At the Canucks Fan Zone, blogger Derek Jory asks the question (of no one in particular — they don’t allow comments) whether the following photo, ostensibly from 1984, is real:

It’s a pre-game faceoff between Stan Smyl and Mario Lemieux, with Michael Jackson (yes, here we go again) doing the honours.  Jory asserts that there is actually a confluence:

• The Canucks hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Pacific Coliseum on November 16, 1984 and beat them 7-6.
• Michael Jackson’s Victory Tour stopped in Vancouver to play three shows on November 16, 17 & 18 at BC Place.

It’s possible this is the correct date.  1984 was Lemieux’s first season in the NHL, and (there is no C on his sweater) was not yet captain of the Penguins.

On the contradicting side, Jory also points out that there’s “no red carpet” as there is in this photo.  However, if you look behind Michael Jackson, you’ll notice the penalty box.  The red carpet typically extends from the players’ benches for these sorts of things, since the penalty boxes and scorekeeper’s bench do not have exits, and those benches are clearly behind the photographer.  Furthermore, the photog is clearly standing on the ice, and for safety reasons would only be standing on carpet himself… so just because you don’t see the carpet doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I did some digging and here’s a photo of Michael from 1984, wearing what seems to be the same outfit.

I’ve got to say he really foretold the whole bedazzled revolution, didn’t he, Wal-Mart shoppers?  Must’ve liked that jacket, because here it is again (also in 1984) with the sleeves rolled up.

So there you go, sports fans.  I have resolved this issue of critical importance to the hockey nation.  Michael Jackson did in fact drop the puck at Mario Lemieux’s debut game in Vancouver in November, 1984.  Please now relax, drop an ambien, and head to bed happy.  The speckled one loves hockey.  Though perhaps not as much as Gary Coleman:

Born To Amuse, To Inspire, To Delight
Here One Day
Gone One Night

Like A Sunset
Dying With The Rising Of The Moon
Gone Too Soon

Gone Too Soon

- Michael Jackson, 1991

Have you had problems returning a damaged iPhone to Rogers Wireless?  If so, I’d like to hear about it in the comments.

It has been a year since Apple and Rogers Wireless launched the iPhone 3G in Canada.  It was that summer, in 2008, I unloaded my first-generation unlocked iPhone for a legit iPhone 3G from Rogers Wireless.  One of the benefits of having a carrier-supported iPhone is, of course, supposed to be seamless warranty replacement.  Shortly after I got it, my iPhone began dropping calls and failing to dial out on the network.  I assumed this to be A) a problem with Rogers’ network, B) a firmware bug in the iPhone itself, or C) a combination of both.

I had heard things about chipset problems afflicting AT&T iPhone customers so I assumed this would be remedied in a soon-to-follow update from Apple.  By October of 2008, I had given up.  I called Rogers tech support and was walked thru the usual “wipe it clean and pray it’s fixed” procedure and tried it for two more weeks but no joy, so in November I instigated the phone swap process from Rogers.  The call was short and sweet and all seemed to be well with a new iPhone winging its way to our house.

On the Friday before my iPhone was to arrive, my SIM suddenly stopped working and my iPhone could not connect to the Rogers network at all.  I later found out that this was due to the fact that my phone number had been reprovisioned to a new SIM that was in the box accompanying my iPhone.  Odd.  It was obviously my iPhone that was broken, not the SIM, and I just couldn’t fathom why they wouldn’t just give me a 1-800 number to call to activate the new SIM when it arrived versus forwarding my phone service to a brown box in the back of a UPS truck, leaving me without my phone service for 3 days.  I called Rogers (from my Vonage line) to complain, spent an hour and a half on the phone, and could not get this resolved after bouncing around 3-4 agents.

On the following Tuesday, the replacement iPhone arrived.  I tried starting it up, but it wouldn’t boot.  It had a substantial hardware problem that led to garbage on the screen and all kinds of other garbage, but in effect the replacement phone was DOA.  As I had to go on a business trip that day, I put the new SIM in my old iPhone and left the new iPhone for a week or so before I tried it again, this time putting the replacement thru all kinds of hardware resets and software reloads.  I could not resurrect it from the dead despite hours of trying.

So I called Rogers.  Again.  After two hours bouncing around various agents in various departments, I could not get an agent to take responsibility for my problem, instead each agent dispatched me to another department as I (admittedly) became increasingly irate.  One agent accused me of lying, and/or not knowing what I am talking about.  Finally I threatened to QUIT Rogers, switch to Telus, and sue them for breach of contract — I was transferred to a magic save department where I met a very nice lady who calmed me down, promised to solve all of my problems, and who would call me the following week which was, now 7 weeks after the Odyssey began, Christmas.

Needless to say, she never did call back.  Never solved my problem.  Probably got laid off.  Might be working for Bell Canada right now, for all I know.

