Fallout From the Roy Incident: QMJHL Pledges to Curb Fights

New Jersey Devils Refuse to Payback Mistaken Money Transfer from Societe Generale

There is a very odd situation developing in New Jersey, where a major French investment bank Societe Generale, is suing the New Jersey Devils for about $500 000 after "it mistakenly transferred in $125,635.13 (all figures U.S.) to the NHL club on Sept.6, 2006, according to court documents. " Apparently the Devils are refusing to give the money back! The bank alleges that they won't pay them back out of "spite, or ill will." New Jersey Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek apparently will not even return their phone calls. Sports Industry experts apparently believe the only reason the Devils are really being sued is because Societe Generale is exiting the sports industry. If you can remember Societe Generale was recently supposed to give prospective Tampa Bay Lightning owner Oren Koules a $110 million loan to buy the team, but ended up backing out at the last second.

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Todd Bertuzzi Suing Marc Crawford

The NHL Launches its Largest Advertising Campaign for the Stanley Cup Playoffs: "How the Cup Changes Everything"

Today the NHL launched what is likely the largest and most encompassing advertising campaign in its history, on NHL.com. The campaign features NHL stars Martin Brodeur, Henrik Zetterberg, Jarome Iginla, Roberto Luongo, Joe Thornton, Ryan Getzlaf, Daniel Alfredsson and Roman Hamrlik, talking about the more intense aspects of playoff hockey games and how they are different from regular hockey games because: "The Cup Changes Everything." The Alfredsson ("Shorthanded"), Getzlaf ("Tighter") and Luongo ("City") spots have already been launched, the rest will launch at a later date.

The NHL is leaving no stone unturned as they are flooding as many media outlets as possible with these ad spots. All local and national tv partners (NBC, VERSUS, CBC, TSN, RDS, HD Net and NHL NETWORK), radio affiliates (XM Radio and Westwood One), print media (Sports Illustrated, The Globe & Mail), 30 arenas, internet sites (Yahoo.com, NHL.com, MySpace, Youtube etc) and 1,400 Canadian Cineplex movie theatres are taking part in this campaign. The partnership with the Canadian theatres was likely one of the carrots the NHL got through their sponsorship deal with Scotiabank earlier in the year.

Personally, though I thought the graphics on these spots were amazing, it failed to move me. It seems like thats what the NHL was really after, considering the melodrama of the spots. I thought Alfredsson had a little too much dialogue (it sounded like he trying to get all his lines in before someone cut him off) and Getzlaf was trying too hard. He was almost barking at the end when he was saying: "Thats how the 'K'up changes everything." The melodramatic music was also quite over the top. It seems like whenever the NHL conciously tries to convey the intensity and drama of the game, it backfires and the ads end up being overzealous (ie. the MY NHL Campaign). Of all the three spots launched so far, Roberto Luongo's "City" was the best. Even though his lines were supposed to be pretty charged with emotion (I mean guarding a city??? c'mon!), he kept calm, didn't rush and didn't try to dramatize. He was also aided by the fact that the music in his spot was the most subdued of the three. This all helped his ad come off more authentically.

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Red Rising: The Chicago Blackhawks End the Bill Wirtz Era, is the NHL better off because of It?

There was a great article in the Chicago Tribune a few days ago profiling the nice job Rocky Wirtz has done turning the Blackhawks around. It talks about the moves he made bringing in marketing guru John McDonough from the Cubs, healing old wounds with former Blackhawks legends and finally getting the teams home games on TV! Surprisingly, he has turned into a bit of a celebrity around Chicago, as crowds at the games often "want his autograph." The article also mentions one of the last interviews done by the late Bill Wirtz, where he revealed that the Hawks had lost "$191 million in the last decade" including a remarkable "$31 million in 2006-07." Rocky apparently doesn't dispute the figures. Those figures are amazing for any sports franchise, but the Chicago Blackhawks!!! Whose ever heard of a big league team in one of the big three media markets (NY, LA, CHICAGO) losing that kind of money? Not to rehash old wounds, but the most amazing thing is that nothing was done. The team policies which obviously were not working were not changed. The article shed some light on that when Rocky acknowledged that "as an organization, we carried grudges, and that doesn't help anyone."

