fun be had in the new NHL.

Preview Time - Fun Time!

Here we go, no screwing around this time - we're getting right to it.

First off, the Fun Conference where offense hasn't completely gone to die.

1. Montreal Canadiens vs. 8. Boston Bruins

No, that's not a misprint, the Bruins really were that terrible against Les Habitents this season. It'd be one thing if they perpetually lost in the skills competition or by a goal all the time, at least then you can say, "You know what, we're going to beat those guys and they'll be sorry."

But no, that hasn't been the case at all. The Canadiens have mopped the floor with one of their heated rivals all season long. So much so, that folks are making embarassing videos about it on YouTube. It's been that sort of year for the B's against Montreal and frankly, it couldn't happen to a more boring team.

Claude Julien, however, is one of those demented evil geniuses. Bruins fans will recall him as being the head coach of the Canadiens back in 2003-2004 when the Habs came back from being down 3-1 in the playoffs to the Bruins to beat them in seven games and then lead to the swift departure of that bum Joe Thornton out of Boston. Don't worry B's fans, Thornton has only gone on to lead the NHL in assists the last three seasons, won an MVP the year he was traded to San Jose and yes, Marco Sturm is all you have left to show for it. Congrats!

There is an upside however. Marc Savard is talking like he'll be back in time to play and Patrice Bergeron who was thugged out of commission by Philly's Randy Jones (sounds like a bully, doesn't he?) earlier this season is back on the ice and practicing and there's potential he'll play in this series....if it lasts long enough.

That, right there, is the rub. Montreal has pasted Boston all season long and beat the snot out of them in each game. The Canadiens enter the playoffs with loads of injuries which have done nothing to stem the tide of their success. However, since its the playoffs and anything can happen....

CANADIENS IN FIVE

2. Pittsburgh Penguins vs. 7. Ottawa Senators

You either love them or you hate them. Their boatloads of talent make you ill and the legacy of past playoff runs have made you nauseous just at the sight of them being in the playoffs. I give you the Pittsburgh Penguins. Funny thing is, that same statement said last year would've applied to the Senators and they got all the way to the Finals.

Pittsburgh, however, is functioning with two all-universe players in Sid the Kid and Evgeni Malkin. Their questions lie in goal and whether its Marc-Andre Fleury or UNH's own Ty Conklin that carries them remains to be seen. Here's to hoping the Penguins don't emulate their state-mates in Philadelphia when it comes to goaltending, otherwise the Pens could be in for a lot of trouble.

Ottawa hobbles into this series with both Mike Fisher and Daniel Alfredsson nursing injuries that should keep them out of the series with Pittsburgh. NOT GOOD! Add to this that the Senators have been lifeless since December and Bryan Murray sending John Paddock packing did nothing to inspire anyone to play better...you just can't see this going well for Ottawa.

To top things off, their goaltending situation is about as stable as nitro glycerine. One bad game out of Gerber might lead to Ray Emery and his alligator skin skates having to play and he hasn't been good since the Ducks bounced them out last year. Yikes.

I enjoy both of these teams, Ottawa a little less so since they decided to go Devils-style to beat the Sabres last year in the playoffs, but Pittsburgh has the glitz and the glamour and the star power this league is DYING for. If they can't get over the hump this season, an entire off-season of questioning and finger-pointing will ensue. I don't think we want that. I sense a Gerber meltdown followed shortly thereafter by a Murray fuse shorting out that looks oddly like he's disinterested in what's going on. Give the Sens Alfie and Fisher and this is a different series, I just can't see Spezza and Heatley alone getting it done for Ottawa because neither of those guys can help contain Crosby or Malkin.

PENGUINS IN SIX

3. Washington Capitals vs. 6. Philadelphia Flyers

This was the series that needed to happen. If this had been Carolina and Philadelphia...honestly, how many people even bother to watch? I mean, no one is going to bother to watch in the first place, but this time, The Man is involved. Alexander Ovechkin had to make the playoffs. No ifs, ands or buts about it - he needed to be here.

I don't care if the NHL had to pull off NBA-like shenanigans to make it happen, it's for the betterment of the game. I don't care that it took a miraculous hot streak and playoff run to get the dust off of all the Capitals fans that used to hang out in Washington. I also don't care that their bandwagon filled up like mad and most people probably don't know that the team played in the Stanley Cup Finals in 1998. It don't bother me none. It's all for a higher purpose.

