How incredibly original. And come to think of it, it's high time that an NHL team had a maple leaf featured in its logo to celebrate our great nation, don't you think:
Frattin signed his contract at a Starbucks in St. Paul at about 2 p.m.
At the heart of the discussion is a complex — and often strident — debate about the role of bloggers, conflicting views among the teams about the ways to cater to their fans and the challenge of fashioning new guidelines for sports media that, as Brown put it, is “morphing at warp speed.”
Talking to people throughout the hockey industry this morning, it was clear most expected that while Ilya Kovalchuk's 17-year contract with the New Jersey Devils was a rather obvious - blatant? - attempt to circumvent the NHL's salary cap system, a number of similar contracts allowed in recent years by the NHL was going to make it difficult for arbitrator Richard Bloch to side with the league in its rejection of Kovalchuk's deal.
But Bloch did just that, saying the Kovalchuk contract "has the effect of defeating" the NHL's cap system.
..."In this case, the record strongly supports the claim this contract is “intended to, or has the effect” of defeating or circumventing the Salary Cap provisions of the CBA," wrote Bloch in his decision. "The overall structure of this (contract) reflects not so much the hope that Mr. Kovalchuk will be playing in those advanced years, but rather the expectation that he will not. This is a long contract --17 years -- the longest in NHL history. That, in itself, poses no contractual problem. . . . . But Kovalchuk is 27 years old, and the agreement contemplates his playing until just short of his 44th birthday. That is not impossible, but it is, at the least, markedly rare. Currently, only one player in the League has played past 43 and, over the past 20 years only 6 of some 3400 players have played to 42."
Former Chicago Black Hawk, Kris Versteeg, acquired by the Toronto Maple Leafs in a five-player trade last night:
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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His goaltending in tonight's pre-season loss removes all doubt about the Monster's ultimate future in Toronto - Sabres 7, Leafs 6.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Departing briefly from our usual banter...
If [Kessell] thinks changing teams will make everything better, he needs to contemplate the axiom, “The grass is not always greener on the other wide of the fence.”
Toronto longed seemed his likely destination. Kessel now has the privilege of playing in a city where hockey is more a passionate religion than mere sport; with fans presuming he’ll be an automatic 50-goal-scoring savior and anything less will be seen as failure; for a coach, Ron Wilson, who can be mean, sarcastic and nasty; and a GM, Burke, who can be as intimidating as anyone in the league.
Good luck, Phil. You may be in for an unpleasant surprise or two.
...Kessel got a heck of a deal financially. But it seems obvious what would have been the best outcome for him: Take the offer from the B’s and stay right where he was. It’s unfortunate that won’t happen, maybe for Kessel most of all.
It didn't have to end this way. Phil Kessel could have remained part of the core, a key cog to build around for years to come in the city of Boston. He could've helped bring the organization it's first championship in nearly four long, arduous decades. He could've ruled this town, representing the Black and Gold at All Star Game after All Star Game, contending for the Maurice "Rocket" Richard trophy season after season. His efforts and accomplishments over the next decade and beyond would've meant the world to championship-starved fans of the B's. With $27 million making it's way to his bank account over the next five years, however, we now know what really matters to Phil Kessel.
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As the hockey world awaits the reserved decision of Arizona Bankruptcy Judge Redfield T. Baum on Jim Balsillie's auction bid to buy the Phoenix Coyotes, the Toronto Star reports that the Canadian Competition Bureau may investigate and intervene if the Toronto Maple Leafs veto a subsequent relocation of the NHL franchise to Hamilton:
The Canadian Competition Bureau is keeping an eagle eye on Jim Balsillie's fight to buy the Phoenix Coyotes, and is ready to swoop in if the Maple Leafs veto the franchise's move to Hamilton.
..."We are seized by the matter, and we are monitoring it very closely," Richard Taylor, the deputy commissioner of competition, civil matters, told the Star yesterday.
"We are concerned," Taylor said. "We are looking at all the paperwork that's coming out of the proceedings and we will take action if we believe that the veto that Toronto thinks they have is exercised and blocks a team. The exercise of the veto that effectively blocked a team from moving would raise concerns for us and would be something we would investigate."
...Taylor would not go so far as to say the Competition Bureau would definitely investigate the Coyotes case.
"We have to be presented with an anti-competitive act, not the possibility of an anti-competitive act," he said.
