TIED TO A TREE

From the Dark Side Of Hockey: Cormier's Elbow Hits a New Low

2010-01-25T21:24:00.021-05:00

I've been away from the blog for almost four months now, which is how it tends to be for me. Work and travel and having a kid take over my life, and writing takes a back seat....yeah, some writer I am.

But every so often something inspires me to patter away at my keyboard again. Sorry--its hockey-related. Again. One day, I'll write about something else. I promise.

Last week, an ugly incident in the ranks of Canadian major-junior hockey reminded us of the dark side of "our game". Its a dark side many of us would sooner not think about as we near the Vancouver Olympics, when the Canadian sports media's syrup machine will be set on overflow. But the dark side is never far from the surface.

On January 17, as a game between the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies and the Quebec Ramparts went into overtime, Rouyn-Noranda's Patrice Cormier slammed Quebec's Mikael Tam with a high elbow to the face. The impact sent Tam crashing face-first to the ice, where he went into convulsions.

If you haven't seen the video, be warned. It is almost unwatchable. (This YouTube video is from Quebec TV. If you don't speak French, don't worry. The ugly images tell the story.)

Cormier was ejected from the game and suspended pending further discipline. On January 25, after the initial shock of the incident had faded, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) announced that Cormier had been suspended for the balance of the season and the League playoffs.

This is an important incident for four reasons:

Mikael Tam was hurt, and hurt badly. Its one thing when a hockey player gets a bloody nose, or takes a hard hit that leaves him feeling a bit shaken. Tam suffered brain trauma, for Christ's sake (plus a pile of broken teeth). There is no papering this over. Tam's hockey career is very likely over, and his life may never be the same.

This didn't happen in some nowhere palooka league. The QMJHL is one of the top amateur hockey leagues in Canada, and part of the world's premier hockey development circuit. The NHL is full of QMJHL alumni, so only a fool can think that what happens in the Q-League can't wash up in the NHL.
This wasn't some nobody palooka player. Cormier is a second-round draft pick of the New Jersey Devils. He was Captain of Team Canada at this year's World Junior Championships. Even if he isn't destined for Crosby/Ovechkin-style super-stardom, he is likely to play professional hockey at some level for several years.
This was was not Cormier's first adventure with his elbows. He dropped Sweden's Anton Rodin with another elbow-smash to the nose in a pre-tournament game at the World Juniors in December.

Cormier's suspension barely passes the "so what" test. He's 19, which means this is almost certainly his last year in the juniors. This suspension won't affect him much, other than leaving him out of shape when he shows up for New Jersey's training camp in the fall. Even that probably just means that he'll spend next year on the Devils' farm team in Lowell, which is something he might have done for his first year in the pros anyway.

So lets review. Cormier loses no pay (since he is still, for the moment, an amateur hockey player), and this suspension in no way affects his eligibility to play in the NHL, the AHL, or any other professional league. Aside from missing out on playoff glory in his last year in the juniors, I see no serious lasting consequences for Cormier.

For Tam? He's out of hospital, and fortunately it doesn't look like he'll be drooling into a sippy cup for the rest of his life. But I think he has probably played his last game of high-level competitive hockey.

True, Tam is 18 and undrafted, which means it isn't all that likely that he was headed for the NHL anyway, but that is nearly irrelevant. Only time will tell how serious his brain injury really is, but such injuries can sometimes be felt for years afterward. Forget hockey--its possible that whatever plans Tam may have had for a normal life were left on the ice last week in Rouyn-Noranda.

What is the solution? A suspension which spills over into next season, and which pro leagues are expected to respect? Do we start suspending coaches and/or GMs in addition to players themselves? Or do we wait for guys like Cormier to do this sort of thing in the wrong place and the wrong time in the pros?

I don't know the answer to this. I'm not a big fan of frontier thug justice (see under Bertuzzi v Moore for an example of a colossal failure of hockey's "Code"), but you know...it has its appeal at times.

--Dex

Phoenix Coyotes: So...um, yeah. Now what?

2009-09-30T22:21:00.013-04:00

Judge Redfield T. Baum has done it again.

The judge overseeeing the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy case has once again issued a definitive ruling that defines absolutely nothing. Quite an art, that.

Yesterday, Judge Baum rejected both Jim Balsillie's bid to purchase the club and the rival bid from the National Hockey League.

Balsillie's bid, which he had recently sweetened to $242.5 million, was rejected because it moved too far into the issues of territorial rights and the league's right to decide who it admits to its little club. Balsillie not only wants to move the team to Hamilton (possibly infringing on the territorial rights of both the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres), but has also been rejected for membership by the League's Board of Directors.

Judge Baum decided that he wasn't going to wade into those issues. He decided that "...the court cannot find or conclude that the interests of the NHL can be adequately protected if the Coyotes are moved to Hamilton without first having a final decision regarding the claimed rights of the NHL."

Balsillie's bid was dimissed with prejudice, meaning that he can't alter it and bring it back to the court for reconsideration. Its a match penalty, if you will. He's out of the game, and has indicated that he will not appeal.

As for the NHL's bid, valued around $140 million, it was deemed insufficient because it did not provide adequate compensation to two key creditors: former team owner Jerry Moyes, and a certain part owner and former coach named Wayne Gretzky. However, the judge dismissed this bid without prejudice, meaning that they can amend it and bring it back.

So...Balsillie is out, and I mean out. The NHL is out, but may be back. Are you with me so far?

Good. This is confusing as hell, but that's the best I can do for a summary.

In theory, all the NHL has to do to get control of the team is find more money for Moyes and Gretzky. The trouble is--that has to be done in the middle of an economic downturn, with NHL revenues expected to decline significantly, and somewhere between four and six other teams already rumoured to be in some kind of financial difficulty.

That matters because, when we talk about "the League" buying the team, we're really talking about the other 29 owners buying the team. More accurately, we're talking about a very limited numbers of owners whose teams are actually making money, and who will now be asked to dig even deeper to float a franchise that hasn't made a nickel since it landed in Arizona more than a decade ago.

I'm not saying this can't be done. Maybe they'll be back in a matter of days or weeks with a new bid. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a stubborn guy, not to mention a career deal-maker.

But...what if the NHL can't get its resources together and present a bid that satisfies the court? There are no other bidders in the court auction, and with Arizona's economy in the toilet, its not reasonable to expect another white knight to emerge at this stage. Two other potential ownership groups (one led by Jerry Reinsdorf, the other by a group called IceEdge Holdings) have already backed out. The line of suitors at the door is not a long one.

So...if the NHL can't sweeten the pot enough for the court's liking, are we looking at liquidation? As I understand it, that is what normally happens to a bankrupt business when a sale agreement that satisfies a court can't be reached. If that happens here, what does that precedent mean other wobbly franchises like Tampa Bay, Dallas, Atlanta, or Nashville? Could Judge Baum's ruling pave the way for eventual contraction of the NHL?

I'm speculating wildly, I know. But what the hell. Its fun.

One thing we know for sure: this is the end of the road for Balsillie's attempt to bringthis particular NHL team to Canada. It may his last kick at this idea, period.

But as for hockey's future in the United States...this ain't over yet.

--Dex

DEAD FOR THE THIRD TIME: Arizona judge shoots down Jim Balsillie, puts Phoenix Coyotes on road to nowhere

2009-06-15T22:19:00.008-04:00

Judge Redfield T. Baum has ruled.

He has decided that he does not have the power to force the relocation of the Phoenix Coyotes against the wishes of the National Hockey League. The auction of the bankrupt team, which was scheduled for June 22, has been called off.

This means, in plain English, that Jim Balsillie's dream of bringing the team to southern Ontario is as dead as....what, desert roadkill?

Whatever. Its dead.

I never went to law school. As I sit here scratching my head over this, I kind of wish I had. Making sense of this sure isn't easy.