Next I began to receive a torrent of threatening letters demanding that I return my old, somewhat functioning iPhone or I’d be charged $780.    I called Rogers again in January trying to resolve the issue, but to no avail:  Rogers Wireless wouldn’t take the badly broken replacement iPhone back without also sending my other one, leaving me phoneless.  I gave up after the best I could do was an agent telling me I had to send BOTH iPhones in one shipment to their call centre.  Fuming, I waited another few days to call back.

Eventually on my next call,  an agent relented: I kept the semi-working iPhone, sent back the badly broken replacement iPhone.  I packaged up the replacement phone and sent it back, recording the shipping tracking number from UPS.

Then the predictable happened.  They charged $780 to my card.  I was furious, but sugar-coated my attitude and called back AGAIN to ask for a refund.  After bouncing around to various departments, each complaining about the slowness of their computers, they could not track the whereabouts of the iPhone I had returned, despite the fact that I could even tell them the name of the signing agent who had received the package.  I nearly hit the ceiling.  I threatened a complaint to the CRTC (which, in fairness, I have every right to do).  Finally someone agreed to help me.  One quirk:  They couldn’t refund the $780.Instead I got a credit — in effect I was loaning Rogers money — against future use.  A compromise that irritates me, but was under the circumstances acceptable.

Now it was March.  By my logs of various telephone calls to Rogers, I had now spent about 9 hours on the phone with Rogers attempting to address a single issue spanning more than 6 months.  I was so exhausted with the process that I accepted the neutrality of being exactly where I was technically, and further behind financially, than when the problems began — with an iPhone that didn’t fully work and with my wallet $780 lighter but an account credit.

It wasn’t until late last month that I mustered the courage to call again and try to get a new replacement iPhone.  I had assumed that these processes, immature at the time I first endured them, may have seasoned and smoothened with time and experience.  I called again, had a very pleasant half-hour call with an agent, who whisked me a new iPhone 3G toot sweet.  As before, my phone service was disconnected for a couple of days after they shipped the replacement phone, but by now Stockholm Syndrome was taking effect and I was becoming numb to the varied mistreatments by my captor.

The very same day the new iPhone 3G arrived, I cracked open the box, dropped in the new SIM, zeroed my old iPhone, and boxed it up for shipping.  UPS picked it up that very day, May 28, 2009.  I expected to hear nothing of the issue further.  According to the UPS tracking data, the package arrived the following week, on June 6th.  On June 14th, Rogers sent me a letter threatening to charge me $730.

I cannot fathom that within 8 days, Rogers could not process and acknowledge the receipt of my RMA’d iPhone 3G.  I furthermore cannot fathom that when they do overcharge you due to their own error, they cannot refund the excess back to your credit card (which is how I pay for my phone service).

Rogers is a company clearly hampered by its own hugely restricted billing, provisioning, and customer service systems.  Ted Rogers, five weeks before his death last year, spoke to an audience marshalled by the local YEO chapter, which I gratefully attended as a guest of Mario from ShowTime Tickets.  Two thoughts of Ted’s permeated his frailly-voiced speech that day.  He said, of customer service, that “the secret to good customer service is always saying yes” and that his success as CEO was directly tied to the number of layers that existed between him and his customers — the fewer the better.

I know that it’s difficult dealing with the kinds of customers iPhone brings to the table and the scale of operations necessary to support the volume that a device like the iPhone can generate for Rogers.  Not easy.  But I wonder what Ted would think after reading this story?

The big news from last week’s Apple WWDC was of course the new iPhone 3GS.  The features are obviously a significant evolution of the already successful iPhone 3G… so this is good news for Apple fanboys and shareholders.  Last week, the Nielsen blog suggested that the price of the current iPhone 3G sliding to an entry-level $99 price tag may be the bigger news:

The most impactful iPhone announcement this week may be the price reduction of $99 for the 8 GB version: cost has been one factor (in addition to AT&T exclusivity) that’s kept the overall iPhone audience modestly sized.

This is now a price point that gives even free, subsidized phones a run for their money.  While the iPhone has enjoyed a niche among the hipsters, professionals, and digerati the one attribute that has kept the masses at bay, wallowing in iPhone Envy, was the $200+ entry fee.

In a post today, Neilsen VP Roger Entner calls this price drop a “kneecapping” of competitors like Google’s Android phones or the Palm Pre.  Apple has done a good job conveying the value attributes of the iPhone, from its TV campaign highlighting useful applications to the lifestyle value proposition of a handheld multimedia device.  Palm and Google (and their various handset partners) have yet to make such a case and these phones are entering a market years too late.

Don’t believe that the iPhone is a breakthru technology?  Check out this tidbit buried at the bottom of the Entner article @ Nielsen:

More than 80% of AT&T’s net adds in Q1 2009 came from the iPhone.

That’s a staggering revelation.  With “only” about 6.4 Million iPhones in use in the United States after two years in the marketplace, the new $99 price point of the existing 3G device truly removes one of the few remaining barriers to Apple becoming a mass-market mobile handset maker.  This, after only two years in the marketplace .. and a two-year R&D rollup from conception to launch.

Here’s a question:  Where do you host your email?

