Friday, August 31, 2012

Ice

Ellen Etchingham fetishes ice, albeit incorrectly:
No other sport is as dependent on such a mercurial surface, and because of that, no other sport has been so dependent on technology for its evolution.
Now while hockey is the most important sport in the world, it isn't the only sport in the world. It isn't even the only ice-based sport in the world. The finest, fastest, most perfect, fresh-from-the-zamboni sheet of hockey ice isn't suitable for a rec league curling game.

You want an ice fetish? Hang out at a curling rink. Throw a few thousand rocks yourself and you'll look at ice in a totally different way; after losing an important stone to a hair, crease, or bubble you'll see that NHL-caliber ice isn't suitable for mixed drinks.

Them NHL fellers play a fine game, but they don't know ice.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Chirping The CBA: Wake Me Up When It Starts To Matter

So it's been a month since anything happened in the CBA negotiations. I mean really, the player's "counter offer" was so out there that I wondered if the NHLPA was even taking the process seriously.

When you consider that the "counter offer" basically boiled down to A) suggesting that maybe the owners should share revenues between themselves more, and B) reducing the revenue split down to 54% for three years before jamming it back up to 57% of revenues, there's no wonder that the owners thought this was a non-starter.

Now there's been a counter-counter offer from the league, which would A) redefine "hockey related revenue" (down, of course) and B) set the revenue split between owners and players at 50% for five of the six years proposed.

There's been no mention of the other details that I've been hoping for.

But since there is still two weeks before 15 September, we are still not at the point that any of this should be taken seriously.

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Ottawa Fans Out West?

So last week I was in Drumheller for a family function, and I had occasion to go to the Walmart there.  And just for fun I walked through the sporting-goods section to look at the hockey stuff.

What  I found was interesting.  They had the predictable pile of Flames shirts, a bunch of Vancouver shirts, one Edmonton shirt... and a half dozen Ottawa Senators shirts.

In Drumheller.

Fascinating.

(Also no Toronto or Montreal shirts, which was more predictable.  It was the presence of the Ottawa shirts I found interesting.)