Please God Let Them Be A Bunch of Jerks

Hockey Night in Canada Muppet and all-around-old-man-yelling-at-clouds has made it official: By doing their "storm surge" celebrations on home ice after victories, the Carolina Hurricanes are hereby proclaimed to be a bunch of jerks. Let's unpack that one, shall we?
One, sick burn there, Don. Going to call them hooligans or rapscallions next?
Two, no grown man who dresses to go out in public like Don Cherry does gets to comment on anyone's attempts to express their individuality. When Cherry gives up the jackets that look like mid-90s screen saver patterns, then maybe we can talk.
Three, thank God the Hurricanes are doing this, precisely because it demonstrates a little bit of personality. If you look back at the past ten years of Canes hockey, it is notable for a lack of success, a lack of quality goaltending, and a lack of personality. Not only was the team always bad, but it was bad and boring, with as much personality as a stoned marmot. They were agonizing to watch, and a large part of it was that the team had no identity, win or (mostly) lose. Now, however, they've got something. Maybe it's immature. Maybe it's premature - after all, the Canes are still on the outside of the playoff bubble looking in, despite their scorching hot streak since New Year's. And maybe it's a sign that the Hurricanes are indeed a bunch of jerks who like showing up their opponents (but only on home ice after a victory), but I'll take it. Give me a bunch of jerks who actually play like they care about the result and show it, and you've got my interest. Combine that with a few actual wins, and you've got my attention.

Under Mis-Standings

You want to know why not a ton of people get that into hockey's regular season? It's because you look at the standings and the NHL looks like a second grade spelling be where everyone's rewarded for participation.

Heart to Heart

In the NHL preseason, Rich Peverly of the Dallas Stars underwent a procedure to address an irregular heartbeat.  Medical professionals monitored his health throughout the season.  It wasn't enough.  Less than a minute after finishing a shift 6 minutes into tonight's game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, he collapsed on the Stars' bench, and the ensuing emergency and concern caused the game to be called (it's postponed until an as yet unscheduled time).  For the record, he is alive and as well as can be expected in this situation.  When he came to and was able to talk to Stars' coach Lindy Ruff, he asked about the progress of the game.  You can't say for sure that there was no damage, but it's a good sign, I think.

Short term, this game was postponed, and Dallas' game tomorrow against St. Louis may also be postponed.  I'm not sure about tomorrow, but today, anyone suggesting any other course of action is wrong.  This impacts fans, and the teams, but those things are manageable.

The medium term repercussions are obvious.  Peverly will be out for some time to recover and determine his future with regards to hockey.  He's not a prolific scorer, but he has 30 points in the season, that's important.  Dallas' players will have to manage their emotional state, after experiencing an event like this.  Game schedules will have to be rearranged.

Long term, the NHL and the organizations involved in this come out smelling like roses.  He survived, with most if not all of his faculties intact.  His wife was present at the arena or at least able to get to the hospital with him.  The management of this medical emergency couldn't have been better, and the NHL is acknowledging the concern of the fans, both for Peverly as a person and for the more business oriented side of things.  I reserve judgement on how they will handle the people who came to see a game and only got just over 6 minutes of hockey.  But I think they'll do the right thing, for once.

The NHL Has Something

Sunday afternoon, my wife -- who likes sports in general but is not a die-hard hockey fan -- texted me out of the blue:

we should watch some hockey tonight

There were two Game Sevens on last night.  The Toronto Maple Leafs were playing the Boston Bruins, and the Washington Capitals were playing the New York Rangers.  At the end of the night we would know who was moving on to the east semifinals.

Early on in the evening we were skeptical and considered netflixing* the sixth season of Supernatural (because someone in my house can't get enough of Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and the horsemen of the apocalypse).

We kept putting it off, though... I'd say "so, should we..." and she'd say "five more minutes."

And then, well, the Leafs-Bruins game got good.

Iginla to the Penguins

The Miami Heat's epic winning streak comes to an end? Sweet Sixteen about to begin? Time to talk about a hockey trade!

Some observations on the Pittsburgh Penguins' trade for (now-)former Calgary Flames forward Jarome Iginla.

First, if you ask anybody outside of the Great White North (or Yinzer Nation) what's going on in the NHL, they will ask, "aren't they locked out this year?" But this isn't just the top story -- it's the top several stories on the Calgary Sun's website. And it's a big deal in Pittsburgh (at least two of the top radio stations in town are non-stop Iginla this morning). Penguins fans are suddenly remembering the great affection they have always had for this guy who helped Sid Crosby win Olympic Gold.