With that said, good luck to the first Flyer player that decides to take a cheap-shot run at Alexander Ovechkin (Scott Hartnell, I'm looking at you). AO isn't at all like Sid the Kid. AO will knock your block off if you try those tactics on him and I'll enjoy watching him man-up and drag Hartnell all over the ice. There's high potential here in this series for a B.S. overload. The Flyers for the better part of the season were grabbing headlines for all the wrong reasons, most of which I covered here in this online scripture.

The Flyers have talent, which is incredible considering some of the cunning stunts they've pulled off this year (thanks to Riley Cote and Steve Downie). These guys clearly want to be the Anaheim Ducks of the East...they're just not as capable of pulling it off because there's a handful of guys that still want to play the game the right way and not the jerk-off way.

That said, the Flyers are a hornet's nest in waiting for the Capitals and the Caps are in danger of being the team that's "Just Happy To Have Made It." They could end up being tired out from having busted their tails over the last 15 games of the regular season to make sure they won the Southeast Division and make the playoffs. They could be that team that gets caught off guard and gets smoked off the ice left wondering what the hell just happened.

We saw it happen last year to the Atlanta Thrashers who tired out at the exact wrong time and got blown off the ice in four straight to the New York Rangers. Could we see this happen again? Absolutely we can, but this Caps team is a lot more talented than last year's Thrashers team. They're more stable in goal with both Huet and Kolzig. They can trot out two solid scoring lines, a third line that manages to grind and score and a fourth line that has Donald Brashear. Yikes that's pain in the ass.

The Flyers appear to be headed into a post season where they're not ready to string up the goaltender. That's a good thing and a pleasant change for the organization. Martin Biron is good. He's often very good and he's got playoff experience. That said, if the carousel begins and Biron and Antero Niittymakkiayyiyi start shuffling in and out because the boo birds dictate it - forget it. The Flyers need Mike Richards and Daniel Briere to be huge (not in stature) and some how piecemeal together two scoring units. Boy, they really could use Simon Gagne right about now, Joffrey Lupul alone just won't cut it. The Flyers, however, get success by getting under the other team's skin and they will be going all out to work over Ovechkin and Huet's every last nerve.

This series will not be easily won. This series will be the one that leaves everyone talking.

This series will put Alexander Ovechkin on the map for good and the Flyers out of our hair for this season. But they'll be back - you can't kill a zombie easily.

CAPITALS IN SEVEN


4. New Jersey Devils vs. 5. New York Rangers

Please, God, someone shoot me.

The brainchild of Herr Bettman comes alive in this series. Two teams that are already bitter regional rivals who have already played each other eight friggin' times this year get to play up to seven more times. Fan-freakin'-tastic.

Can the Rangers finally prove something to all of us and beat the Devils in the playoffs? Can Henrik Lundqvist finally hit Martin Brodeur with the "Heir Apparent" Throne and overtake him as the top goalie in the East? Can either of these teams score more than 10 goals in this series?

Lundqvist has been better head-to-head against Brodeur in the regular season. Congratulations, that means nothing.

The Rangers beat the Devils seven out of eight times in the regular season. That's good!

Three of those wins came in the skills competition. That's pointless.

The Devils only win against the Rangers came on Sunday via the shootout as well. Stupid.

This series is where Gary's brainchild fails every test possible. If these teams played half as many games against each other, for example, the heat would still be there, the rivalry would still be just as hot as ever, people would still argue about who's better King Henrik or Marty, and the Rangers would still essentially be playing up to seven home games in this series.

Nothing is altered by them playing each other every tenth game of the season. These teams don't dislike each other any more or less than they would've before. If anything, they're probably annoyed that it's come down to this. I really thought variety was the spice of life, but in the NHL under Herr Bettman homogenized action is the wave of the future!

DEVILS! RANGERS! IT'S A RIVALRY BECAUSE WE HELPED MAKE
IT THAT WAY!

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

End this series and end it fast. And Rangers...vanquish the Devils while you're at it - the East doesn't need to be made any more boring past the first round.

RANGERS IN SIX