Fearless Federer

LONDON--No longer the automatic favourite every time he steps on court, Roger Federer loves to prove he's still very much a factor in men's tennis.

He did that today in two hours and 19 minutes of largely brilliant play against Novak Djokovic, defeating the No. 1 ranked Serb in four sets to advance to his eighth Wimbledon final in search of his seventh victory.

"I'm ecstatic. I'm so happy," Federer told the BBC afterwards. "I was able to play some fantastic tennis today. The third set was the key to the match, I was able to step it up."

After the two men split the first two sets in just 54 minutes, they both dug in for the third set. Federer saved a break point in the ninth game, then broke a sloppy Djokovic in the next game to win the set. He then broke Djokovic early in the third and cruised to a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 triumph in his 27th career match against the Serb.

"Of course, it feels great to be in a Wimbledon final. This is what you play for," said Federer. "I hope I can play a good match on Sunday."

Now 30, relatively old for a tennis player, Federer can reclaim the No. 1 ranking the world by beating either Andy Murray of Scotland or France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga on Sunday. Murray and Tsonga play the second semifinal this afternoon on Centre Court. 

Federer holds the all-time record with 16 Grand Slam titles, but has not won one since the 2010 Australian Open.

No Easy Way Out

LONDON--Last summer it was Brad Richards going to the New York Rangers.

Last winter it was Yu Darvish becoming the property of the Texas Rangers.

This week, at least it wasn't a basketball version of the Rangers. Try the L.A. Lakers, who got Steve Nash to play for them when the Toronto Raptors really, really, really wanted him to come north to Toronto.

And once again, the sky-is-falling reaction in Toronto is typical. All Toronto teams stink, nobody good wants to play here, the executives running the teams in T.O. are full of hot air, Toronto teams in every sport are irrelevant, etc., etc.

There's certainly a lot of bottled up frustration out there. Lots of cynicism, too, and when you've got teams with the records of the Raps, Jays and Leafs, not just this season but in a number of seasons, all of this is understandable.

But perspective is necessary.

Nash wasn't going to turn the Raps into a winner. At best, he would have bridged the gap between the group of young players that GM Bryan Colangelo has put together and that group maturing into a decent basketball team. 

It would have been great to see Nash in Toronto. Certainly entertaining. But not getting him doesn't materially change what has to happen with the Raps. They've got to develop good young players and a reputation that makes players want to come.

Whether Colangelo is the right guy to do that is open for debate. But Colangelo's success, or failure, will have a lot more to do with whether Lithuanian youngster Jonas Valanciunas can become an NBA star than what Nash could've done for the team.

But there's no easy answer here, no quick fix. So all the moaning and gnashing of teeth over Nash is a little misplaced, or exaggerated.

But that's the way it is in Toronto right now. When the Leafs were in a playoff position in early February, Brian Burke was a genius for pilfering both Jake Gardiner and Joffrey Lupul out of Anaheim and good things were happening. Then the goaltending went south and analysts were popping up everywhere saying the Leafs had "nothing" and Burke needed to be replaced because he hadn't turned the team around in 3 1/2 years.

Meanwhile, the Rangers finally turned into a good team in the 11th year of Glen Sather's run as GM, while the Kings won the Cup nine years after beginning a rebuild.

But perspective is not what many Leaf fans are currently interested in. Forget the four first round picks - Nazem Kadri, Stuart Percy, Tyler Biggs and Morgan Rielly - taken by Burke currently working their way through the system. Forget the year the Marlies had. It's all "nothing," according to some.

All they see is Richards signing in New York and both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter going to Minnesota on absurd contracts and suddenly that's twisted into more Leaf failure. Justin Schultz signed in Edmonton, picking the Oilers ahead of at least 20 other teams, and there was actually a piece written saying Schultz's decision was indicative of the rot in Toronto. Forget the other 19 teams - just the Leafs looked bad.

Then there's the Blue Jays, out of the playoffs for almost two decades. In the winter, major league baseball analysts were giddy over the potential of this young team, but then the hitting didn't materialize in the early going and then the pitching got hurt and now this team is struggling to say above .500.