Somehow, a bankruptcy judge has managed to turn away an offer that would have been very good for the creditors of a bankrupt business, in favour of....as far as I can tell, nothing.

I haven't read the ruling. I probably will in the next few days. In the meantime, here's what I know:

Some figures have the Coyotes losing as much as $40 million per year. Even if the real number is only half that, it still means that the franchise is bleeding to death in the desert. By all accounts, the hole just keeps getting bigger and deeper.

Along comes Jim Balsillie, who says that he will buy the club for $212.5 million, which seems that it would be enough to pay off all creditors. (No one, to my knowledge, has disputed this.) The fact that he made the offer conditional on moving the team to Hamilton, Ontario became the central issue.

Balsillie made it about putting another team in Canada (or, at least, a market where failure is much less likely than in Glendale, Arizona). Gary Bettman and the NHL made it about respecting the League's rules and procedures. Either way, it became a battle over who had the right to decide where this club will play hockey. The fact that said hockey club basically stopped paying its bills earlier this year almost became a side issue.

Tonight, Judge Baum decided that he can't override (or at least is not willing to set a precedent by overriding) the NHL's constitution and its rules on franchise relocation. I understand why he didn't want to wade into that mess, especially since that mess would very likely have been appealed before the ink was dry on the original ruling.

However, the judge himself noted in a hearing last week that there were no other real credible offers on the table for the Coyotes.

So...if that's true, this leads me to a question.

What now?

If Balsillie is sent home, what happens to this club?

There will apparently be another auction for the club in September. In my view, the creditors are about to get screwed without lube. You can bet that no one is going to put cash anywhere near the amount of $212 million on the table.

No one in Arizona has that kind of cash these days, at any rate. Frankly, I think you'd be hard pressed to find that kind of coin from anyone--at least, for a failing hockey team in a terrible market with a terrible arena lease.

Scenario one: someone steps forward, but the creditors take a haircut.

Scenario two: no one steps forward.

What then? This franchise simply can't go on dumping anything close to $40 millon down the john every year. Even if the League is currently covering the losses, they won't do that indefinitely.

Something has to give. Either someone will buy that franchise and move it out of Arizona (this time, to a place of Gary Bettman's liking), or that franchise will die. No other option seems viable.

This team is either on the road to Kansas City, or on the road to oblivion. Who knows, the two destinations may be comparable.

--Dex

(Photo credit: Toronto Star)

SEVEN! SEVEN CANADIAN TEAMS! AH AH AH!!!

2009-05-08T22:39:00.005-04:00

I just couldn't resist.

Thanks to Broomer for this one.

--Dex

Gary Bettman: The Desert Rat

2009-05-07T22:38:00.007-04:00

Its a shocker.

A hockey team in the desert. Yes, the goddamned desert. This was deemed to be a better place for said hockey team...than Winnipeg. And wowee, the team is failing.

Hits you like a meteor, that one does.

So, after losing about $30 million a year for God Himself only knows how many years, Phoenix Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes is finally "throwing the keys on the table", as Bob McCown likes to say. He filed for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday.

And now, Jim Balsillie, the co-CEO of Resarch in Motion, has offered to buy the Coyotes for $212 million (which is probably about $211 million more than the team is actually worth).

The trouble is, the NHL is having none of it. The League is arguing that Moyes didn't have the authority to do anything anymore, least of all entertain purchase offers, because the League had already taken over the team's operations by then. A bankruptcy court judge in Arizona will have to sort it out.

So why, you may ask, is the NHL actually seeking to block the purchase of the team when it so desperately needs someone to...well, purchase it?

Simple--because Balsillie will only purchase the team if he can move it to Southern Ontario.

On the surface, the NHL will make this about protecting the League's rules, about respect for Phoenix hockey fans (all ten of them), and about who has the right to make decisions about moving franchises.

Anyone else detect the distinct scent of bullshit?

NHL Grand Poop-Baa Gary Bettman has staked his entire career on putting franchises in the United States, particularly in the "sun belt". The whole theory of putting teams in places like Phoenix (and Tampa, and Nashville, and Atlanta, etc..), is that this is where you have to be in order to sell the game to Americans.

So, after nearly twenty years of this, what does the NHL look like in the United States? A feeble presence on network television, and (with a few exceptions) money-losing teams playing to empty buildings in the Sun Belt.

Canada, according to this marketing strategy, is nowhereville, hicktown, a place where you recruit players and ignore consumers. The USA is where its at.

So if a Sun Belt team is sold and moved to Canada, GB has to admit that his entire marketing strategy has failed. He has to admit that hockey is not a coast-to-coast sport in the United States, and that maybe--juuuust maybe--hockey teams should be put in markets where people actually care.

So you can bet your last shiny nickel that GB is going to go to great lenghts to make sure that doesn't happen. He apparently would rather see the Coyotes disappear altogether than admit that a hockey team in Hamilton, Ontario makes more business sense than one in Glendale, Arizona

Gary, Gary, Gary.

There does come a point when you're just embarrassing yourself. I beg you, in the name what little is left in hockey that is still good, get out of the way.

--Dex

Sean Avery: Chicken, meet roost

2009-04-24T19:16:00.005-04:00

If Sean Avery ever thought that he wouldn't reap what he sows, he stands corrected today.

The New York Rangers are on the verge of eliminating the Washington Capitals from the NHL playoffs tonight. This will be a hell of an upset if it happens. The Caps are coming off the best season their franchise has had in years, and the Rangers may stop them dead in the first round.

And Sean Avery won't be there to see it.

Why not? Oh, because he's an asshole.

Avery is New York's only scratch for Game 5 of the series against the Caps tonight in Washington. After taking FOUR minor penalties plus a game misconduct in game 3, he took two more in the last 10 minutes of game 4. This was dangerous, as New York only led 2-1 at the time. The Rangers protected their lead, but that is not a situation in which you want to be handing your opponents two power-plays.

Evidently, New York coach John Tortorella has had enough. He is not at all a fan of Avery (see my previous post), and he made that clear by benching Avery for game five.

Note to all of you who think that this guy is an asset to his team because he's an "agitator" and "gets under the other team's skin": the Rangers' own coach thinks you're full of shit.

The question to my mind is: is Avery done for the playoffs? If the Rangers get through to the second round, will Avery play again?

First things first: game 5. For now, I'll say that it looks good on Avery, and BRILLIANTLY good on the Rangers.

--Dex

Cirque de Sean Avery

2009-04-20T21:56:00.008-04:00

I know, I know. I'm a little obsessed with Sean Avery. He just makes this too damned easy.

The latest epsiode of the gong show: after pushing it a bit in Games 1 and 2 of the New York Rangers' series against the Washington Capitals, Avery took four minor penalties plus a game misconduct in Game 3 tonight. True to form, it was all stupid, in-your-face "agitator" stuff that did nothing to help the Rangers.

The topping on the sundae was Avery's little confrontation with Washington goalie Simeon Varlamov in the dying minutes of the 3rd. For some reason that was not at all apparent to me, Avery began yapping at Varlamov after the play. I saw no undue contact between the two before the puck was whistled dead, and Avery even seemed to look around before turning on Varlamov and beginning his tirade.

Its all the funnier when you consider that the Russian rookie doesn't speak English. (So, um, this little show was for whose benefit, Sean?) Then, after getting separated from Varlamov, Avery game him a slug to the face as a parting shot. He got the gate, and that was that.

Now, did the Rangers lose the game 4-0 because of Sean Avery? Well, no, not really. They lost because Washington's deadly Russian combo, Alexander Ovechkin and Alexander Semin, solved New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist. (Ovechkin is still scoreless in the series, but he assisted on both of Semin's goals.) They lost because Simeon Varlamov was on fire. None of Washington's four goals came on power plays created by Avery, so you can't lay the loss squarely on his shoulders.

