Okay, so if Balsille does manage to move the Nashville Predators to Hamilton, I hope that he has the good sense to change their nickname. It's obvious what they were trying to communicate, but really is just sounds like 20 guys on the Sex Offender Registry. I can just see the headlines:
"Hamilton Predator Chris Mason Visits Boy's School"
I don't think that would be very good brand management.
Showing posts with label Hockey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hockey. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Ya Friggin' Hoser
This was mentioned in the Globe and Mail today and I have to admit that I laughed out loud a few times. If you have no interest in Hockey whatsoever, don't bother.
Cheers
Mike
Cheers
Mike
Monday, January 22, 2007
Rory Fitzpatrick redux
[Apologies for semi-cross-posting this. It was mostly written as a response to a post over at Jason's Blog.]
There have been recent allegations that the NHL has stuffed it's own ballot box to ensure that Rory Fitzpatrick wasn't voted onto the All Star Game's starting lineup. It's a long story, really, and either you are interested and you know it already or you aren't interested and you don't. In my opinion the ballot stuffing angle is beside the point. Sure some of Rory's fans must have used bots to boost his ballot numbers, but I'm not so naive as to think that fans of Lidstrom and Neidermayer, the two defensemen who ultimately beat out Rory, or even Sakic (what's up with him making the starting line, he hasn't been one of the top 3 forwards for years). So if the NHL did think that they were correcting a systemic injustice by jacking the votes they were probably mistaken. It was just a matter of Rory getting enough support to attract more and better bots than the others.
More to the point, though, the NHL missed out on a glorious marketing opportunity. From the beginning they were spinning the Vote for Rory campaign as an oddity. Gretz said it made the league look like a joke, and Don Cherry (Why doesn't anyone call him Grapes anymore?) said he thought that the campaign for Rory was having fun at his expense -- laughing at him rather than with him. I think that this impression is partly the fault of the league.
I think that the campaign could have been spun as an homage to the grinders and journeymen who will never go to the all star game based on their statistics, but who are essential to the league and to even the most successful teams. In 2004, I was hoping that my Sens would pick up Chris Simon at the trade deadline to add some physicality and passion to an already skilled team. Instead they got Peter Bondra (if I recall correctly) and tanked out in the early rounds of the playoffs. Calgary picked up Simon and made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.
Simon and others will never be in an All Star Game, but I almost voted for Rory because I think that it is classy to have that sort of player represented rather than just the puck-hogs. This sort of happened in 1993 when the league still felt obliged to send one or two players from every team to the All Star Game. The Sens were setting a new standard of dreadful in their first year in the league and there wasn't much to choose from. So they appointed Brad Marsh (originally of London, ON) to represent Ottawa at the game. He was a classy and respected veteran defenseman who managed to score only 23 goals in over 1,000 NHL games and was probably one of the worst skaters ever to play in the NHL. Granted he stuck around for over 1,000 games so he must have been doing something right, he just wasn't the sort of player that put up a lot of numbers and he didn't look too stylish doing it.
Ottawa fans loved him in the same way that the Buffalo fan who started the Vote for Rory campaign loves Rory Fitzpatrick -- not for his grace, skill or pinache, but because he worked hard and was humble without apologizing for his success. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
The only goal that Brad Marsh scored in the 1992-93 season was during the All Star Game. 'Nuff said.
Cheers
PS I could only find one image of Brad Marsh in a Sens sweater, but it was too small. Oh yeah, and the league sent Sens goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz to the 1993 All Star Game as well. He really wasn't that good, but he was the best player on the team.
There have been recent allegations that the NHL has stuffed it's own ballot box to ensure that Rory Fitzpatrick wasn't voted onto the All Star Game's starting lineup. It's a long story, really, and either you are interested and you know it already or you aren't interested and you don't. In my opinion the ballot stuffing angle is beside the point. Sure some of Rory's fans must have used bots to boost his ballot numbers, but I'm not so naive as to think that fans of Lidstrom and Neidermayer, the two defensemen who ultimately beat out Rory, or even Sakic (what's up with him making the starting line, he hasn't been one of the top 3 forwards for years). So if the NHL did think that they were correcting a systemic injustice by jacking the votes they were probably mistaken. It was just a matter of Rory getting enough support to attract more and better bots than the others.
More to the point, though, the NHL missed out on a glorious marketing opportunity. From the beginning they were spinning the Vote for Rory campaign as an oddity. Gretz said it made the league look like a joke, and Don Cherry (Why doesn't anyone call him Grapes anymore?) said he thought that the campaign for Rory was having fun at his expense -- laughing at him rather than with him. I think that this impression is partly the fault of the league.
I think that the campaign could have been spun as an homage to the grinders and journeymen who will never go to the all star game based on their statistics, but who are essential to the league and to even the most successful teams. In 2004, I was hoping that my Sens would pick up Chris Simon at the trade deadline to add some physicality and passion to an already skilled team. Instead they got Peter Bondra (if I recall correctly) and tanked out in the early rounds of the playoffs. Calgary picked up Simon and made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals.
Simon and others will never be in an All Star Game, but I almost voted for Rory because I think that it is classy to have that sort of player represented rather than just the puck-hogs. This sort of happened in 1993 when the league still felt obliged to send one or two players from every team to the All Star Game. The Sens were setting a new standard of dreadful in their first year in the league and there wasn't much to choose from. So they appointed Brad Marsh (originally of London, ON) to represent Ottawa at the game. He was a classy and respected veteran defenseman who managed to score only 23 goals in over 1,000 NHL games and was probably one of the worst skaters ever to play in the NHL. Granted he stuck around for over 1,000 games so he must have been doing something right, he just wasn't the sort of player that put up a lot of numbers and he didn't look too stylish doing it.
Ottawa fans loved him in the same way that the Buffalo fan who started the Vote for Rory campaign loves Rory Fitzpatrick -- not for his grace, skill or pinache, but because he worked hard and was humble without apologizing for his success. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
The only goal that Brad Marsh scored in the 1992-93 season was during the All Star Game. 'Nuff said.
Cheers
PS I could only find one image of Brad Marsh in a Sens sweater, but it was too small. Oh yeah, and the league sent Sens goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz to the 1993 All Star Game as well. He really wasn't that good, but he was the best player on the team.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Hockey on the Web
I just found this!! It's a godsend for Hockey fans without TV access, or access to Canadian TV at least. The "current" games are uploaded two or three days after the original broadcast, so if there's a game you have in mind you have to avoid reading the box-scores for a few days. But there are no commercials and you can pause it whenever you want.
As an added bonus there are some classic games that you can watch. The '79 Conference final between Montreal and Boston is a great one. I intend to watch the '89 Stanley Cup final between Montreal and Calgary sometime soon. They also have the '93 game seven between Toronto and L.A., but I remember that one too clearly still. And the wrong side won. Then again, Cate's a Boston fan so she probably disagrees with my assessment of the '79 Montreal/Boston game.
Anyway, I had something for Cate and the gals a few posts ago. This one is for Cate and the lads.
Hockey on the Web
Cheers
As an added bonus there are some classic games that you can watch. The '79 Conference final between Montreal and Boston is a great one. I intend to watch the '89 Stanley Cup final between Montreal and Calgary sometime soon. They also have the '93 game seven between Toronto and L.A., but I remember that one too clearly still. And the wrong side won. Then again, Cate's a Boston fan so she probably disagrees with my assessment of the '79 Montreal/Boston game.
Anyway, I had something for Cate and the gals a few posts ago. This one is for Cate and the lads.
Hockey on the Web
Cheers
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