Second, the Boston Bruins went to bed thinking they were getting Iginla. The Bruins apparently offered the Flames a better deal for Iginla than the Pens did, but Iginla wanted to go to Pittsburgh (and with the Miami-Heat-esque assemblage of talent that Pens' GM Ray Shero has gathered recently, it is hard to blame him) (editor's note: now I'm having images of the Miami Heat on ice skates). This deal hurts Boston twice -- by keeping Iginla out of the Bruins' hands and by helping Eastern Conference rival Pittsburgh.

Third, there's some suggestion that this deal costs Pittsburgh by trading away their first-round draft pick for 2013.  Well, look, there's very little doubt that the Pens are going to be near the top of the regular-season standings. NHL draft order is determined by regular-season standings (modulo the lottery). So their draft picks for 2013 are sure to be less-valuable late-round picks. Which means that this is the year to make that trade.

Some Pittsburgh sports talk callers are already whining about where the Penguins will find room for all the talent they have.  I'm sure that this is a problem that Flyers fans would love to have.

Redemption, or Not

(inspired by a Twitter conversation with Hal Mangold (@AtomicOvermind) who has been threatening to write for us for years in much the same way Vermont keeps threatening to secede)

Hockey's an unusual sport in a lot of ways. It's played on a sheet of ice; the players wear razor-sharp blades and collide with one another all the time; it's so exhausting that a one-minute shift is considered long. And it's the only sport that Québécois parents allow their children to play*.

Violence isn't unique to hockey, certainly. Longtime readers** know that I dwell overmuch on the long-term effects of injury in the NFL. Hockey suffers similarly.

But really, only in hockey do you have the guy with the designated role "enforcer," or "thug."  The guy whose job it is to try to injure other players, or to retaliate against those that have injured your players.  The guy whose job it is to pick fights with the guys in the other shirts.

Matt Cooke isn't exactly the Pittsburgh Penguins' enforcer.  But he has a reputation as an instigator, and as a dirty player, based on hits like this one:

Penguins management didn't protest the suspensions that Cooke received from this hit and another, near the end of the 2010-2011 season. Cooke was known for committing these kinds of fouls, but the Pens front office was getting tired of it.  Especially after a couple of deliberate head-shots that ended up damaging superstar Sidney Crosby's brain.  Crosby ended up losing over a year of playing time, and the Penguins joined the chorus calling for greater penalties for headshots.

Penguins GM Ray Shero said, essentially, that he wasn't going to try to protect Matt Cooke anymore; he didn't want Cooke committing these kinds of hits, and that Cooke didn't have much of a future as a Penguin if he didn't shape up.

And then something amazing happened: Cooke shaped up.

In the 2010-2011 season, Cooke played 67 games. He had 129 penalty minutes, roughly one 2-minute minor per game. He scored 30 points***.  That's less than half a point per game.  He only played 67 games, in part because of 14+ games worth of suspension.

In the 2011-2012 season, Cooke played all 82 games.  He had 44 penalty minutes -- that's around one minor penalty every 4 games, and the lowest total of his career.  He also scored 38 points, the second-highest total of his NHL career.  Cooke became a Penguins attacker worth taking seriously.

He spent a lot of time watching film, reviewing his hits, and figuring out ways to play effectively without always going for the biggest his possible.  He also received counseling and therapy in light of his suspension and his wife's life-threatening kidney illness.

The 2013 season has been a weird one, of course, thanks to the lockout. It's hard to extrapolate players' statistics for the season based on just the 14 games the NHL has had so far this season.

Before last night, Cooke's penalty minutes per game remained low (8 minutes in 13 games); his scoring is below his average from last year.  But then last night Cooke went somewhat recklessly into Ottawa's Erik Karlsson, and Cooke's skate blade went 3/4 of the way through Karlsson's achilles tendon.  Karlsson's out for at least the next 3 months. He may have lost his season.

Hockey fans -- particularly including Ottawa fans -- went nuts. Same old Cooke. Last year must have just been an aberration. He's a dirty player, he should be thrown out of the league, he did it on purpose, etc.

The NHL said there was no sign of intent.  Cooke was penalized, but he won't be suspended.

I don't know.  The Matt Cooke we've seen over the last hundred games isn't the same guy we had on our hands before. Which guy committed the hit last night?

Once somebody turns around, how many screwups are they allowed?