But did Avery's complete absence of discipline help the Rangers focus? Did keeping them at a disadvantage for 8 minutes of the game help them mount an effective offence when they needed to? Nope and nope.

The look on the face of Rangers coach John Tortorella after Avery was ejected just defied description. He looked for all the world like he wanted to say "excuse me for a minute", leave the bench, walk back to the dressing room where Avery was cooling his heels, and kick him square in the grapes.

In case you think I was reading too much into Tortorella's facial expressions, remember that he made his disdain for Avery clear back in December. While still working for TSN as a hockey analyst, Tortorella referred to Avery as a "selfish ass", and said he would never want to have him on this team.

This, of course, was before Tom Renney was fired as head coach of the Rangers, before Tortorella was hired to be Renney's replacement, and before Rangers GM Glen Sather decided to pick up Sean Avery off of waivers from the Dallas Stars.

Think that uneasy Tortorella-Avery relationship got any easier tonight?

--Dex

Sean Avery: Yup, still a tool

2009-04-05T17:18:00.003-04:00

So it took Sean Avery less than a month to prove that he really is as much of a tool as everyone says he is.

Avery, as you may recall, literally talked himself out of a job with the Dallas Stars earlier this year. After he was suspended by the National Hockey League for publicly making crude comments about his ex-girlfriend, actor Elisha Cuthbert, the Stars hit the "enough is enough" button. Just eight months into Avery's four-year contract, the Stars cut him loose and put him on waivers. (See under "Egg on Brett Hull's Face".)

I, for one, thought that no NHL team would be stupid enough to take Avery (even though claming him off waivers meant getting him at a substantial discount, since Dallas remains responsible for a portion of his salary). Any GM who can't figure out by now that this clown is a liability deserves exactly what he gets.

I was looking forward to seeing this little prick finish his career in the minors, riding the bus and grousing about how his subscription to Vogue magazine didn't catch up to him in Omaha.

Well, never underestimate the ability of the New York Rangers to screw everything up. For some reason, the Rags decided to re-acquire Avery off waivers on March 3.

Oh, but he's changed. He's learned his lesson. He's had "anger management" counselling. (I don't know about you, but he didn't seem all that pissed off when he went after Cuthbert...seemed like he was having quite a bit of fun, actually. I wonder if there's "asshole management" counselling available.)

Well, in the Rangers' game against Boston on April 4, all doubts about the "new" Sean Avery were set to rest. (See the highlights here.)

During a TV timeout, as Boston goalie Tim Thomas was stretching, Avery skated up behind and clipped him in the back of the head with his stick. He has apparently claimed that it was an accident.

Any other player, and I might believe it. This guy? With his track record? Nope. Sorry. Bullshit.

Then, when Thomas chased him down the ice, Avery--in classic fashion--kept his back turned. Nothing quite says "tough guy" like cranking a guy in the head when he's not looking, and then running away like a scared little boy. Yup, he's all class, this one.

Thomas caught up to Avery, though, and gave him a nice shove. Then, when New York's Frederik Sjostrom jumped in, Thomas turned around and whalloped him. Another fine "enough is enough" moment.

I'm not a big fan of fighting in the game (at least, not since Don Sanderson died), but I find it hard to criticize Thomas for this. He reacted the way I think anyone would have reacted to a provocation like that.

What stuns me about Avery is that he keeps pissing away all his time and energy (and, lets face it, his respectable amount of hockey talent) on absolutely pointless "bad-boy" crap like this. Yeah, yeah, I know its his job as an "agitator" to keep the opponents off their game. But there are ways to do that that help your team, and ways that just don't.

Why would you risk a penalty over something like this that had nothing whatsoever to do with the play--especially when you're playing the Bruins, who are easily one of the best teams in the League ? And ESPECIALLY when your own team is hanging on to a playoff spot by its fingernails?

When I described Avery as a liability...well, this is the kind of thing that I'm talking about. I don't see the upside that Rangers GM Glen Sather sees. I just don't.

Oh, and that Boston-NY game? The Bruins won 1-0, and clinched the number one spot in the Eastern Conference.

Ordinarily, I'm not happy when any team from Boston wins anything, but in this case, I'll make an exception.

Ha-ha, Sean. And ha-ha, New York Rags. Looks good on you.

--Dex

Service-charge THIS, TicketBastard!!!!

2009-03-24T20:17:00.011-04:00

(As a follow up to my posting on February 9 about TicketBastard and its dodgy business practices...)

Well, look who they've managed to piss off now.

The Ontario government is apparently planning to introduce legislation to ban the practice of reselling TicketBastard tickets on TicketsNow.

As you may recall, The Big Bastard is already the target of a class-action lawsuit which alleges that The Bastard is artificially inflating ticket prices through its secondary-market (which, in English, means "scalping") subsidiary, TicketsNow.

For several recent concert tours (most notably Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen), tickets have disappeared in seconds, only to turn up on TicketsNow only moments later for several times face value. There have even been allegations that customers have been automatically redirected to TicketsNow, giving them the false impression that they were buying tickets from the TicketBastard at face value. (That one has to win some special prize for sleaze, doesn't it?)

Well, The Bastard has now crossed no less a man than Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty.

The McGuinty government, annoyed at all the recent consumer complaints apparently asked Le Bastard to stop the resale of tickets to Ontario events on TicketsNow. TicketMaster has reportedly agreed to this in Alberta, Manitoba, and some US states, but refused to do so for Ontario. Not surprising--with a market of 11 million people, 4.5 million alone in the Greater Toronto Area...that's not a golden goose they'll give up easily.

But since said Bastard refused...it now looks like they're staring down the barrel of a new law that will ban the practice.

Now, here's where my knowledge of the law fails me a bit. I thought that scalping tickets was already illegal. I also thought that there were already consumer protection laws which made it illegal for businesses to misrepresent themselves, their products, or their prices. (I think that this TicketBastard/TicketsNow relationship surely accomplishes some combination of those three, especially if this automatic-redirection nonsense is really happening.)

So I'm not sure what, exactly, Meester Preemeer intends to ban that isn't already banned.

But hey, whether its pit bulls or smoking in cars, this a guy who thinks that bannin' stuff is fun. Will a ban work? Is it practical? Is it even really necessary? FEH!!! Details!!!! Don't bother him with that stuff--just get bannin'!

So much like the class-action lawsuit against El Bastardo, I don't hold out a lot of hope that this will achieve much.

I'll give Mr. McGuinty this, though: at least he noticed that something was wrong. That's more than I can say for Canada's nutless federal Competition Bureau, who don't seem any more bothered by TicketBastard's near-total monopoly than they do by the oligopoly of the oil companies.

In others words, its nice to know that somebody gives a crap.

Then again, we consumers are our own worst enemies, aren't we? For all my ranting and roaring, I still go to concerts. I still go to hockey games. I still go to baseball games. If we really wanted to teach Senor Bastard a lesson, we'd stop buying from him....right?

Burns: And to think, Smithers, you laughed when I bought Ticketmaster. [imitating Smithers] Nobody's going to pay a hundred-percent "service charge."

Smithers: It's a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir.

--Dex

HEAD CASE: The NHL needs to grow a pair, and ban all hits to the head

2009-02-27T22:51:00.007-05:00

Brendan Witt of the New York Islanders (pictured) is the latest NHL player to be suspended for a deliberate elbow to the head.

Witt nailed Niklas Hagman of the Toronto Maple Leafs with a flying elbow in the third period of the Leafs-Islanders game on Long Island on Thursday night. If you've seen the video, you know it ain't pretty. (Witt's cheap-shot on Hagman comes about 0:25 into this highlights clip from TSN.)

After landing hard, Hagman wobbled to his feet like a newborn calf, then was pretty much carried off the ice by his teammates. He is out of the Leafs' lineup for Saturday's game against Ottawa. After that...who knows.

