February 23 2008

Yesterday one of the most ruiness battles in the history of sports came to an end when the Indy Racing League agreed to absorb the Champ Car Racing Series thus ending a twelve-year split that all but destroyed open-wheel racing in North America. Champ Car had the money but the IRL had the race; the Indy 500.

The IRL was founded to get rid of all of those foreign drivers who where invading what was the second richest racing series in the world. Twelve years later and who cares that they"re together again. To quote Gertrude Stein there simply is "no there, there".

Twelve years after the split the only marketable feature in North American Open-Wheel racing is a woman who has never won a race.

In the public consciousness "AJ", "Mario", "The Unsers" have been replaced by Dale Jr.,the Jeff Gordons, Tony Stewarts, Michael Waltrips and the like in NASCAR.

I there anyone out there who can name the last two or three Indy-500 winners. Well, maybe last year because it was Ashley Judd's husband. But even Dario Franchitti abandoned open-wheeled racing for NASCAR this year.

Champ Car had what seemed to be successful races in Canada, including the Villeneuve circuit. NASCAR pushed the Montreal race to the Laurentians as sponsorship money continued to dry up. This year we may have an IRL race in Edmonton but the Montreal and Toronto will be off the schedule.

Can Indy-type racing come back to it's once mythical stature? You can forget about it. As Abraham Lincoln said "A house divided can never stand." The house that was once built on the Indianapolis-500 has been demolished through a civil war that produced near total destruction.

February 9 2008

Thirteen years ago Nike, the sports equipment manufacturer that gave us the 180 dollar basketball sneaker, decided to get into the hockey business.
They bought Montreal-based Canstar Sports and their Bauer product-line for
395 million dollars.
DNike then proceeded to re-invent the hockey marketing wheel. They moved their manufacturing facility to Asia and switched the head office from Montreal to New Hampshire. Basically, Nike was telling Canadians they knew nothing about hockey marketing. Their secret was, put the "Swish" logo on their skate and raise the price from four-hundred dollars a pair to seven hundred. No matter that the Made-In-Asia skates didn't fit North American players feet properly. The bright bulbs in New Hampshire also tried to foist white hockey skates on it's buying public in a not-so-subtle attempt at planned obselescence.
This kind of thing may have worked in the ghettos of the United States where kids were being murdered for 180-dollar shoes that cost 3-dollars to make in China. It failed to fool the hockey buyer.
This week Nike announced they were selling out. Financial analysts tell us they won't get half the price they paid for the company.
For once a corporate glutton like Nike with it's dispicable marketing and manufacturing strategies has run headlong into a wall.
Makes you feel warm and fuzzy.

February 2 2008

The Commissioner of the NFL held his state of the league news conference yesterday (February 1st) in Arizona and made it official. The Buffalo Bills will play eight home games in Toronto over the next five years. There was hardly a soul in the room who didn't think that the announcement marked the beginning of the end for the CFL.
Toronto is the media and marketing capital of Canada whether we like it or not. Ninety percent of the advertising and sponsorships come out of Toronto agencies. Whatever monies that went into the CFL will inevitably be channeled to the NFL. The NFL says it's going to take steps to protect the CFL but don't attempt to take that to the bank. The NFL just extricated itself from their NFL-Europe fiasco. They're not about to get into another money-pit .
In 1974 the World Football League was formed including the Toronto Northmen.
the minority Trudeau government of the time stepped in and threatened economic sanctions against what they considered a threat to the CFL. The franchise shifted to Memphis without ever playing a Toronto game. Don't expect the government, especially a conservative one, to step in and save the CFL this time.
So, say "goodbye" to the Argonauts and then the Tigercats and then in a slow agonizing death, the rest of a league that has existed in one form or the other sfor ninety-nine years.
What we have is another example of what's good for Toronto is good for the rest of the country no matter what is destroyed in the wake.

