ian andrew bell

Last week I stopped by the new Irish Heather for a fireside chat about all things hockey with DaveO, ostensibly to promote my team management service, RosterBot. I really enjoyed the chat, and DaveO got me a wee bit tipsy on Kilt Lifter ale and elicited my opinions on hockey (which are always tough to drag out). Click Here to subscribe to Dave’s Podcast Feed in iTunes and listen in on our beer-addled discussion.

Click Here to listen in (mp3)…

With the season firing up last week I encouraged my friends at Terapeak to take a look at the transaction data around the various franchises on eBay.  Here’s what they came up with … not entirely unexpected.

The Canucks picked up Kyle Wellwood on waivers this summer from the Leafs, who apparently gave up on him after three consistent seasons of injury-plagued poor performance. He’s known in the league as an enormously talented player with lots of potential — but just that… potential. Here’s a candid photo of Wellwood’s summer training regime:

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It could be said that hockey is a very Canadian sport. It embodies the Canadian values of humility, camaraderie, sportsmanship, egalitarianism, subtlety, respect for tradition, and conservatism. Inside the confines of the rink, hockey players are larger-than-life: aggressive, assertive, and spectacular. Outside the rink? Not so much.

This is one of the overriding problems that plague the NHL. The personalities of the players, still mostly Canadian, make the sport hard to market because the culture of hockey players eschews taking the spotlight, grandstanding, or boasting. Players tend to walk softly when not carrying their big sticks, and this League of Unextraordinary Gentlemen makes for a lack of players with true celebrity potential.

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Finally! It looks like Gary Bettman, whose tenure at the NHL was declared an unequivocal failure by the Toronto Globe & Mail, might be hitting the rocks. The Globe refers to a Toronto Star article which points out that, in a 30-team league, Canada’s 6 hockey clubs drive nearly a third of the NHL’s ticket revenue. Even more damning, it looks like the revenue gains that Bettman has been touting the past couple of seasons have come, by as much as half, from the increasing value of the Canadian Dollar.

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Like a lot of folks, I’ve never been a fan of Dominic Hasek. Whether it’s his refusal last season to wear his shoulder pads and chest protector while riding the pine backing up other goalies with the Red Wings, or whether it’s his insane attitude when he is on the ice… there’s just so little to love with him. This morning I read a snippet that really said it all for me about his character:

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Well, I’ve been predicting that Canucks General Manager Dave Nonis would be out and this afternoon at 4:45PM Pacific Time it happened. Facing the utter collapse of the Canucks as a team this summer Nonis was fiddling, chasing down yet another Swede on a team that hasn’t finished a check since Bertuzzi finished a guy’s career. Of Nonis’ four years as GM of the Canucks, they played only three — and made the playoffs once.

Thankfully the Canucks’ new owner Francesco Aquilini has also realized that Nonis has no coherent vision for the team and it’s time to move on.

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Apparently, the NHL is recruiting “celebrities” (and I think we need to stop ascribing this title to everyone who has a TV show, given that these days practically everyone does have a TV show) to blog about the NHL during the playoffs.

I guess, in some boardroom somewhere, this seemed like a grand idea. Among the celebrities teeing up to blog are Lauren Conrad (only known to MTV fans), Jason Reitman (who has directed one noteworthy movie), Kevin Smith (who brought is “Gigli”) and .. uh .. well, a list of people I honestly can’t be bothered to look up.

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The fans who bought tickets to the Canucks vs. Calgary this past Saturday night were not offered discounts. In fact, many fans present at the Garage last night paid extra to catch a glimpse of Trevor Linden’s last game as a Canuck — after two years of consistent abuse and neglect by Canucks management and coaching staff, it’s now become clear that his time with the team is done.

Apparently though, the real last game of the season was Thursday night at GM Place, when the Canucks’ first line inexplicably failed to deliver even a modicum of scoring effort against the Oilers, a team which won’t see the post-season this year but which still had the fortitude to end Vancouver’s shot at the Stanley Cup only one year after they won their Division.

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Last week I received a happy box in my mail from the folks at BladeTape. In April they’ll be launching their Goalie version of BladeTape, so I was interested to see how good of a replacement it was for my tried-and-true method of drowning each of my new sticks in traditional hockey tape.

The box I received contained two orders of GoalieTape (like BladeTape for goalies — about $20 per package), and two packages of GripTape (about $5). So, I figured what the heck and proceeded to set up two of my sticks to see how it would work for me. This is my review:

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