Fortunately, Witt got a five-minute major and a game misconduct. On Friday, the NHL also suspended him for five games.

All good stuff. The video doesn't lie--Witt either clearly intended to injure Hagman, or simply didn't care if he did. Either way, its fair game for this kind of punishment. NHL disciplinary grand poopah Colin Campbell said as much in a memo circulated earlier this season in which he promised to crack down on deliberate head shots.

Sit down and forfeit your $74,372.75 in salary, Brendan.

The only problem I have with all of this is that incidental contact to the head is still legal in the NHL. That, in my opinion, encourages players to make risky high hits (even if they aren't as dirty as Witt's elbow on Hagman). Remember Chris Neil dropping Chris Drury with a high hit in February 2007 (and the all-out Buffalo-Ottawa brawl that followed)?

Neil's hit was deemed clean, but even though I'm an Ottawa guy, that hit never sat right with me. I think that many (not all, surely, but many) players would be much less tempted to risk hits like that if there was a greater risk of drawing a penalty or even being tossed from the game. Right now, Campbell really only seems to be concerned about elbows to the head. I say that's just a start.

I still have yet to hear a rational explanation as to why the NHL can't follow the lead of the Ontario Hockey League and ban ALL checks to the head.

Any contact with the head is now an illegal check under OHL rules, and under Hockey Canada rules for minor hockey as well. A head check in these leagues is subject to a minor, major, or match penalty depending on the severity. (Puck Daddy did a great article on this back in November.)

Think this leads to a "pansification" of the game? You obviously haven't watched an OHL game lately. Head-hunting may be gone, but its still a fast and thundering style of hockey. The Captain Caveman argument that any kind of restraint on contact will lead to the elimination of all contact from hockey, and that the NHL therefore can't even consider it, has already been proven wrong.

There are plenty of hits to the chest and body in the OHL--just very few to the head. The game is still perfectly watchable (still more so than the NHL product, I think). Perhaps there is a little less hitting overall in the OHL than in the NHL (as the Puck Daddy article suggests), but...well, do a little reading on the effects of a concussion and then tell me that the small decline in hits isn't worth it.

Start with this great two-part series on the effects of concussions that the Toronto Star ran last year. If these articles scare the piss out of you, good. They should.

Time for the NHL to really grow a pair and get this nonsense out of the game for good.

--Skip

HA HA HA H A HA: Ticketbastard gets its sorry butt sued

2009-02-09T22:38:00.008-05:00

If you have bought a ticket to a music, theatre, or sporting event in the Greater Toronto Area in the last twenty years or so, you've likely had a healthy hosing from Ticketbastard.

This gargantuan California-based company has been the 9,000,000-pound gorilla of the entertainment-ticketing scene for some time. Back in my youth, there were a number of ticketing services in Ontario, such as BASS and Ticketron. No more. With the exception of upstarts like Queen Street record store Rotate This (who have a very snotty and very funny website), the Big Fat Bastard is now pretty much the only game in town.

Hence, all the made-up, bullcrap charges that said Bastard now piles onto every ticket with impunity. I've seen these charges add as much as 30% to the face value of a ticket. (Anyone care to explain the difference between a "convenience charge", a "building fee", a "delivery charge", and a "processing fee"?)

The Bastard is now the target of a class-action lawsuit being filed by two Canadian law firms claiming to represent anyone who has done business with said Bastard since 2007. The suit alleges that Ticketbastard and its subsidiary, TicketsNow, are artificially inflating ticket prices.

TicketsNow, which El Bastardo bought in 2008, is a "resale market" for tickets. People who hold tickets for events can turn around and sell them at places like TicketsNow for a markup.

Yes, you read that right. The company which sells you the tickets in the first place now also owns what amounts to a scalping service, where those same tickets are routinely sold for significantly over face value.

So, um, how do you think this has shaken out? Well, gee whiz, there have been some consumer complaints recently. Customers trying to buy tickets to a Brunce Springsteen concert in New Jersey found that all of Le Bastard's tickets were gone in seconds...but lo and behold, TicketsNow had tickets available for a premium. Some fans even allege that, when they logged onto The Bastard's website, they were automatically redirected to TicketsNow. Springsteen himself was reportedly furious about this, and helped embarrass the company into making a public apology.

But now these dodgy business practices are about to come under an even more serious microscope. Two lawyers here in Canada are alleging that these practices violate Ontario's Ticket Speculation Act. The "beard" for this case is some guy here in Toronto who bought tickets to see the Smashing Pumpkins at Massey Hall last September. Apparently, this poor sap was redirected to TicketsNow, where a pair of tickets which should "only" have cost him $133 soaked him for well over $500. The lawyers are now inviting anyone who feels that they were similarly screwed to jump on the pile.

I'm way too dumb to be a lawyer, so I couldn't tell you if this case has any merit whatsoever. My gut tells me that the lawsuit will probably go nowhere. Even if it has legs, it will be years before there's a settlement or judgement.

I don't care. Ticketbastard's name and reputation are being dragged through the mud by a bunch of ambitious lawyers, and oh how richly they deserve it. This company has historically been so dishonest in its dealings, and has screwed so many honest entertainment consumers over the years, that I'm satisfied just knowing that they have to spend time and money on this suit.

I'm going to sit here like the braying mob at a Roman gladiator spectacle, and enjoy every cathartic minute of the show.

Don Sanderson, 1987-2009

2009-01-02T11:15:00.010-05:00

If you don't follow hockey, you probably have no idea who Don Sanderson was. I follow hockey closely, and I hadn't heard of him until three weeks ago.

Don Sanderson was born in Port Perry, Ontario, about an hour east of Toronto. He played for the Whitby Dunlops, a Senior AAA-level team in the Ontario Hockey Association. He was a student at York University, and was probably not headed for any kind of career as a hockey player, but he clearly had enough talent to play at one of the higher levels of amateur hockey in Canada.

Sanderson was injured in a game against the Brantford Blast on December 12. During a fight with Brantford's Corey Fulton, Sanderson's helmet apparently came off (whether he took it off himself or it came off for some other reason is not clear to me). Sanderson and Fulton then fell to the ice, where Sanderson's unprotected head made contact with the ice surface. He was knocked unconscious. He briefly came to, but lost consciousness again after leaving the building, and fell into a coma.

Don Sanderson died on January 2nd, around 1:00 am local time, at Hamilton General Hospital. He was 21 years old.

As far as I am aware, Sanderson is the first hockey player at any level to die from injuries sustained as a direct result of a fight during a game. Players have been injured in fights before, some of them very seriously, but to my knowledge a hockey fight has never ended a player's life until today.

So...what now?

There will be plenty of debate among pundits, fans, bloggers and others about what this means for the future of the game. There will be the usual blather about how "fighting is part of the game", and also about how "throwing the bums out when they fight" will magically fix the problem. (Note: the OHA already hands out game misconducts for fighting, so clearly throwing players out of the game is not enough.)

I don't know where I stand on this. Maybe a rule change would be enough to do away with the excesses, although it would take more than a game misconduct. Pro hockey got rid of bench-clearing brawls by handing out 10-game suspensions to anyone who comes off a bench to take part in a fight. There hasn't been a major bench-clearer in years, so rule changes can change the game if they are significant enough.

But do we want to eliminate fighting from the game? That's the real question. Be honest: how do you react when you see a hockey fight? Do you sit on your hands on say "oh, how awful"? If you do, you are probably the only one in the rink doing that, because everyone else is on their feet screaming for blood. I've done it, and if you've ever been to a hockey game, chances are you have too.

This isn't just a matter of changing hockey's rules. That's the easy part. Changing hockey's culture is a much longer process, and its about changing the culture and the expectations of hockey fans as much as its about changing the culture of hockey players. Fighting is part of the game because, to date, most of us have wanted it that way.