"We can't go off pre-emptively and stop something that hasn't happened yet just because it may happen, just because the Leafs say they have a veto, and just because many people believe they will exercise it. We have said and continue to say that if a veto is exercised that effectively blocks a team coming into another team's territory, we will look at it and that includes using all our powers to investigate it and determine whether it violates our act."
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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As Gary Bettman and Jim Balsillie prepare to take the stand on Friday, the experts weigh in on the outcome of this week's auction of the Phoenix Coyotes in an Arizona bankruptcy court:
..Yet at the core of the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy auction is whether the NHL controls its own properties and whether its bylaws can legally determine who can and can not own them.
In essence, Judge Redfield T. Baum is going to tell us if Gary Bettman and the Board of Governors must bow to a higher authority, now and going forward, regarding one of the one of the most seemingly inalienable rights of pro sports leagues.
Richard Powers, dean of the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto, told Damien Cox that"the repercussions on professional sport could be monumental." But Stephen Ross, a law professor at Penn State University, told David Shoalts of the Globe & Mail (in a great column) that Jim Balsillie's bid for the Coyotes should win, and that the NHL should have its bid knocked out and no longer be a gatekeeper for franchise ownership.See the original article from Puck Daddy at Yahoo News: Experts opine as Coyotes auction arrives; future of Gretz cloudy
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Research in Motion owner Jim Balsillie appears to be very much back in the game after a ruling Wednesday by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Redfield T. Baum.
Balsillie really will do everything and anything he can to make sure no one else gets the Coyotes. Now that he is legally allowed to bid, what is going to stop him?
He is by far the most hungry of all potential owners and he will have no problem increasing the amount he is already willing to pay, if he must.
The Board of Governors have sent Balsillie their seal of disapproval many times, yet this time around, Judge Baum has truly given Balsillie's 'Make it Seven' campaign some serious life.
The Globe and Mail's take - Smart lawyer is Balsillie’s ace in the hole:
It isn’t tough to find someone to malign Richard Rodier, chief counsel to Jim Balsillie in his quest to secure an NHL franchise for Hamilton.
He has been described as a “rogue” lawyer, has been blamed in some circles for Balsillie’s failure to make friends among the NHL’s governors, has rubbed people the wrong way, has been accused of leading the billionaire down a quixotic path that can’t possibly end in success.
Bankruptcy law is Rodier’s world. When it became clear that there was no direct route to NHL ownership for Balsillie – or at least NHL ownership in Hamilton – the entire strategy shifted to finding a club teetering on the brink, to find an owner who had lost faith, who needed to get out and get out fast.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Via CBC:
Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie's bid to buy the Phoenix Coyotes and move the NHL team to Hamilton was rejected Monday by an Arizona bankruptcy judge.
Balsillie, the co-CEO of Research In Motion Ltd., maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, had imposed a June 29 deadline to complete the sale — hoping to speed up the process and have the team ready to play in Hamilton for the 2009-10 season.
But in a ruling handed down late Monday, Judge Redfield Baum said "this court is unconvinced that it should order that the NHL must decide the relocation application to meet the June 29 deadline."
"The motion is denied, without prejudice," Baum wrote.
Judge Baum's ruling is now online in PDF format.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
UPDATE:
Judge Baum's ruling notwithstanding, Mr. Balsillie indicates his bid to purchase the Coyotes will be moving forward.
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The battle between the National Hockey League and Canada's Blackberry billionaire, Jim Basillie, over the future of the Phoenix Coyotes franchise is shaping up as one of the most interesting - and important - professional sports litigation cases in recent history.
The battle for control of the Phoenix Coyotes has simmered for the moment, but will pick up with a vengeance when the opposing sides re-convene in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Arizona on May 19th. If Judge Redfield T. Baum rules that the Coyotes belong to Jerry Moyes, and can therefore file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and be sold to the highest bidder [Jim Balsillie], the NHL will surely appeal the decision, delaying not only the potential movement of the franchise, but the timely completion of a schedule for the 2009-10 season.
