Small Ideas that Could Grow

Some partial notions for a Monday morning:

--Is this the week that Atlanta loses its Thrashers? Or are the attention of the hockey community and the City of Winnipeg again being used to create leverage for a team looking for a better deal where it is?

Problem is, there's no better deal out there for the Thrashers. No lease to be fixed, no money coming from the city (wise). A new ownership group must step up. Now. And that sounds very, very unlikely.

--I'm not one of those guys who is going to lecture you on how you're missing something by not going out to support junior hockey. To me, the customer is always right, and if people haven't wanted to go, that's no failing on their part. But it surely will be interesting to see how the GTA responds to the Memorial Cup in Mississauga, which starts Friday with the Majors playing the Saint John Sea Dogs. It's a four-team tourney that lacks a marquee name, but does have four good teams, all of which come with good stories, and all of which could win the thing.

The Sea Dogs do arrive with four of the top 20 rated prospects for this summer's draft, including centre Jonathan Huberdeau (No. 3), defenceman Nathan Beaulieu (5th), centre Zack Phillips (15th) and right winger Tomas Jurco (20th). The Majors' D-man Stuart Percy from Oakville was ranked 53rd in the year-end NHL Central Scouting ratings. Owen Sound goalie Jordan Binnington, who backstopped the Attack to the OHL title on Sunday, is the third-rated North American goalie.

--An average of $13 million a year for five years for Jose Bautista is looking like a shrewd deal for Alex Anthopoulos, although its early. After the Vernon Wells deal,  and the Alex Rios contract, and others like it, it was easy to wonder if the Blue Jays were ever again going to make the right call on a long-term deal for a star player. And man, is this guy a star.

--Joe Thornton vs. Ryan Kesler is going to be a battle royale throughout the Western Conference final. The big news for the Canucks in Game 1 was that Henrik Sedin showed some flash, setting up the tying goal and scoring the winner in the hard-hitting affair. The missing elements for San Jose these days, meanwhile, seem to be Dany Heatley and Joe Pavelski. With Thornton tied up dealing with Kesler, those boys need to get it going. Heatley has one goal in his last eight; L'il Joe has one goal, one assist in last seven.

--Apparently, it's all about the diet. Since going gluten-free, Novak Djokovic has soared to become the best tennis player on the planet. Rafael Nadal can't beat him, neither can Roger Federer, and the level to which the unbeaten Serb has lifted his game in 2011 is utterly astounding. He's leaner and fitter, and his 500-horsepower backhand permits him to rarely need to run it to hit his forehand, and therefore he's rarely out of position. He's also the best returner in the game. We'll see if he can keep it up at Roland Garros and Wimbledon.

--The death of the NHL's top heavyweight, 28-year-old Derek Boogaard, was a stunning tragedy for his family and reverberated throughout the sport on the weekend. Answers to how he died could make his passing yet more meaningful to those outside the family.

He was rocked by a Matt Carkner right cross to the button on Dec. 9th and never played again, although it sounds like his training was going well. Sadly, he was challenged by Carkner after landing a good, perfectly legal bodycheck in the open ice on Jesse Winchester of the Senators. That the sick nonsense the NHL needs to crack down on but doesn't seem to want to. Boogaard knew his job and accepted it, but surely the guy had a right to be able to play the game within the rules without having to scrap every single time.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Geoff]

The problem I have with your Boogaard note is how many times was he the guy challenging someone to fight? Sure it's a tragedy he's dead but c'mon let's not pretend he wasn't a goon.

[Brad]

Geoff, the point was not necessarily to make a saint out of Boogarrd. We all know what his role was. It was however a shot at the culture of the NHL where you have to fight every time you put a clean hit on an opposing player.

[Tree]

I agree with Geoff. While the NHL needs to come down hard on the 'enforcers' that pound people for clean hits, let's not pretend that's not exactly why Boogard was even in the NHL. You seem to be making some kind of dangerous connection between the Crakner fight and Boogard's death.

Sad story, no doubt, but no one knows how or why he died. It's in poor taste to appear to point fingers at a specific player (I am aware of the fact that was not your intent, but it comes across as callous). I generally agree with your stance on fighting in the NHL, but one needs only to take a look at Boogard's history to understand you're talking about one of the worst offenders in the league. Carkner and the hit on Winchester have ZERO to do with his death.

[Ron]

Hey Damien, I agree totally on your comments regarding Boogaard. A fight in the heat of the moment will happen and that is fine but this B.S. about needing to fight after a perfectly legal hit is beyond moronic. The problem again lies within the NHL poopahs many of whom never played the game but act as if they invented it. Are you listening Mr Bettman? The whole notion that the NHL needs these staged fights to survive may be telling us something about the health of the NHL.

[Basshat]

Any time Heatley struggles it looks good on him. This is a man who left Atlanta in turmoil due to his criminal actions ff the ice and forced the Sens into a horrible trade and a big bonus payment after blackmailing them into the trade partner of his choice.

Enjoy the great regular seasons in a market where hockey is somewhere around #9 or 10 on the relevance scale, Danny.

[gordon]

And why can't the game's best stars make it through a round of playoffs without multi-coloured bruises and stitches, at different stages of healing, marking their faces? Real men don't carve up other men with their hockey sticks. Basshat, leave Heatley alone will ya. He promised the truth about the Ottawa situation will be told. He and Vince Carter have a dual press conference scheduled for 2017.

[Felix]

Mr Cox,

The reason you had a backlash on twitter is demonstrated in this article.

There is no information on the cause of death of Boogaard. None. For all we know he died of a congenital heart defect unrelated to his lifestyle and job. To mention the Carkner fight in the context of reporting his death is irresponsible and self-serving. I don't like goons any more than you do, but this is a terrible use of a tragedy to promote your own views.

If it turns out that his death is related to the fighting, then by all means, people should be made aware of those dangers through your writing. But if not, you should appologize for having used his death in this way.

Respectfully,
Felix