* I kid. The Québécois and me go way back. I believe they're also permitted to play badminton.

** Both of them!
*** For those unfamiliar with hockey, players are credited with one point for a goal or an assist.

Some Hockey Fans Wanted A Pony

Carolina is now hockey country.

I know that sounds weird. After all, it's NASCAR country, what with the sport being based out of Charlotte. And it's college basketball country, as anyone who's ever had their eardrums blown out by a Dick Vitale game call knows. It would be college football country, if any of the three local schools could manage to combine pointing themselves at the right end zone, hiring a coach who doesn't use the rule book for Kleenex, and a willingness not to run off the star quarterback to the land of dairy and badgers.

But it's hockey country, too. In seasons when the Hurricanes are even half-decent (which is to say: not lately), the local arena is the loudest in the league. Give the local fans, many of whom are transplants from up north - they don't call the town of Cary "Containment Area for Relocated Yankees" for nothing - something to cheer about, and cheer they will. Emphatically. (Also: people around here enjoy watching people clobber other people with sticks. But I digress.)

And coming into this season, there seemed to be a lot for Carolina fans to cheer about. The team made some intelligent, aggressive moves in the offseason. Their best talent was young and hungry. They'd cleverly broken their habit of recycling their old coaches - the Canes and Paul Maurice were the R-Pat and K-Stew of the NHL - and were prepared to give successful interim coach Kirk Muller the reins for a full season. Things, in short, looked bright.

Odds are, if you're reading this, you know that things didn't quite work out as planned. The lockout of the players by the owners, which wins hands-down for "dumbest labor dispute in the history of major US professional sports", knocked the season off the blocks. Sure, we're getting a 48 game speed dating round, but to be blunt, it ain't going to be the same game. Yes, the rules will be the same, but the short, crowded schedule, the newly contorted schedules, the shortened prep time the teams have and the wear and tear that players who've been playing in Europe have put on their bodies  - these all mean that the familiar, if not entirely level, playing field of an NHL season has been tilted. Whatever happens on the ice this year, it's going to be different than what would have happened if the original, full schedule had been played.

But in the midst of thinking about this, there's still room to get a good laugh. The most recent came from a discussion on local sports talker 99.9 (surnamed "The Buzz" - why are all sports radio stations "The Buzz", "The Ticket" or "The Big Hitter"? Why can't just one of them be "The Situational Left Handed Reliever Who Gets Murdered By Right Handed Batters"?) wherein it was indignantly proclaimed that all through the labor dispute, nobody thought of the fans.

This is amusing on a couple of levels, not the least of which being that 99.9 is A)owned by Capital Broadcasting, which happens to be a minority owner in the 'Canes and B)is the flagship station for the 'Canes radio network. Good on the hosts for demonstrating some independence, but c'mon. Of course the two sides thought of the fans. They thought of fans as customers. They thought of fans as revenue. They thought of fans as sources of revenue that teams might try to hide from the players' union, which nearly produced a deal-breaking setback. You get the idea.

What they didn't do was think of the fans as a sort of dewy-eyed romantic partner, working toward a solution in order to keep from having the Cam Ward jersey-wearing fanatics from sitting in their bedrooms and writing wistful Facebook entries about how much they miss hockey. Because, to be blunt, they had no reason to, and there was no benefit to either side to do so. For the owners, the threat that the fans would abandon the sport if the lockout went on too long was actually leverage - hey, players, sure we're asking you to take a pay cut, but it beats what you'd make selling cars in Kitchener. And if the fans get too mad about missing their hockey, well, there might not be any league at all.  As for the players, holding fan desires over their own professional needs would have been a suicidal negotiating position.

And that, on a basic level, was how it should have been. What the players owe the fans is good effort on the ice, particularly for the paying customers. They're not the ones who initiated the lockout; they weren't the ones sitting on season ticket money; they're under no obligation to sacrifice part of their livelihoods to people who pay for their services - and that's what a ticket or an NHL Leaguepass is, payment for entertainment services - except as doing so makes those folks more likely to ultimately continue funding their profession.

That's not what was going to happen here, nor was it what was being asked for. Fans who don't understand that the lockout was about business - hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of business - and are mad that they didn't get the goo-goo eyes as the process went along are deluded and, dare I say it, self-important.

