Hockey Randomness

[dodint]

One of my least favorite things about hockey is players having to answer for a clean hit.

*edit* Supposedly another angle shows shoulder to head contact but I haven't seen it.

[iamjs]

One of my least favorite things about hockey is players having to answer for a clean hit.

*edit* Supposedly another angle shows shoulder to head contact but I haven't seen it.

said the same thing last night. When I originally saw the clip on twitter, it looks like Trouba caught him above the logo and Khaira was guilty of looking down for the puck.

NBCSN Chicago showed a closer shot from the same angle, and Trouba definitely caught him in the chin with his shoulder.

[nocera]

Counter point: the game happens incredibly fast, you see your teammate knocked unconscious, you go after the dude responsible regardless of the legality of the hit.

[shafnutz05]

[Gaucho]

oh

[MR25]

That's just another Wednesday for us over the past 11 years.

[NTP66]

somebody translate that from surrender monkey to english

[mikey]

Dey soff

[willeyeam]

somebody translate that from surrender monkey to english

Picture the Pens injury report but in Habs jerseys and French

[iamjs]

uh oh

[nocera]

I never like to see a team relocate but the Coyotes should probably relocate.

[faftorial]

Avalanche beating up on the Rangers tonight.

[dodint]

I never like to see a team relocate but the Coyotes should probably relocate.

Relegate.

[shafnutz05]

Avalanche beating up on the Rangers tonight.

Hopefully this is the game that brings them back to earth.

Meanwhile, the Flyers continue to look utterly lifeless. It's a sight to behold.

[mikey]

$$$$$ on the Avs...ml and pl stack.

[Lelldorin]

Tocchet is probably what they need...a motivating guy that lets his players play with more creativity...that roster is too good to be at the bottom...

I mean, look at Voracek - goes to a horrible team, he's 32, and yet he's on pace to have his highest point total since he was 28. Last check, Ghost is the entire Coyotes offense is on pace for a career year.

Meanwhile, Ristolainen is on pace for career lows in points and is second-worst in plus/minus (-10)...second to another offseason acquisition, Yandle (-13).

Last year, Carter Hart was the worst goalie in the league. He's giving up 3 a game this year. The whole place is just a grave yard right now...hopefully that continues forever...

Pens should’ve grabbed Ghost. Damn it.

Amen. And I am on record on this page for stating that when we had the chance...

[Pavel Bure]

uh oh

Why isn’t hockey working in the desert yet?! Betman explicitly asked for it to work over the last 20 years.

[Ad@m]

I never like to see a team relocate but the Coyotes should probably relocate to Quebec.

[shoeshine boy]

I never like to see a team relocate but the Coyotes should probably relocate to Quebec.

[mikey]

Hmmm...I'm supposed to go the Coyotes game on 12/23 actually...

[iamjs]

uh oh

Why isn’t hockey working in the desert yet?! Betman explicitly asked for it to work over the last 20 years.

This post from the comment explains their situation quite well.

1. While one can question a lot of details of the NHL’s US Sunbelt expansion strategy, at a high level it made abundant business sense, and without it we don’t have a 32 team league today, and all franchises are less valuable. Several cities that everyone saw as ridiculous (Anaheim, San Jose, Dallas, Tampa) have been clear successes. Teams in “developmental” markets are obviously more challenging and won’t work unless all the economic pieces work (ownership, arena, team management, TV rights, etc). I’ve been an Islander fan since year 1 so I fully understand how bad ownership and arena problems can seriously damage a clearly viable franchise. The old Jets had no hope of surviving given C$/US$ exchange rates at the time and the arena problems.

2. The Phoenix market was never the problem. It’s the sixth biggest metro area in America. Games were sold out for the first 4-5 years. No, this isn’t Southern Ontario, but in light of the larger USA expansion strategy Phoenix deserved to be high on the list. Phoenix fans immediately adopted the playoff “whiteout” out of respect for the fans in Winnipeg and responded to the competitive Coyotes teams that were playoff calibre. Remember that the franchise move was hurried as the Jets collapsed. America West Arena was not a viable NHL arena in the long term but everyone knew it was just a stopgap until a long term solution was developed. This wasn’t a situation where a Paul Allen type billionaire had a fully funded long-term plan on day one, but no other expansion teams had that either

3. The person most responsible for the failure of the Coyotes was Suns/Diamondbacks owner Jerry Colangelo, who insisted on ruinous lease terms at America West Arena where the Coyotes got no concession or parking revenue. Anyone not blinded by greed would have agreed to more reasonable terms in order to keep the revenue from all the additional dates the Coyotes used the Arena, but instead Colangelo forced the Coyotes into a situation where they had to build a new arena (which would then depress the revenue Colangelo could earn at AWA from concerts)

4. The second villain was the real estate bubble of that era, and the local governments caught up in the bubble. There was a new arena option that could have saved the franchise (South Scottsdale) but the Coyotes’ owners focused narrowly on which city could provide the biggest immediate taxpayer subsidies, and Glendale went above and beyond to win the deal. So the Coyotes end up with an arena 20-30 miles away from the heart of their fan base. The Coyotes had no hope of survival the day Glendale Arena opened. There was no meaningful local media/taxpayer oversight of what the City of Glendale was doing. The only media outlets covering the story were the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star (because of the Hamilton issues). The locals figured things out later and several sets of Glendale politicians were eventually voted out of office, and the locals now understand that the entire Westgate project was a massive debacle.