It’s anyone’s guess as to how the dispute will be won, but I am most intrigued by Balsillie’s accusation in a separate claim that the NHL is running an “illegal cartel”. For many years, I have wondered about the unilateral declaration of territorial claim that is common in all professional leagues, but doesn’t appear to be constitutional. In a free-enterprise system, competing factions are encouraged to exist in proximity to one another; it’s the reason a Burger King restaurant can set up shop across the street from an existing McDonald’s franchise. Such an arrangement satisfies anti-trust regulations by discouraging monopolistic tendencies.
Professional sport, however, is largely built on monopolizing lucrative territory; its clubs command astronomical indemnification from groups that wish to invade turf that is already “owned”. It is believed that team and league executives liberally collude to prevent competition – a charge, in the NHL, that is frequently brought against the Maple Leafs and the commissioner’s office. This appears to contravene the rules the rest of our society lives by and it isn’t clear how it might withstand a vigorous legal challenge. What is clear is that such a challenge could be fashioned by money-bags Balsillie, and there’s no telling how it might impact the accepted rule in pro sport.
The reversal of such a long-term practice could affect the most routine elements of sport – those which are overlooked in legal circles for being internally policed...
It's a Canadian conceit that placing franchises in Winnipeg, Quebec City and southern Ontario is a patriotic imperative, while hoping the sport will bloom in the Arizona desert or flourish under Florida palm trees is outright lunacy.
...Permitting an undeniably bright, deep-pockets entrepreneur like Balsillie to dictate his own terms of entry and set up shop where he darn well pleases could do untold damage to the dynamic around the board table. It beggars common sense to think the governors are anxious to welcome a partner whose approach to franchise ownership is Robert Irsay meets Al Davis.
Irsay was the man who literally packed up the assets of the Colts in Baltimore back in March 1984 and executed the old midnight move to Indianapolis.
Davis ("Just win, baby") successfully used anti-trust legislation to move his Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles and back again.
There was nothing the NFL could do about it.
Irsay and Davis succeeded, all right, but that sure doesn't make them role models.
Perhaps, but isn't it clear that the real reason for Mr. Balsillie's aggressive tact is that he's become justifiably convinced the NHL will never, under ordinary circumstances, award a franchise to Hamilton. Plainly, the unbending and long-established territorial-exclusivity claims of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres organizations are not far beneath the surface of this litigation.
The pending Coyotes litigation will likely put these territorial rights - and the NHL's ability to protect them - to their ultimate, and perhaps overdue, legal test.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Video from today's press conference introducing Ron Wilson as the next head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs:
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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Accoring to reports, the Toronto Maple Leafs have terminated coach Paul Maurice.
CBC News now confirms the firing:
...Maurice, 41, was told early Wednesday morning he had been relieved of his duties with one year and a club option remaining on his contract. There was no word on Maurice's successor.
"There will be discussions, but you can be sure of one thing," interim Maple Leafs general manager Cliff Fletcher told the Canadian Press. "The person coming in is going to be a strong hockey person and he's going to have very definite opinions of his own."
The Maple Leafs will hold a news conference at 3 p.m. ET Wednesday, while Maurice is expected to talk to media on Thursday at 10:30 a.m. ET.
It is also believed that assistant coach Randy Ladouceur has been let go.
We will not be missing moments like this:
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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As CBC reports, Leafs' Sundin won't waive no-trade clause.
What can I say?
I guess he likes us... he really likes us.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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My friend, Pseudonym, at Canada, Eh! sums up what most of us are thinking about today's announcement that TSN has added former Leaf GM John Ferguson Jr. to its roster of commentators for the February 26 NHL trade deadline:
I don't want to sound cruel but hiring JFJ as analyst on NHL trades is like hiring Britney Spears as a parenting expert.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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A St Louis civil jury has awarded damages of $9.5 million in a wrongful death action filed by Cynthia Magnuson, the surviving wife of former Chicago Black Hawk defenseman Keith Magnuson, and the two children of the family.
Magnuson was killed in a fatal Ontario motor vehicle accident on December 15, 2003. He was a passenger in a rental vehicle driven by former Toronto Maple Leaf captain Rob Ramage. The former NHL star's family brought suit in Missouri against Ramage and National Car Rentals of Canada.
Ramage was convicted on October 10 at Toronto on five criminal charges arising from the accident, including impaired driving causing death, and will be sentenced January 17, 2008.
National Car Rental has brought separate proceedings in Ontario Superior Court against the NHL Alumni Association, seeking indemnity for its legal costs and damages awarded in the Missouri action.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
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