If they're really that upset, then they'll vote with their wallets. They won't come back to games, they won't buy jerseys, they won't listen on the radio or watch on TV. And maybe some - a few - will. (Note: If you're one of the numbskulls who is still mad at the players for striking, which they did not do, the sport may in fact be better off without you) But most won't. They may stay away for a few games; they may wave protest banners from their seats; they may wait a year before renewing tickets. But baseball and football and basketball have all shown: the diehards come back. They always come back.

Which, in the grand scheme of things, is exactly why there shouldn't have been consideration of the fans in the negotiations in the first place.

Great Moments In Sports Journalism, NHL Lockout Edition

From the ESPN.com story about the end of the NHL lockout:

The negotiating process -- which began in June but intensified when the league submitted its first proposal July 13 (one the players found almost universally insulting) -- has been marked by episodes of mistrust, missteps and a significant amount of enmity between the two sides.
There were times players felt disrespected and underestimated, and that their willingness to make concessions went unreciprocated.
On the flip side, the NHL was quick to express, both outright and through back-channel avenues, its lack of trust for Fehr and what it felt were his "negotiating tactics."

So, let me get this straight: The owners locked out the players, starting this whole mess. They submitted unworkable proposals, they refused to make concessions even when the NHLPA was willing, and they slagged their negotiating "partners" - who, after all, are the actual product they're in the business in. But they didn't like Don Fehr, presumably because he stood up for his clients as per his job description, so it's all even.

Those of us with any sort of formal writing training call this "false equivalence". It's a rhetorical trick that lets you present equal sides of an argument with supposedly equal weight, and it's about as intellectually honest as a debate about baldness at the Trump residence. For God's sake, the last round of blowups at the negotiations were about how the NHL would be forced to do its accounting if they got caught hiding revenue. In other words, both sides had already conceded the fact that the owners were going to try to screw the players and evade the basic tenet of the CBA - they were just arguing over what to do once the owners got caught.

But they didn't trust Fehr. And that makes everything they did, presumably, better - at least to their future negotiating partners at ESPN.

Stellar System

Deadspin says the whole fixation on "the best player in the NBA" is  pointless.
Deadspin is wrong. You need stars.
Right now, the Stanley Cup Finals are in full swing. The teams involved - Jersey and LA, in case you were wondering - represent the two biggest media markets in the country. There are story lines here, with LA chasing a Cup that even Wayne Gretzky couldn't give it, and Jersey trying to win another one for the ageless Marty Brodeur. It's exactly the sort of thing that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman - a man who apocryphally was once given a hockey puck as a present and spent an hour trying to open it - would want.
And yet, nobody's talking about it. The airwaves are full of LBJ choke this and Kevin Durant that and some Josh Hamilton, and maybe a little Drew Brees on the side. But no hockey, not unless you really look for it.
On the NBA side, everyone's a-flutter over the ascent of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and totally stoked to have them in the finals. This is despite the fact that OKC is the 30th largest city in America, the sort of market whose presence in a Finals tends to provoke hand-wringing and sad cries of "will no one think of the ratings?"
But they have stars. They have Kevin Durant, who is turning into the MJ to Greg Oden's Joe Barry Carroll. They have Russell Westbrook. They have James Harden, whose national profile skyrocketed after Metta World Peace used him for a speed bag on national TV. And this makes all the difference.

Feelin' Ranty

(post title sung to the tune of Simon & Garfunkle's "Feelin' Groovy")

A few quick observations as we enter the sports lull during which all I do is coach soccer, and make relatively little time to watch sports (because the football season is over, the Penguins have been eliminated from the playoffs, and the Pirates are only worth watching if you're actually in PNC Park).

First: Flyers fans, yesterday, were chanting "CROSBY SUCKS."

Now, look.  You might chant "Crosby is a whiny little child." You might chant "Crosby has questionable taste in Christmas sweaters."  But... sucks?  The man played 25 games this year and got 46 points.  He does not suck.

Second: I rode my bicycle* past a Little League opening day celebration this weekend, in the rain.  I noticed it because they had a PA system playing funky music, a hyped-up announcer ("Age nine-ten boys, in blue, sponsored by Jim Shorkey KIA, head coach Dan Blorkskowski, the Tornadoes!") , and a live adult soloist to sing The Star-Spangled Banner.

The players were 9 years old.  Maybe, suburban USA, just maybe, we need to take it down a notch.

Third: My esteemed colleague Mr. Dansky is working on a post about this, but I just need to say: Really? Seriously?

* I am training for the Bike MS Escape to the Lake in June. I am old, and fat. It is hard.