Friday, November 19, 2004
Agent to Be Decertified
TSN is reporting that an NHL agent will lose certification.
From the article:
The agent gave a Minniapolis Star-Tribune reporter an extensive tour of the union’s website and a computer system called NHLPA SCORE, a program designed for player agents to streamline data, exploit its legal rights and outduel the league and its team in salary negotiations.
If you’re thinking it’s a Minnesotan: Neil Sheehy, Brian Lawton, Barney Harris and Ben Hankinson all practice in Minnesota. Sheehy and Hankinson are listed as being based in Minneapolis.
What’s absolutely amazing is the fact that an agent will be decertified in this case, yet after the whole mess with Mike Danton (and the Keefes, and the mess in the juniors), David Frost is still certified.
Follow-up: more decertification talk: Agents threatened with decertification - apparently agents could face decertification if their NHL clients become replacement players next fall. It’s an interesting way to get players not to cross the line, by threatening their agents, who then push hard on the players.
Update: TSN is reporting the agent that lost his NHLPA certification is Bryant McBride, who’s based out of Boston. The NHLPA hasn’t released a statement, but McBride was taken off the NHLPA’s list of certified agents. McBride acknowledged that the NHLPA has decertified him and claims that it was an ex-employee who shared the NHLPA secure website information, not him, and that he is working to clear his own name. His clients include Jason Allison, Byron Dafoe, Doug Doull and Garnett Exelby, as well as several minor league players.
Friday, November 12, 2004
Forbes Releases Hockey Numbers
So how does it compare in numbers to Levitt’s report?
FORBES’ figures show that hockey teams are indeed losing money but not nearly as much as the owners claim. The 30 teams in the NHL lost a combined $96 million (before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) on revenue of $2.2 billion during the 2003-04 season, with 17 teams posting a loss. The prior season the NHL lost $123 million on revenue of $2.1 billion.
That about sums it up, and please give it a full read for further explanation.
Note: I do recommend using FireFox over IE when it comes to browsing Forbes.com. They’ve got a slew of ad scripts and javascripts running that just make it a bit clunky and annoying in IE. The ads are still there in FireFox (I’m never one to say block ads); but one example of how this site on FF runs better is that the javascript that is used when you highlight words isn’t running and that’s a major plus (also, FF lets you turn off javascript for just that page without reloading and such, super nice). I recommend it for almost all sites anyway, so I thought I’d throw in the pimp paragraph here.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
Russia Pressing
And here goes another: Havlat leaves Czech league for Russian
Referencing: Russia Starting to Stack Up
This league will probably get a few more top NHL players and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Canadian station sign a tv contract with them. If they’re smart they’ll get in on U.S. tv, even if it means getting no money for it - exposure is what’s important right now.
The above ESPN article states:
It’s believed Dynamo will pay Havlat $1.2 million for the rest of the season.
So I went to the NHLPA’s website to see what he would have been making this season, but he’s not listed on their new site. Luckily I was able to use Google’s cache to find his ID number and plug it into their new layout. So here’s Martin Havlat’s NHLPA page. They list his 2004-05 salary at $2.3 million.
So you may be thinking “hey, $1.2 million is a lot of money, but a $1.1 million paycut is a lot as well.” Perhaps, but not when you consider there’s only 36 games left on Moscow Dynamo’s schedule.
$2.3 million for 82 games = ~$28048 per game
$1.2 million for 36 games = ~$33333 per game
He’s actually being paid more per game by the Russian league.
If the NHL wants to retain the world’s top talent a hard cap is not in their best interest when there are alternatives out there. This is one huge difference between the NFL and the NHL - the NFL has no real competition, the NHL does.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Move Along, Nothing Sensationalistic Here
The headline under “more news” on the cnn.com home page about the Mike Danton sentencing is Hockey star jailed for plotting murder. Danton, for the purpose of this headline, is a “star”. In other news, John Kerry might still win the Presidential election.
Monday, November 08, 2004
Russia Starting to Stack Up
Jaromir Jagr is leaving the Czech league to play in Russia.
My Kladno fans should not be angry. I never promised to stay here the whole season
While quotes like this from Jagr aren’t necessarily shocking, no one would mistake him for a play-for-his-hometown-for-almost-nothing-while-making-sure-no-one-lost-a-job-Scott Gomez, something like this does make you wonder if any other players in Europe could follow Jagr’s lead. Russia is paying big money compared to most other leagues and Alex Kovalev was the latest NHLer to join AK Bars Kazan today. Kazan is stacked with NHL players including Kovalchuk and Lecavalier.
If just a couple of other teams want to load up to compete, and with bigger money over there, Russia may have the league to watch.
The long-term question is: can the Russian league keep up the big payouts? If so, it could definitely put a damper on a low-figure hard cap if the NHL wants to retain the world’s top talent.
Friday, October 22, 2004
Convinced He Would Destroy the League
“There was a commonality of interest between players and owners. I sold them when I met Bob Goodenow. I was convinced he would destroy the league.”
- Former Hartford Whalers owner, Richard Gordon from Former NHL owner Gordon weighs in which is referencing an interview Gordon did with John Buccigross in his latest column, The players aren’t to blame ... yet.
Little really needs to be said after these two reads. Whatever your opinion is on the overall situation, this story and especially this quote will travel around the hockey community. It’s another blow to the PA and more bad PR to recover from.
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Yet Another Reason Why Hockey Isn’t Like Other Major Sports
At least economically speaking - Baseball’s $650M satellite radio deal (which is for 11 years)
The deal is for XM radio to carry MLB games. Rival Sirius (who just signed Howard Stern) has the NFL deal.
Sirius is the carrier of NHL games. From Oct, 2003: Sirius Scores With NHL Deal - NHL games are free with subscription (no premium fee). Sirius paid an “undisclosed sum” for the games, but I’m willing to bet the number was far from the $650M/11-years that XM paid for the MLB (very far).
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Hockey on Jeopardy!
They had a hockey category in the first round of Jeopardy! tonight.
Since I don’t want to be annoying and use the DVR, play-pause-play-pause-play-pause, I’m just going to remember the wording best I can.
The questions:
$200
Answer: Video: Trebek and Tie Domi are on the ice. Trebek’s at center and passes to Domi and says, “if Tie crosses the line before the puck, he committed this infraction…”
Question: What is offsides?
(was answered)
$400
Answer: To get your points total you add these two categories.
Question: What are goals and assists?
(was answered)
$600
Answer: Video: Trebek, standing with Domi, says, “If anyone messes with me, they have to deal with Tie.” What is his role, also a Clint Eastwood movie (or maybe he said Dirty Harry).
Question: What is enforcer?
(was answered)
$800
Answer: Bryan Trottier helped lead this team to 4 consecutive Stanley Cups from 1980-1983.
Question: What is the New York Islanders?
(was attempted, New York was given, he was asked to be more specific and guessed Rangers)
$1000
Answer: Video: Trebek says, “It’s the 13-letter word I’m demonstrating here”, as he moved the puck back and forth with his stick while not skating.
Question: What is stickhandling?
(was not answered)
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Scott Parker Interview
I just posted: Q & A: Scott Parker on hockeyfights.com.
Be sure to also check out the videos page, as I put a good number of clips up.
Tuesday, October 12, 2004
The NHL Contraction Myth
Jamie Fitzpatrick looks into The NHL Contraction Myth.
I’m happy someone is finally addressing this. I can’t stand people saying that “talent is diluted” and that it is leading to less scoring. What? If you want to see what happens when you spread out talent compare the NFL to NCAA football. Jamie doesn’t really focus on that, but he makes some excellent points.