Sure, Darvish would have been a significant addition. But there's still lots of youth and potential. That hasn't changed. Nor has to be the path Alex Anthopoulos must follow, which is pretty much the same path that Burke and Colangelo are following.

Only Colangelo, just past his sixth year as GM, has had anywhere near the time necessary to build a winning roster. It's understandable why he wanted to inject some excitement with Nash and add a player who could mentor some of his young players. Depending on what the new ownership of MLSE, he might indeed be on the clock and felt the need to try and make something significant happen.

But Burke and Anthopoulos can't be on the clock yet. Or if one is, the other has to be.

Look, it's been a long time since Toronto has had a winner. A long, long time, and that bugs people.

But it really doesn't change what has to be done with any of these teams, and it shouldn't be used to torque the reality and make it seem worse than it is. Break down the rosters and the prospects, analyze the moves that have been made, critique the decisions made on coaches and personnel. But the all-encompassing sky-is-falling, everybody stinks approach is kind of pointless.

Agreed, there is precious little evidence that Rogers knows how to build a winning baseball team or that MLSE, under old or new ownership, knows how to build a winner.

But the Jays, Raps and Leafs are all at different stages of rebuilding, and all require time to get that done. We can say, with some certainly, that this is the low ebb for pro sports in Toronto, but that doesn't really change much what has to be done or how long its likely to take.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Gone Wild

LONDON--The economics of the NHL have sure been put through a blender over the last year or so.

And we're not even talking about the Phoenix Coyotes for a change.

Last summer, it was the Buffalo Sabres spending their brains out, becoming for a time the NHL team with the highest payroll. Last weekend, Justin Schultz picked the Edmonton Oilers over as many as two dozen teams, with the Oilers giving the former second round pick of the Anaheim Ducks the kind of money reserved for first overall selections, which is what all the other teams were planning to give Schultz as well.

On Sunday, Jiri Hudler and P.A. Parenteau became $4 million players. Brandon Prust received a contract worth $10 million.

Then came today. For $196 million, the Minnesota Wild injected themselves back into the mainstream NHL conversation after gradually losing relevance since shocking the league by making the conference final in 2003.

For that combined salary spread over 13 years, the Wild lured both defenceman Ryan Suter and forward Zach Parise to St. Paul, bringing the two biggest names of the NHL free agent season to the State of Hockey.

These are two very good players, if not superstars. Both are 27. Neither player has ever won a major NHL award, neither made the first or second all-star team last season. 

Every NHL team, of course, would love to have one or both on their roster. The question, of course, is at what financial cost?

Parise captained the New Jersey Devils to the Stanley Cup final last month and is a solid scorer and energetic influence on any team. Suter has been a bluelline mainstay alongside Shea Weber for the Nashville Predators as that team has risen to prominence, and his decision to walk away could well mean Nashville will be unable to keep Weber, either.

They'll eat up more than $15 million of cap space for the Wild for the next 13 years, which could mean even more if cap, as expected, drops in upcoming CBA discussions. They're also quite probably the last of the crazy, double-digit year, salary back-diving contracts, with the NHL likely to push for term limits (five or six years?) and a CBA adjustment that would force teams to pay the same salary in each year of a multi-year contract.

The trickle down effect of the decisions by Suter and Parise will be intriguing. The bidding for players on the trade market, like Rick Nash and Bobby Ryan, will likely intensify with Parise off the market. Unsigned UFA defenceman could now find dollars available that weren't available before Wednesday.

The contracts make absolutely no sense, even though at least three or four other NHL teams were williing to do exactly the same deals for one or both, and there's strong evidence throughout the NHL that players can't possibly perform at a high enough level to rationalize these deals.

But the Wild apparently don't care, and their fans probably don't either.

The team hasn't made the playoffs for four years, was the NHL's lowest scoring team lst year with only 177 goals scored and is battling for attention in the market with the Timberwolves, Twins and Vikings, as well as the Golden Gophers. They have quality talent coming in youngsters like Mikael Granlund and Charlie Coyle, not to mention 2012 first rounder Matt Dumba, a defenceman, but the franchise needed a jolt of publicity and energy.