5. As several commenters have correctly noted, the NHL response at this point was entirely focused on killing Moyes’/Basille’s attempt to circumvent franchise movement rules. As was widely understood at the time the primary driver was protecting Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment incredibly lucrative monopoly position, but even if you had no sympathy for MLSE, one could understand the unanimous view of NHL owners that subsidizing the Coyotes in Glendale for a bit was more in their interest than letting outsiders move franchises outside of any structured process. But this became the third stake in the Coyotes (already dead) body. Instead of the investment that turned the Stars and Lightning into model franchises, the combination of an uncompetitive team and an awful arena situation shrank the fanbase and revenue potential to a level where long-term recovery was impossible.

6. No NHL franchise is secondary markets is workable without strong ownership. Ask us Islander fans about Spano, Gluckstren, Milstein, Wang, etc. The NHL approved the Coyotes current ownership because they had no other options assumed (against all logic) that there would never be another economic downturn and the growth in franchise value would allow Merulo/Gutierrez to keep the ship from sinking. Didn’t happen. As several commenters have correctly noted, the current Coyotes ownership is controlled by people who think the solution to every business challenge is to screw everyone else. So instead of a situation where ownership and local government could work cooperatively to find a way to dig out of a deep hole, the City of Glendale would rather see the arena burn to the ground than give a single dollar of help to a slimeball ownership group.

7. While I have zero respect for NHL leadership, my presumption is that they have a sober understanding of this history. But I also don’t see any evidence that they have a workable plan forward, now that the Coyotes have no place to play going forward. Perhaps the NHL would cover interim tax payments to allow the Coyotes to finish the season, but the question is what the NHL could extract from Coyotes ownership in return for these subsidies. To really move forward, the NHL would need to force Coyotes ownership to surrender their franchise and have a replacement owner (presumably in Houston) lined up. This would require the funds to compensate Coyote ownership for the money they’d invested and the future value they were forfeiting, and deal with all the lawsuits that would follow. The last couple decades of NHL/Coyotes history, and all recent news reports strongly suggest that none of these things have happened.

8. The primary business objective of the NHL is to continually increase the franchise/equity values of its teams. A lot of the move that might help “fix” I fully respect the great hockey fans of Quebec City (or for that matter Kansas City) but relocating the Coyotes to these markets would totally contradict the NHL’s primary objective, so it ain’t gonna happen. Either Bettman has a detailed Houston plan that could be rapidly executed, or the NHL is headed to **** city once again.

[nocera]

What about relocating to London (not Ontario)? Really expand the game.

[faftorial]

They mention Houston as a possibility but don't add much to that statement.

[Tomas]

Nedved knows how to live:

Nedvěd and Ručinský are starting a joint business: their own pub at Staromák!

They are inseparable, and now business will connect them. Hockey buddies Petr Nedvěd (49) and Martin Ručinský (50) are opening a restaurant in the heart of Prague. And among other things, they guarantee guests an extraordinary culinary experience!

A corner house in an attractive location just behind Týn Cathedral, a few steps from Old Town Square. Tourists stream down the narrow winding street, here and there the hooves of horses pulling a historic carriage. Inside, behind huge windows, preparations are being finalised, the last details are being fine-tuned. Two of them - "Baby Bear" and "Ruca" - are watching everything quietly from the table. Above the two famous hockey forwards, a large sign on the wall reads "Střídačka" ["The Bench"]. Yes, that's the name of their business.

"This has always been Martin's dream, to have a pub," Nedvěd reveals how their adventure together began. "It's true, my friend Filip and I were already talking about opening a pub here some five years ago," says Ručinský, nodding his head. He was thinking more like a beer hall. "But then Peter here came along..." He winks at his partner. "...and I kicked your ass!" giggles Nedved.

Martin and Filip join him in the party and the three of them go. The result? Forget the funnel with the beer-stained tables! A cozy setting for about forty guests and, most importantly, amazing food. "We believe in surprising a lot of people, even though we're not in the food business. The most important thing about a restaurant is the kitchen, and we're going to have a really fantastic kitchen," they agree as they sample samples from the upcoming menu on test day.

Their biggest trump card? Chef Jiří Halamka, winner of the second season of MasterChef! He has streamlined the kitchen, brought his people into it and with them he can conjure up incredible delicacies. "It was very difficult to get a good chef, everyone pays well for a good one, so the movement is minimal. We were very lucky to get Jirka. We're going to be very creative in the kitchen," Nedved praises.

The question is whether their efforts will be overwhelmed by external circumstances. After all, the cursed covid is perhaps the most damaging to pubs, many of which have gone bankrupt. At the moment, they have to close at 10pm because of a government decision, who knows what will happen next... Even Nedved and Rucinsky live in uncertainty about the future, but as always on the ice, they believe in success. "We're happy with the restaurant, it's more of a hobby. We will be happy if people like to come to us and enjoy it," agree the bosses of Střídačka.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

https://isport.blesk.cz/clanek/blesk-sp ... omaku.html

[shafnutz05]