Could this be one of those earthquakes that changes the game? Maybe, but my guess is that the upper levels of hockey will do their best to pretend this didn't happen. Had this happened in the NHL, the minor pros, or even in the Canadian major-juniors, the visibility would have made it impossible to ignore.

But because this happened in Ontario AAA hockey, the instinctive reaction of the higher levels will be to carry on as if nothing happened. If you have followed the NHL's approach to things like visors or hits to the head, then you know there is no reason to believe that anyting is about to change.

The debate over fighting in hockey will rage on. I certainly won't solve it here, partly because I have mixed feelings on the issue myself. Up to now, I've loved a good donnybrook in a game--I'm prepared to be honest about that if everyone else is. But now? I'm not sure I will be standing and cheering the next time I see two guys drop the gloves.

Wherever you stand, one set of facts is unchallengeable: Don Sanderson is dead. He died far too young, and for no damn reason.

--Skip

(Photo: Whitby Dunlops, published on thestar.com, January 2, 2009)

Ramble n' Rant: Sean Avery

2008-12-06T20:13:00.011-05:00

What is there left to say about the latest nominee for 2008 Wang of the Year, Dallas Stars left-winger Sean Avery?

If you follow hockey, you know the story by now. On Tuesday, just before the Stars played the Flames in Calgary, Avery made a very crude sexual remark about his ex-girlfriend, actress Elisha Cuthbert. (See it here on YouTube, if you must.)

The "context", if you can call it that, is that Cuthbert is currently dating Calgary Flames defenseman Dion Phaneuf. So, in an apparent attempt to get at Phaneuf, Avery now seems to have punched a pretty serious hole in his own career.

The NHL was rather unamused by Avery's conduct, which is the latest in a string of such incidents going back pretty much to the beginning of his career. On Friday, NHL Comissioner Gary Bettman decided that enough was enough, and handed down a six-game suspension.

Rumour has it that the Dallas Stars may not take Avery back even when the League-mandated suspension is up (which does make you wonder what's been going on in the dressing room and on the team bus that never reaches the media...). We'll find out what comes next when Avery is eligible to play again on December 16.

So what is left to say?

With respect to Avery himself, not a whole lot. Vulgar humour is all well and fine by me, as long as its actually...well, you know, that little thing we call "funny"? Avery just sounded like a snotty frat-boy as he picked on someone who wasn't in the room to defend herself.

He clearly fancies himself as a hilarious Jeremy Roenick/Don Cherry type, but he just isn't smart enough, knowledgeable enough, or articulate enough to pull it off. He has far more in common with a headcase like John Rocker--self-absorbed, theatrical, and perhaps a bit psycho, but not particularly funny.

But this isn't just about Sean Avery. Its also about the rules that govern the conduct of all hockey players, and its about how the NHL protects its reputation and its brand.

Damien Cox made a very good point about this on espn.com: trash talk, like it or not, is part of competitive sports. Worse things are said between NHL players every night, and by far more people than just Avery (although he has perfected trash-talk like no one else has).

To my mind, though, there are three things which distinguish this from normal hockey trash talk:

1) Most players are smart enough to keep the really ugly words and deeds away from the cameras and mikes. Stories leak out occasionally, but this was no leak. Avery didn't just say that crap about Elisha Cuthbert within earshot of a camera or mike--he deliberately said it directly to a bunch of cameras and microphones. He truly does not seem to possess that "kill switch" that most other hockey players do.

2) This wasn't hockey-related. Avery used his position as an NHL player to launch a personal attack on a third party (a "civilian", if you will) who, as far as I can see, didn't do much to deserve it. (Other than being dumb enough to date Sean Avery in the first place, that is...but I digress.)

3) This wasn't a heat-of-the-moment thing, where Avery was reacting to a bad penalty call or a needling question from a reporter. Avery didn't just blurt those words out. This was deliberate and premediated. He basically called those reporters over to him in the dressing room for the express purpose of calling Elisha Cuthbert a slut. It was so calculated, and with such a slimy "look at me" attitude, that the League had to respond.

I share Damien Cox's discomfort with the idea of Gary Bettman acting as arbiter of good taste (given that he has all but destroyed the NHL in almost every other meaningful way). On balance, though, I'm comfortable with his reaction to Avery's behaviour. I think its about the right level of discipline, considering that no one was physically hurt but also considering that this is conduct that you do not want encouraged. Six games of forfeited salary (with possibly more to come, depending on what the Stars do) will take a real bite out of Avery's paycheque.

Good, I say. It is part of the Commissioner's job to make sure that no one's conduct brings the league or the game into disrepute. The Commissioners of MLB, the NBA, and the NFL have all failed miserably in that part of their respective jobs. Its nice to see the Commissioner of the NHL taking at least that part of the head-honcho job seriously.

--Skip

Bombs in Orlando

2008-12-05T06:55:00.003-05:00

My cousin, Law School Girl, sent me this.

One WWII bomb in an old fart's attic is one thing. But 400 pounds of WWII bombs on the grounds of a middle school?

Once again, yowza.

--Skip

(Photo credit: WKMG-TV, Orlando, FL)

The bomb down the street

2008-12-03T20:36:00.005-05:00

You always read about people in England or France or Germany discovering old unexploded bombs in their gardens. According to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, there are an estimated 21,000 unexploded WWII-era bombs still lying around the UK alone. (A huge one was detonated in London in June of this year.) The occasional World War I explosive still pops up from time to time, too.

If you know anything about the history of those two wars, and just how much of this crap was dumped on Europe in that time, this shouldn't come as too great a shock.

But that's Europe. Would you believe that rusty old bombs from the war years also occasionally pop up...in Canada? Better yet, in my hometown of Kitchener, Ontario? Better still, just down the street from the house where I grew up and where my parents still live?

Believe it. Some old geezer brought a bomb home from the war as a souvenir (creating what I'm sure was a great "Honey-I'm-Home" moment). He stuffed the thing in his attic, it later fell through the floor of said attic, and then...he forgot about it until yesterday, when two electricians working for the house's new owners stumbled across it.

Click here to see the story from The Record.

Yowza.

--Skip.

(Photo credit: Robert Wilson, The Record)

Tzatziki Wisdom

2008-06-17T23:34:00.003-04:00

Yah, so I go to all the trouble of making this stupid blog, and then promptly disappear into a black hole for weeks at a time without updating said stupid blog. Some writer I am.

This is my first free evening in what feels like weeks, but its turned out to a be a fairly important evening for me.

Sparky is out at her cousin’s wedding shower (and I wasn’t invited…dang). Having been left to my own devices, I treated myself to a nice souvlaki dinner down on the Danforth. I had thought about going to hear some live music afterward. Then, after stuffing myself with pork souvlaki, roast potatoes, veggies, greek salad, some nice zippy tzatziki, and a couple of beers, the weeks of work-related stress started to catch up with me. I decided to scale back my ambitions for the evening.

In other words, I acted like an old married guy who works for a living and isn’t used to going out on Tuesday nights. I ate, I paid my bill, and I came home. Yeah, I’m a wild man, all right. Ya-friggin’-hoo.

But while munching away on my tzatziki-slathered souvlaki tonight, I made a decision. It won't sound like a big deal to you, but it is to me. I finally decided to book some vacation time this summer.

Big deal, eh? Well, the dynamics at the office haven't made this decision easy. The Powers That Be who run this major project to which I’ve been assigned have decided to throw TWO major deadlines right into the middle of the summer. This news was just dropped on me last week, with summer already in sight. Boo-yah.

But I’ve decided that my mental well-being is more important than any bloody project. I’ve been running flat-out since about late November, and I need a break.