Getting Parise, a Minnesota native, to come home certainly gives that. It would, for a team like the Leafs, be like Steven Stamkos choosing to come home to Toronto as a UFA.  Suter, meanwhile, is a University of Wisconsin product and in that neck of the woods, that's a pedigree that means something.

The Wild have a very good goalie in Nicklas Backstrom, a decent veteran core up front in Mikko Koivu, Dany Heatley and Devon Setoguchi, and earlier signed UFAs Zenon Konopka and Torrey Mitchell. It's not a deep roster, but as previously mentioned, some quality youngsters are on the way. 

Parise and Suter, even if they maintain their current level of play, which doesn't always happen with players who sign these kinds of massive deals, can't make the Wild a contender next season. Possibly a playoff team, but not a contender. That could happen in 3-5 years, particularly if Granlund, Coyle and Dumba all turn out to be front-liners.

So while the dollars don't make sense, from a competitive point-of-view, we'll find out over the next few years whether the contracts make sense on the ice.

They certainly altered the dynamics of the league a little more. Or a lot.

 

 

 

A More Interesting Second Day

LONDON--So the expected answers from Ryan Suter and Zach Parise didn't emerge on the second day of free agency.

But lots of interesting moves were made. In fact, Day 2 was more intriguing in some ways than Day1:

--Buffalo trades centre Derek Roy to Dallas for pest Steve Ott and defenceman Adam Pardy. No surprise that either Roy or Ott were moved, since both were mentioned heavily in the rumour mill last winter. Last summer, the Sabres spent their brains out under new ownership but didn't make the playoffs. This summer, it seems about being a more difficult team to play against, as the club also signed 6-foot-8 enforcer John Scott on Monday. Roy, meanwhile, replaces Mike Ribeiro.

An intriguing trade. But also a bona fide hockey trade. And gosh, won't it be fun to watch Ott and Patrick Kaleta running around together in Buffalo?

--Calgary replaces Olli Jokinen down the middle with Jiri Hudler, while Jokinen and his career minus-111 move on to Winnipeg for a remarkable 50 per cent pay raise. 

With every move they make, the Flames make their intentions of continuing to play for today more and more evident. Hudler could be a good producer behind Henrik Zetterberg, Pavel Datsyuk and others in Detroit. Now he has to be a featured pivot playing against the top defenders of the opponent. Will be interesting to see if he can meet the challenge.

And Jokinen? Gets back up to $4.5 million per and brings his six playoff games worth of experience to Manitoba. Not easy for the Jets to attract free agents, and its a short-term deal. Probably the best that can be said about it.

--The Canadiens finished dead last in the Eastern Conference last year, but goalie Carey Price was nonetheless rewarded with a six-year, $39 million deal. The Habs clearly believe in Price, and he was great at times last season. Still, the club has gone downhill since Jaroslav Halak left town. Many believe it was injuries that killed the Canadiens last season, and new GM Marc Bergevin has added grit and prospect Alex Galchenyuk since the season ended. With that big new price tag on Price, he'll need to start pushing Montreal upwards again.

--Marc Crawford is joining Paul Maurice in Europe next season, perhaps evidence that NHL coaching hopefuls are looking at the Bob Hartley model as a way to get back behind an NHL bench as opposed to working in a TV studio. Crawford is off to Zurich and Maurice has gone to Russia. New Oiler coach Ralph Krueger spent extensive time in Switzerland, and perhaps old prejudices that coaches have to primarily work in North America are dying.

--NHL commissioner Gary Bettman reduced Raffi Torres' suspension but didn't say why. Suddenly Torres' hit on Marian Hossa didn't look so bad? Bettman's decision certainly won't help dissuade the popular opinion that hanging judge Brendan Shanahan isn't being pressured to hand out smaller suspensions. 

If there's hope for the clearly broken NHL disciplinary process, it may lie in the likely insistence of the NHLPA for change in this summer's CBA chats. That said, there's no guarantee that what the union will want will actually result in a system that makes any more sense.