One of the greatest ironies is that if this painful past had not existed for the Blackhawks, the League likely would have been far worse off. The biggest reason why the NHL is not considered by some, to be on par with the other major North American sports leagues, is because of the lack of a major national TV deal in the US. Had Bill Wirtz, (or Philip Anschutz for that matter) decided during those pre-lockout days, to spend as much money as was necessary to compete for the Stanley Cup (spending it somewhat wisely of course, not like the NY Rangers) the NHL's television picture would be far different. One of the major reasons why the NHL is in the bind it is in today with respect to television, is because of the lack of participation of major market US teams (particularly NY Rangers, LA Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks) in the Stanley Cup Finals. TV ratings get a tremendous lift from having teams from those markets involved. A major reason, in fact THE major reason the NBA was able to climb out of irrelevancy, and become arguably the most popular sports league in the world, was because the Los Angeles Lakers, Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks were involved in 17 NBA Finals from 1981-2002 (as opposed to 13 Finals from 1946-1981). However, in the NHL, unlike in every other major sport, Wirtz and many of his fellow big market owners decided to hold the line on player spending. While admirable from a business standpoint, it alienated the team and owner from their fans. A bunch of mid-market teams ended up outspending the big market clubs, eventually rising to dominate the league. Colorado (Denver population: 2.4 million), Detroit (Metro Population: 4.4 million) , New Jersey (East Rutherford population: 8931, yes 8931!) and Dallas (metro population: 6 million) were the largest markets to play in the Stanley Cup Finals from 1999-2003. Those populations were a far cry from the 9.5-18.7 million people in the Big Three markets. The most recent Stanley Cup Finals shows the abysmal tv ratings in major markets due to the lack of participation of their teams. US TV ratings, which had been climbing since the Kings and Rangers made back to back appearances in the Finals in 93 and 94, started to slide. Had the Blackhawks been involved in more Finals the ratings would have vastly improved. I'm not saying they would've been at the same level as the NBA Finals or the World Series, but they would've been close.

Then the NHL would've gotten its big network TV deal. If average team payroll spending continued to be 75% of revenues, its still pretty likely the NHL would've had to go through the lockout. But, if like baseball, they were able to curb spending a little, and distribute some revenues to lower revenue teams, then they might've been able to avoid it. There might've been no salary cap, or at least maybe not a hard one. The question is, would the league have been better off? Under that type of a system, the playing field is still skewed towards bigger market teams. Dynasties can be maintained, and it would take a little while to build towards the top. Some Canadian franchises still might not have survived in that type of league. From a business perspective, that type of league may have brought in more money, but from a fan perspective would it be better if you knew your local team had less of a shot at winning it all? Or would you have cared? Since you might get to see the Rangers, Kings or Blackhawks in the Finals every year. Was the Hawks sacrifice worth it?

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Saskin Situation Settled

The Saskin Saga finally reached its conclusion yesturday as Ted Saskin agreed to a $400 000 settlement. Apparently, he had negotiated a 15-month severance package of approximately $2 million dollars in case he was fired. Sounds pretty slick (if not sick) to me. The fact that a Union Head could seize power without following the NHLPA Constitution, convince the players he was worth a ridiculous salary (that was double that of MLB Union Head Donald Fehr according to ESPN.com), and attempt to quell the voices who opposed his hiring by hacking into private accounts to read their emails is disgusting. This isn't even mentioning all of his shenanigans in between, like when he held his so called "secret vote" (whose results he annouced publicly before it was over), exchanged information with the League about his opponents within the union, and attempted to deflect concerns over his hiring by accusing his opponents of just being upset about the results of the lockout. According to some, he managed to cast a cloud of secrecy over the union not rivaled since the days of Eagleson. In a perfect world he would have walked away with nothing. (Actually, he still would have been very lucky considering all the damage he did). Unfortunately that is not the case. At least, the union can now move on and hopefully with strong leadership, have a good working relationship with the League. Something that it has never had.

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NY Rangers Anti-Trust Appeal gets tossed

The New York Rangers got their appeal thrown out of court for their anti-trust law suit against the NHL. Personally, I think this whole lawsuit is pretty ridiculous. By creating 30 "cookie-cutter" websites that allow each individual team to control their own content, the NHL is not hampering the Rangers ability to compete within their own market at all. It simply gives a uniform design, and smaller-market teams who don't have the resources to have certain content (e.g. video, other multimedia, advertisments), a chance to improve their website. In fact, if you consider the competition to be other sports leagues and forms of entertainment, this move likely helps the Rangers and the NHL compete. The Rangers however, seem to see other NHL teams as the competition. I tend to agree with the former line of thinking. Whose ever heard of a Rangers fan switching to the Islanders or Devils because they have a better website? The competition is with other websites such as ESPN.com.

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