I’ve also decided to heed the advice of my good friend Cicero in Pants, and stop being such a freakin’ control freak on this stuff. There will be other people at the office this summer. I can delegate some of this work. The world will not come to an end if said work is not done exactly the way I would do it myself. In fact, its highly unlikely that anyone but me would give the tiniest crap.

So, screw it. That’s it. I’m taking time off. I’m not going away for a month or anything, just two lousy weeks. The office will survive without me.

Now that I’ve decided that, what am I actually going to do with this time off? Because, of course, I have to be “doing something” all of the goddamned time. God forbid that I should stand still for a few moments.

I would like to get out of town for at least a few days, though $1.40/L gas makes that a less inviting proposition. But maybe I’ll invoke the “to hell with it” rule, and head up to Sparky’s family cottage. Or maybe I’ll burn a few air miles, jump on a plane and go somewhere I’ve never been to before (may be a bit late for that, but perhaps not). I can tell you this: I am NOT sitting around the house for two solid weeks. I may do a project or two, but I am getting out of my element for at least a little bit.

That’s OK. I don’t need to decide all this now. For the time being, I’m going to go open another beer and celebrate my minor victory.

Long live the tzatziki.

Stress

2008-06-01T22:15:00.004-04:00

Hi. Its been a rough couple of weeks.

Deadline hell at work for starters. Too much to do, all of it has to be done now! now! now! now!!!...and not enough time, energy, sanity, or caffeine to go around. Gah.

Then in the middle of all that, Sparky's grandfather died, so we had to sit shiva for a week with Mama Sparky. He was 92 and not well, so it was not unexpected, but still upsetting. We're all gonna miss Zaidie.

The shiva was long and draining, and made said deadlines even harder to meet, which didn't help my blood pressure any.

I've had a lot of trouble sleeping, too. I have a monster under my bed. He is called Stress. He won't sod off and leave me alone at night.

So not much time or energy for bloggin' recently. Not much time for anything, actually. Karate has REALLY suffered in the last two months. I have been to the dojo exactly once in that time, and as a result I'm feeling big and fat and slow.

And speaking of big and fat and slow, I also have my physical on Wednesday. I'm sure Doc Dude is gonna tell me once again about how heavy I am, how stratospheric my cholesterol is, and so on and such. Great. Pass the Cheetos.

Yeah, I know. Bitch, bitch, bitch. Hasn't anything GOOD happened recently, Skippy?

Why, yes. I learned yesterday that my buddy Big Dog's daughter is doing better. She was born at 28 weeks and was a very sick little girl for the first few months of her life. She's now home, growing, and apparently getting stronger every day. Big Dog is an old, dear friend of mine, so I can't begin to describe how happy I was to hear this. I haven't met the Little Pup yet, but hope to in the next couple of weeks.

And the Stanley Cup finals are on, which is fun.

And baseball season is in full swing.

And I'll hopefully be seeing my cousins soon. We do a "Cousins' Club" weekend every so often with all of the cousins on my Dad's side of the family. I can't wait, especially to see Timbo's two little ones (the Timbits!), who I haven't seen in ages.

And Sparky and I took time to see the new Indiana Jones movie on Friday. The movie was OK, but you know, it could have been a blank screen for all I cared. It was an evening out with Sparks. Any questions?

So yes, good things do happen, even to me. Its so easy to get all caught up in what you've convinced yourself is important, and so easy to overlook what really does matter.

My family matters. My friends matter. My health matters.

I have promised myself that I will take better care of all three in the coming months.

Son of FoxTrax: A Sure Sign of the Approaching Apocalypse

2008-05-20T13:04:00.012-04:00

Bad ideas happen. Bad ideas like, say, the first Incredible Hulk movie, New Coke, inflatable furniture, or the invasion of Iraq. There's no sense tearing your hair out over things like these. They're part of human existence. Every so often, our brains either try too hard or just don't seem to be trying at all.

Either way, they spit out something that should never have lived to see the light of day. No big deal. Lesson learned, you move on.

So it does make you wonder why, ten years after its much-deserved demise, Fox TV's infamous "glowing puck" is about to be revived. NHL's current US television non-saviour, Versus, is toying with the idea of bringing puck-tracking back as early as the 2008-2009 season.

As those of us familiar with recent hockey history will recall, FoxTrax was that little technological innovation created by an American TV network to help sell hockey to an American audience unfamiliar with the game. The complaint, typically, was that Americans found the puck difficult to follow on their TV screens.

This special puck had a circuit-board inside which emitted infrared pulses which allowed computers to track it and change its colour on the screen. The puck glowed blue, with a little tail behind it indicating when it had been passed. It turned red when it traveled at more than 70 mph.

Players complained that the special puck had more bounce, and was much harder to control. Hockey purists, meanwhile, complained that this turned hockey into something between a video game and a cartoon.

I suppose I lean toward the "purist" end of the scale on this, but I don't believe that well-thought-out innovation is a bad thing. The icing rule, for example, was introduced for a reason. The helmet rule was introduced for a reason. I'm a big proponent of mandatory visors in hockey, as well as an expanded role for video review. Change is not only a necessary thing--it can be a good thing that makes a product better.

And, to be fair, some sports have used on-screen graphics to good effect. I don't mind how football broadcasts will illuminate the yard-line needed for a first-down--it seems fairly unobtrusive. I'm also told that NASCAR broadcast use speed-tracking technology similar in concept to FoxTrax, and that it works well.

So what was so wrong with FoxTrax? Well, it just looked wrong. It was a distraction, because a hockey play is a complex thing. Its not just where the puck is, as they say, but where the puck is going to be. A glowing dot focused your eyes on just one spot, and took away from how the play as a whole was being set up.

There was also a more fundamental problem. To my mind, hockey had existed on TV for about fifty years (at that point) without FoxTrax. Generations of fans had been able to follow it, even on tiny little black-and-white TVs with rabbit-ears sticking out of the top, without the benefit of whiz-bang infra-red technology. Puck-tracking just seemed like innovation for the sake of innovation, a slick marketing gimmick that added a little technological wowie-zowie and little else. Unlike the helmet rule, this was a change that was pushed on hockey from the outside, rather than pulled by the evolving needs of the game itself.

Thankfully, the idea died after the NHL broadcast rights shifted from FOX to ABC in 1998. But lo, FoxTrax seems to have risen from the grave. The same old arguments have been brought up: it will make the puck easier to follow, you can watch the development of the play, and so on.

Yes, a black object on a white surface is devilishly hard to see, isn't it? If that fails, you can always follow the big crowd of big men around the ice--they generally know where the puck is, even if you don't. If you miss the play, that's what instant-replay and decent colour-commentary are for. (Oh, sorry, we are talking about Versus here. My bad.)

I guess my only question is: did a glowing puck help US TV ratings the first time around? I haven't found any reliable numbers on this either way, but FOX hasn't broadcast a hockey game in ten years and doesn't seem interested in doing so again, so maybe that's your answer right there. Who knows what the hell Versus is expecting by throwing money down this same rat-hole.

The NHL and its US broadcast partners need to face some facts that they've been avoiding for years: after nearly twenty years of US expansion and bouncing between four or five US broadcasters, Americans as a whole still don't care that much about hockey. Its not that they haven't been exposed to it. They have been. Outside of a few core markets with strong teams, they just don't care.

Face it, hockey: you are not football. In the United States, you are a regional sport, with pockets of local interest but no national appeal. Stop embarrassing and demeaning the wonderful game (and alienating your core fans who actually do watch regularly) with things like Day-Glo pucks.

I'm begging you. Enough already.

Getting Buffaloed

2008-05-08T07:10:00.003-04:00

Best seats for a Buffalo Bills game at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Orchard Park, NY: $77 each.

Best seats to see the very same Buffalo Bills at the Rogers Centre, Toronto: $295 each.

