Greatest hockey hits of all time contest

So I was trolling the blogosphere this afternoon and I stumbled across a post on Orland Kurtenblog that got my juices flowing.

Their concept is that every week they will post video clips showing two of their favourite hockey hits and let their readers decide which is the best one.

Their first two clips are Wendel Clark ending Bruce Bell's career on a clean check in 1986 and Trevor Linden putting Jeff Norton through the glass in the first round of the 1995 playoffs.

If you like hard hitting hockey you have to watch these videos, make sure you read the comments (and vote). Thanks Kurtenblog for a good idea and a great post.

Oh, and almost forgot to send out a thanks to Deadspin for helping me find the post, keep up the good work guys.

Starting Goalies in the NHL tonight Wednesday, November 7

Below are the reported starters for Wednesday night:

(Bold is my predicted winner, Italic is an uncertain starter)

All right, I am going to try to find time to continue my blog here. I have had an extremely busy year with a job relocation and change and it was extremely difficult to find any time to update my blog.

For now, back to posting daily starting goaltenders and we will see where it goes from there!


Flyers - Martin Biron vs Penguins - Marc-Andre Fleury
Bruins - Tim Thomas vs Sabres - Ryan Miller
Panthers - Tomas Vokoun vs Lightning - Johan Holmqvist
Predators - Chris Mason - Red Wings - Chris Osgoode
Blue Jackets - Frederick Norrena vs Blackhawks - Nikolai Khabibulin
Oilers - Dwayne Roloson vs Avalanche - Peter Budaj
Coyotes - Alex Auld vs Ducks - J.S. Giguere
Stars - Marty Turco vs Sharks - Evgeni Nabokov

Much like last year I will update each day with today's probable starters and my record for both starters and winners from the previous night's games. Since this is my first post this season I have no record to post! See you tomorrow.

Bettman puts Boots to Balls

I squish you!

According to the National Post, Jim Balsillie's US$238-million bid to purchase the Nashville Predators is about to be rejected by Predator's owner Craig Leipold. The Post's sources say that Leipold is planning to accept a less lucrative offer from California businessman William "Boots" DelBiaggio that would move the team to Kansas City. The last official offer from 'Boots' was in the US$190-million range.

Okay, enough of the bare facts.

First off, what kind of responsible businessman would seriously consider accepting an offer that is almost $40 million LESS than the one currently on the table? Not to mention one that is led by a guy named 'Boots'? It makes you wonder what kind of pressure is being applied to Leipold and by whom.

Anyone who has been following this story knows that Gary Bettman had his bluff called by Balsillie over the Pittsburgh Penguins deal earlier this year (which reportedly cost the Penguins $300,000 in legal bills from the NHL's lawyers). Balsillie followed that up by steaming ahead with plans to move the Predator's to Hamilton, even going so far as pre-selling seasons tickets through Ticket Master (7,200 season ticket sales in one day).

To put it mildly, Bettman is pissed. Bettman has been using every piece of leverage he has to slow down the Ballsy juggernaut and this latest development just looks like more gamesmanship to me. It wouldn't surprise me at all if we later learn that Ballsy does end up buying the Predators and moves them to Hamilton, but only after he commits ritual seppuku in public by kowtowing to Bettman. Oh... and agreeing to some sort of financial penalty to the Leafs and Sabres for moving into there market.

I do have just one other question...

Is there anyone in the entire universe (other than Bettman) who thinks that Kansas City is a better hockey market than Hamilton? To help out you folks south of hockey central, Hamilton is less than an hour away from Toronto in Southern Ontario and the surrounding population is larger than that surrounding Kansas City. Oh... and about 90% of them are hockey mad. As opposed to the 9% around KC who may be able to spell 'hockey'.

Does this confuse anyone else?

Major League Baseball trying to ruin the NHL

You said what now?

The CBC sued MLB and won, but MLB is appealing this ruling and if they win you can say goodbye to Fantasy Hockey.

First off, CBC is not the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (not in this lawsuit anyway) and the implications of this lawsuit will directly affect the very existence of all Fantasy Sports Leagues, not just hockey.

CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc. last year won a lawsuit that they had filed against MLB when their license to run a Fantasy Baseball game was rescinded by the Major Leagues. CBC decided to take one for the team and sue MLB to prove that they (CBC) did not have to pay a licensing fee to MLB for the rights to use player names and statistics. Last year they won their lawsuit.

MLB is, of course, appealing this ruling. The NBA, NFL and NHL all participated in the original lawsuit and any ruling in this case will essentially hold true for these leagues as well. A U.S. Federal Appeal panel is currently ruling on MLB's application and it's implications are huge.

If Baseball is successful in appealing this ruling it would essentially give MLB (and the three other major sports) the ability to monopolize Fantasy Sports. Over the last few years MLB has reduced the number of licenses it has granted to Fantasy Sports game providers from over 50 to less than 8. If they so desired, MLB could refuse to grant any licenses whatsoever and keep full control of all the traffic and revenues derived from Fantasy Baseball to itself.

The most recent estimates place the total revenue from Fantasy Sports at over $1.5 Billion with as many as 8 million participants on a yearly basis. That's a pretty big piece of pie.

So again, what does this have to do with Fantasy Hockey?

Two things.

1) If MLB is able to control Fantasy Baseball do you think that the NHL will be far behind in taking complete control of Fantasy Hockey? Bye bye Yahoo, the NHL won't grant you the rights to use their statistics.
2) Speaking of statistics, you can forget looking in the newspaper (or the internets) for daily box scores. Unless someone is paying a fat licensing fee anyway.

Hmmm... speaking of which, if anyone happens to own any Yahoo stock I would suggest you keep an eye on this appeal. Yahoo has estimated that approximately 40% of it's total site traffic is a direct result (or derived from) it's Fantasy Sports products. If MLB decides to take away their Fantasy Baseball traffic Yahoo will take a serious dive.

Hamilton Predators sell 7,200 seasons tickets

TSN.ca is reporting that Ticketmaster yesterday accepted deposits for close to 7,200 seasons tickets beginning at 10:00 AM yesterday morning. In contrast the Nashville Predators reportedly have a seasons ticket base of 8,500 and have dipped as low as 6,532 seasons tickets during the 2003-04 season.

The ticket sales include almost 60 $5,000 deposits for corporate boxes, 4,700 $1,000 deposits for lower bowl seats and almost 2,500 $500 deposits for upper bowl seats. By my calculations that means the Hamilton Predators have already gathered $6.25 Million in seasons tickets revenue and these are just deposits.

In my humble opinion both the city of Nashville and the NHL can say goodbye to the Predators franchise in Tennessee. The NHL cannot simply ignore this obvious demonstration of interest in a hockey franchise in Southern Ontario.

Mr. Balsillie has put the NHL in check, with mate coming in two moves.

In an intersting side note TSN.ca is also reporting that Buffalo is not 'at this time' opposed to a team in Hamilton. Is this Balsillie's next move? Or just a feint. It will be interesting to see if the Sabres become involved in Balsillie's pitch to the NHL in the near future.