January 26 2008

We all know the word "obsolete". It means "out-of-date"; "out-of-fashion"; or even "passe".
Which ever definition you choose they describe perfectly the NHL All-Star game.
Like the baseball and especially the NBA and NFL all-star games, thde NHL verision has all the credibility of a carnival sideshow. The three-ring circus that has become the NHL version will be played tomorrow night (January 27) in Atlanta.
During the days of the Original-Six the defending Stanley Cup champions played the stars of the other five teams. The game was played at the end of training camp and was a true test of skill and pride. Now the game is an added burden to an already bloated NHL schedule.
The list of pleyrs who duck the game using one excuse or the other gets longer and longer with each passing year.
Being named to an all-star team has become a "sentence". Something like house arrest to be served in addition fo the 82 game schedule.
You don't have to be a star to play in the game, only popular or part of a quota. Look at the list of NHL stars who didn't fit either category who will not take part in tomorrow night's game. And to a man I'm sure they would say they're happy they're not.

January 26 2008

We all know the word "obsolete". It means "out-of-date", "out of fashion" or even "passe'". Whatever words you take, they describe perfectly the NHL All-Star Game. Like the baseball, and especilly the NBA and NFL All-Star Games, the NHL version has all of the credibility of a carnival side-show.

The three-ring circus that has become the NHL game wil be played tomorrow night in Atlanta. There was a time, during the days of the Original-Six when the defending Stanley Cup champions played the stars of the over five teams. The game was played at the end of training camp and was a true test of skill and pride. Now the game is an added burden to an already bloated NHL season schedule and the list of players who duck the game, using one excuse or another, gets longer and longer with each year. Being named to an all-star team has now become a "sentence"; something like house-arrest to be served in addition to the 82 game schedule.

You don't hve to be a star to play in the game, on popular or part of a quota. Look at the list of great players who will not play tomorrow night. And, to a man I'm sure they would say they"re happy they're not.

December 15 2007

The NHL is going through one of it's worst yers in terms of vilently aggressive on-ice behaviour. Would it be too much of a stretch to mention that, in light of developments in baseball this week, the league might take a closer look at steroids and their spinoff--the so-called 'roid rage.

The NHL has always had it's head in a rabbit hole when it comes to this subject. The company line has been; steroids can't help a hockey player. That is an absolute crock.

Anabolic steroids build muscle. More importantly, they also speed up recovery time. In a league that features an 82 game schedule (soon to be 84); In a league that forces teams to play five games in eight days in 5 different cities; in a league that tacks six weeks of gruelling playoff hockey onto it's schedule it would take someone of very strong will to say away from the temptation of steroids.

Dick Pound has called the NHL testing policy a "sham". He's right. The plicy allows for no more than two tests a year, both of them in-season. Once that second test has been taken the player is free to go on the juice until the start of the next season. Steroids are a training drug and most hockey training these days goes on during the summer. So far the NHL says there have been 3,000 tests and only one player has been caught. Are you kidding me? Only one?

December 8 2007

Twenty-five years ago a member of the Los Angeles Kings named Paul Mulvey ignited one of the worst public relations disasters the NHL had ever had to face. Don Perry, the Kings coach ordered Mulvey who was the Los Angeles tough-guy to start a bench clearing brawl against the Vancouver Canucks and Tiger Williams. Mulvey, who had just come off a suspension, refused to leave the bench with the words "I'm not going to be a designated assassin". Within hours the 23-year old Mulvey was placed on waivers and sent to the minors and ultimately never played another NHL game. The coach was fined and suspended and within a year was fired never to be heard from again. Mulvey eventually took a settlement on a 22-million dollar law suit against the Kings.

A quarter-century later the NHL is feeling the public relations heat aain. Testimony under oath that Vancouver Coach Mark Crawford told his team that "Steve Moore must pay the price" words that led to the infamous Todd Bertuzzi incident. Thewre's a very winable 38 million lawsuit in the courts and Bertuzzi is apparently not going to take the rap alone. Andonce again the so-called 'hockey culture' is put under the microscope.

We're constantly told that players should be able to police the game themselves. As we watch player after player being carted off the ice on stretchers we have to say that not only are the players incapable of policing their game but neither is the NHL itself. And where does that leave us?