Figuring out that Torontonians have waaaaaay more money than brains: Priceless.

...but hey, can you blame Ted Rogers and the Bills for going there? According to this morning's Toronto Star, 180,000 people have registered for a chance to buy tickets to see the selected Bills games that will be held in Toronto in 2008 and 2009.

Don't ask me why 180,000 people would be eye-crossingly stupid enough to do this. "Gee whiz, I'd only have to pay QUADRUPLE what I would have to pay to see the same crappy team just two hours south of here? Wow! What a deal! Sign me up!"

I realize that a certain amount of this is a novelty factor, and that a permanent team here wouldn't necessarily be able to command those stratospheric prices (at least not for long). But if this is even remotely what Uncle Teddy has in mind, no thanks. If this is what it will mean to bring an NFL team to Toronto, I say screw 'em.

I love the NFL, don't get me wrong. But for that price...well, my couch is still pretty comfy.

Rant Time #2: Dude, Where's My Train?

2008-05-07T06:58:00.000-04:00

I hope I'm not the only resident of Toronto who wonders what the hell happened to that airport train.

Back somewhere around 2003, there was a proposal to build the "Blue 22", a train that would get you from Union Station in downtown Toronto to Pearson International Airport in approximately 22 minutes. This sounds like a great idea to me, as we are in desperate need of better access to Pearson airport. Right now, your only options for getting out there are an expensive taxi ride, an expensive limo ride, a long hotel-bus ride, a RIDICULOUSLY long TTC or GO Transit ride (on vehicles that have no space for luggage), or pawning a ride off a friend.

The problem is that, no matter which of these options you choose, you will be stuck in the same traffic on the same over-used roads. There is no "non-road" option. As a result, you have to be prepared to spend a minimum of 45 minutes in transit each way if you're coming from downtown. I have had that one-way trip take as long as two hours.

The idea of a subway and/or express train has come and gone over the years, and the most recent idea was the Blue-22, to be built and operated by private company SNC-Lavalin.

Well, the Blue-22 ran into some opposition in the northwest Toronto neighbourhood of Weston. See, the right-of-way on which they want to run the Blue-22 runs right through Weston--and that rail corridor is already congested. You need to build new track capacity and new crossings (among other things) to make it work, because you just can't squeeze any more trains on there as it is. Much of this new infrastructure would, it must be said, come at Weston's expense.

Folks in Weston are also concerned about noise and pollution (although it does occur to me that the railway has been there for about 150 years, so I'm not sure if it makes sense to complain about noisy and stinky trains now, but I digress...).

Last I heard, objections from residents in Weston came through loud and clear in the environmental assessment process. I'm trying not to use the word "derailed", but I have heard nothing substantive about the project since. Cold political feet? Possibly.

I appreciate why there is opposition in Weston to the Blue-22. I don't live in that area, so fine, I think we need to listen to the concerns and take them seriously. But we can’t escape the fact that this city's transportation infrastructure is decades out of date.

So…if we don’t build an airport rail service, what are the alternatives?

Do nothing? Sorry, not with the population growth that’s projected for the GTA in the next 30 years. The roads are choked with traffic as it is. Complacency is not an option in the Toronto of the early 21^st century—in fact, its what got us into our current mess in the first place.

So if something must be done, what should that “something” be, then, if it is not to be a train service? Subways? Light Rail? Well, York University has been at Keele and Steeles for over 40 years, and there’s still no rapid transit service (despite the fact that over 40,000 students now attend that university), so, gee, I’m not holding my breath on an airport expansion in my lifetime. And, by the way, don’t forget that the TTC is still struggling to maintain its existing network in a state of good repair...

A dedicated bus lane on Highway 427? If you've driven the 427 lately, you know that it doesn't exactly have a lot of spare capacity at rush hour, so if you shut one lane down and make it busses only, where does the rest of the traffic go? The only alternative here is to expand the 427 and build new lanes, which would not only be time consuming and expensive, but would also probably require expropriation of at least some land along either side of the highway (with all of the complications that entails).

In other words, the whole problem of disrupting communities to build new infrastructure doesn’t go away, it just migrates southwest, and thus is no longer Weston’s problem. That might suit Weston residents just fine, but its still a problem for the rest of the city to solve, and its arguably one that could affect a hell of a lot more people.

So it seems to me that we don't have a lot of viable alternatives here—just alternatives that would offload the airport transport problem onto someone else (namely, airport travelers and/or residents and business owners along the 427 corridor). It may not be possible to fix Toronto’s infrastructure problems without changing some parts of the city irrevocably, but lets have an honest conversation about that.

Lets also be honest about something else: "do nothing" is not an option. This city has done next to nothing on transportation for the last 30 years, and we're choking on our own growth as a result.

Blue-22 was tagged for funding in the province's "Move Ontario 2020" plan last year. Lets see if this gets the project moving. The stakes are too high for this project to stay parked in the station.
--Skip

Hockey ramble #2: A Winning Streak

2008-05-06T13:54:00.000-04:00

And under the heading of "The folks back home in Edmonton sure will be proud of me"...

Nathan Smith, Captain of the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins (farm team for the avian birds of the Pittsburgh variety), is being sent to trial after being caught drunkenly streaking on April 27.

Legal strategy tip, Nathan: show up for your trial in a suit and tie. No one in court will be able to identify you.

--Skip.

Hockey ramblings: Cold Comfort in May

2008-05-06T10:35:00.000-04:00

Well, now that the NHL conference finals are all set to go, I note that the team which systematically took my Ottawa Senators apart in Round One did pretty much the same thing to the New York Rangers in Round Two.

Cold comfort, that's for sure. For the record, I’m well aware that Ottawa’s humiliating slide into oblivion started back in about January, so I can’t blame it ALL on the Sidney Show. At this point, I’ll take what I can get.

I’m guessing that Pittsburgh will have a tougher time with Philadelphia. Not only is their goalie on a hell of a hot streak (I'll bet Biron’s REALLY glad he’s out of Buffalo now!), but the Flyers play a tough, bruising brand of hockey that has given the Pens some trouble this year, but hey, that’s why Pittsburgh has guys like Laracque and Roberts.

Also interesting to note that the Flyers’ and Pens’ farm teams (the Philadelphia Phantoms and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, respectively) are battling it out in the AHL playoffs at the same time. Lots of history and bad blood, which you can read about here.

(By the way, who is it at nhl.com who comes up these dumb-ass headlines, anyway? "Pennsylvania is Hockey Heaven?" Ummm...does no one remember that we were openly talking about relocation of the Penguins just one year ago? But I digress.)

I wonder if a certain Mr. Downie will make his presence felt in the Philly-Pittsburgh series? Hasn’t been much of a factor thus far, but if it gets ugly, don’t be surprised if his hands are dirty.

Should be fun. I call a Pittsburgh-Detroit Cup final.

Speaking of the AHL playoffs, I was at game 2 of the Toronto Marlies-Syracuse Crunch series on Sunday afternoon. There were just over 3,000 people there, in a rink that holds about 8,000 or 9,000. The chartered bus from Syracuse parked out front of the Ricoh Coliseum contributed a good chunk of those 3,000 souls.

This, in the city that likes to think of itself as the “Mecca” of hockey? What a load of crap that is. This isn’t a hockey town. Its a Leafs town. There is no deep love for hockey here, just a tribal loyalty to one local institution. No one around here watches anything that isn’t the Leafs—not internationals, not the juniors, not the minors, not even the Leafs’ own farm team.

Kinda sad.

--Skip.

Rant time: bikes n' cars

2008-05-05T10:15:00.000-04:00

Monday, December 20, 2004. Approx 1:15 pm. Corner of Bay and Wellesely, downtown Toronto.

I’m standing on the southeast corner, waiting to cross to the southwest corner. Out of nowhere comes a cyclist, cutting across through the pedestrian crossover and passing within two inches or so of the corner (and hence about three inches from my nose). This is annoying enough, but I’m used to it.

But then…a bicycle cop pulls up to the corner, coming north on Bay. He stops at the southeast corner, and stops for the light right beside me—and right in front of the cyclist who almost knocked me over. OK...so not only is this cyclist is making an illegal turn, but he is doing it literally right in front of a cop. This ought to be interesting.

The cop notices. He says to the cyclist, “Hey! What’re you doing? You can’t ride through a pedestrian cross-walk!”

The cyclist.....shrugs.

He keeps right on going, not only continuing across the pedestrian crossway, but cutting across the two southbound lanes on Bay Street and eventually heading south on Bay. Doesn’t even slow down, as far as I can see.

OK, Alex, so why are you on about this? Stay with me.

The turn was quite illegal, and the Ontario Highway Traffic Act is quite clear on that. Part X, “Rules of the Road”, Section 140, Subsection 6 of the Act reads that “…No person shall ride a bicycle across a roadway within a pedestrian crossover.” Hard to put it in English more plain than that.

And what did the cop do about this infraction that occurred a few feet in front of him? Well, he spoke up, I’ll give him that. But he didn’t tell the guy to stop, and obviously nothing gave the cyclist the impression that a ticket was in his future.

What was I expecting? It was, after all, -15 degrees (not including wind chill) that afternoon—tough conditions in which to chase someone on a bike. Chases can also be dangerous affairs, whether in a car or on a bike. I suppose, then, that its not worth risking death or injury in a chase over a minor traffic infraction where no one got hurt and nothing was damaged.

Unfortunately, that still leads me to an uncomfortable question: just how many Highway Traffic Acts are there, anyway?

The way the law reads, of course, a “vehicle” is a “vehicle”, simple as that. In theory, everything that applies to a car also applies to a bicycle, except where specifically noted. In practice, the cops ignore an awful lot of what bicyclists do, likely because they don’t have enough time or enough people (or enough whatever).

I know, I know, you’ll say: “But I got a ticket for doing <insert infraction here> on my bike!”. That may well be true. But ask yourself this: how long have you been riding a bike, how often do you ride it, how many illegal things do you do on said bike in a course of a day (or week or month or year?), and how many tickets have you received? I’ll be shocked if you exceed two or three.

On the other hand, if cyclists drove cars the way many of them ride their bikes—illegal turns, illegal lane changes, riding the wrong way, breezing through stop signs and traffic lights, etc. etc. etc.—most of them would probably have had their licenses suspended several times over by now. I say without a word of hesitation that it’s a lot easier to get caught doing something stupid in a car than doing the exact same thing on a bike.

Now, I’m not trying to defend or make excuses for the idiotic conduct of motorists. Far from it—as a motorist myself, I’m keenly aware of how many motorized morons there are out there. I’ve almost been killed by many of said morons myself. My wife, in fact, was “doored” by a motorist once while riding her bike in Ottawa. So there--I’m even sympathetic to many of the claims that cyclists make regarding the behaviour of motorists. Some of the recklessness you see from people in cars is truly sickening.

I’ll also freely admit that, in nearly twenty years of driving, I’ve made my share of mistakes. Motorists do screw up, sometimes badly, and many are complete menaces who have no business being on public roadways.

And, in all fairness, maybe you do need to enforce the law more tightly on cars than you do on bikes. A car, after all, is much heavier and much faster than a bike. The danger of doing something stupid behind the wheel of a car is therefore much greater. There is a certain logic here, I suppose.

Unfortunately, that logic seems to underpin a certain culture of impunity that has evolved among cyclists. I’ve never quite been able to put my finger on it, but I sometimes detect a certain arrogance among cyclists, a certain “I-have-a-right-to-be-here-and-I’m-gonna-exercise-that-right-if-it-kills-me” approach to the road. Sometimes that attitude infuriates me, and sometimes it scares the bejeezus out of me.

I’m not sure where it comes from—the rebellion of the mistreated and downtrodden, a sense of environmental correctness, or perhaps the knowledge that the law is probably never going to catch up to them in any meaningful way (hey, if you don’t need a license or registration to use the vehicle, what can they really do to you, right?…)

All I know is that it takes balls to deliberately blow right past a cop as you make an illegal turn. I sure as hell wouldn’t do that in my car, and I don’t know a lot of other motorists who would, either.

This isn’t about building more bike lanes, and this isn’t about whether bikes are superior to cars or vice versa. It’s about rules—how many sets of them we have, and how we enforce them. If we’re going to come up with a totally separate set of traffic rules for bicycles, then fine—let’s just damned well write them and enforce them, already. If the police don’t have the capacity to enforce the current rules for bicycles, fine--let’s come up with some new rules that they can enforce, whatever they may be.

Just stop telling me that the same “rules of the road” apply to everyone.

From what I saw that Monday, cyclists don’t seem to think that’s the case, and neither do the cops.

And another thing...

2008-04-29T09:46:00.000-04:00

...I should also thank my friend Tara, who told me the truth last Christmas.

Tara, an old high-school chum of mine, comes to town about once a year, and its always a treat to see her. When she was here back in December, I was complaining to her about how I'm doing so little in my life that I actually like, that I should start writing, that I should start a blog, blah blah blah.

She noticed that we had had almost exactly the same conversation a year earlier. Same time of year, same bar in the west end of Toronto, same conversation. To her great credit, Tara pretty much told me straight up that she didn't want to hear it again. To paraphrase: do something about it already, dude, 'cuz I'm sick of this and I'm not listening to this again.

Wise words. Tara doesn't know this, but I took those words to heart.

So here's to you, Tara. Its taken me a while, but I've finally started. I don't know where this little blog o' mine will take me, and right now I don't think it really matters.

Oh...and I still have those Santa Crawl pictures around here somewhere. They'll make it up here eventually.

--Skip

So, in short...

2008-04-29T07:24:00.000-04:00

So why the hell do I have a blog?

Good question.

The short explanation is that I love to write. Usually, what I write is short prose. Every so often, when I see something in the paper that moves my brain in a certain direction, or when I have an incomplete conversation with someone, I head for the computer and out it comes. Over the years, I've built up a lot of these "e-scribbles", which are really no more than random writings on random topics that really aren't designed for anyone else to see. Its not quite a diary, but that's the closest description I can think of.

I have no idea if I'm any good at writing. All I know is that I enjoy it.

Whenever I tell anyone that, they always tell me: "Well, you should write, then!"

OK...about what? What stories do I have to tell? What could I possibly write that anyone else would find even remotely interesting? Why should anyone else give a crap about what I have to say? I've stalled on that for years, and used it as an excuse to do nothing. Story of my life. As Wayne Gretzky once said, "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

Finally my old friend Michelle (crazy yoga instructor/amazing photographer/web designer/aspiring sailor chick...everyone ought to have one) said "Oh, for God's sake" and told me to set up a blog and just freaking do it already.

My wife, Sparky, has been telling me this for years. She deserves a big note of thanks, as she does for so much in my life.

So here I am. I'm not proposing that my blog will change the world. I'm not even too concerned if no one likes what I write--or even reads it, to tell the truth. If I really want people to read what I write, I'll get a publisher and get PAID to do it. (Hah.)

This is my outlet. That's all, that's it, nothing more and nothing less. I've been craving this outlet for years. Sparky's patience has paid off, and Miche's boot-print in my ass has finally pushed me in the right direction.

So now what? No idea.

Yet.

--Skip

I'm bloggin', yes indeed, I'm bloggin'....

2008-04-28T12:21:00.000-04:00

I just set this up, and I'm still at work as I write this, so please forgive the embarrassingly bare-bones appearance. I'll get 'er all set up soon. Just wait and see!

Thanks to K-Miche for the kick in the ass.