Gersham and I are rather well-known for a business we started in 2002 called Geekmail.  By 2003, we were on the cutting-edge of IMAP-based email hosting and ran thousands of mail accounts on a cluster of 9 servers hosted at Peer1 Network in Vancouver.  We pushed the envelope in anti-spam technologies: combining advanced whitelisting techniques with behavioural, bayesian and heuristic anti-spam technologies and using our own common-sense approaches to deliver very high anti-spam effectiveness with a too-low-to-track false positive rate.

What we achieved, in essence, was a sort of email nirvana.  In those days, giving someone 1GB to store their email on your server was unheard of… but we did it.  Hosting catch-all email accounts was a novel concept … but we did it.  Hosting custom email domains was tough stuff too, even, but we did it.  We also had a hell of a launch party. 

A couple of things conspired to force us to close Geekmail… a situation which I will always regret:  1)  We were taken to court by a fool fellow whom we’d (our mistake) taken on as a business partner, and whose sole objective was to kill the company; and 2)  Google launched Gmail.  The latter was far more significant since it was A)  Free and B)  From the web’s hottest property.

Now, this all is the long way of explaining that I am perhaps something of an email geek.  I’ve used one form of computer-based electronic mail or another since 1985.  I co-founded Geekmail, of course, and also did a considerable amount of strategic work for FrontBridge — the world’s #2 message management service provider before its acquisition by Microsoft in 2005.  BuzMe and RingCentral, two Unified Communications services I helped bring to market, were among the first to deliver voicemail to their users via email (believe me, a novel concept in 1999/2000).

Be that as it may, it rather surprises me that even today GMail (which has been in Beta for 5 years) still pales in a number of key features (including anti-spam) to the technologies and quality of services we provided with Geekmail.  While we didn’t have nearly the scaling issues that Gmail has to deal with (except for in our very early days) we never experienced the kind of multi-hour outages that Gmail regularly hands to its users.  We also focused the users’ experience on Secure IMAP, not a web-based interface (though we had one of those too) and offered lots and lots of storage to go with it.  And in our later version of Geekmail, the anti-spam functions were tweakable: if you didn’t like the default settings, you could turn on and off different techniques that were used to combat spam on your inbox.

When we were forced to let Geekmail die a rapid death, we scrambled around to find a company who could take our subscribers and whose service closely mirrored our own.  The short answer was:  there weren’t any.

It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I began talking with John Capo; founder and operator of Tuffmail.  In addition to being a pretty nice guy, John runs a service that is the closest analog to Geekmail that I can find anywhere.  In my view this ranks Tuffmail as the very best email service provider for email geeks anywhere.  And so it has been for about 4 years that I have blissfully run my personal email address at ianbell.com on this service — and am now at a point where it is so critical to how I do my daily business and live my life that I would be miserable without it.

As these screen shots should reveal, Tuffmail is literally like having your own mail server cluster up in the sky somewhere.  By that I mean practically every aspect of its functioning is customizable to your whims and needs.  I can change how it responds to spam, I can block certain servers from sending me mail, I can blacklist any email sender from connecting to the server, and so much more.  I can also have a catch-all, which many email hosts hate to do because it creates spam honeypots, but which has become a critical means for managing my accounts online.

I don’t do any filtering or routing of email at the client level.  This would be impossible, since I access email from four different devices on a day-to-day basis.  Instead, I have input a complex set of rules into Tuffmail’s extremely robust email rules interface (sorry I can’t show you this — classified!) and all incoming mail is stored in the appropriate folder when I check it from my MacBook Pro, my iPhone, my Mac Pro, or whatever.  Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, yahOo! Mail, your ISP’s Mail Server — they all wither by comparison because they don’t allow this sort of granularity — and because they don’t fully embrace standards-based IMAP email messaging.

I keep all my mail, as well, nearly 5GB at the moment.  So if you said something in 2005, it’s pretty easy for me to find that message in my email clients (this could be the reason why mail.app sucks up most of the free memory on my MacBook Pro) and regurgitate it.  This is extremely handy and it reaffirms email’s rightful place at the fulcrum of my life (sad but true).  This is only possible because I have an enlightened email hosting provider who A) embraces large mailboxes and B) embraces large message sizes, which means I can send around presentations and big graphics files without fear of them bouncing back (unless the receiver’s mail server is a dunce, of course).

I don’t ever receive spam in my InBox anymore, because I have the settings and filters perfectly tweaked to my needs on Tuffmail.  But blocking spam is easy these days.  The real problem is blocking it without also blocking legitimate messages — this is much much harder.  And this is where GMail, which uses the Postini service (which is not directly integrated to GMail), tends to fall over.

Have you ever heard the excuse “Oh, I sent you the email, but maybe it got caught in your spam filter….” before?  Sure you have.  That doesn’t happen to me.  The benefit of the Realtime Reports (screen shot above) is that I can go in to the server logs  and actually see when a message flew through or was rejected by the Tuffmail server hierarchy.  I just view the page, do a Firefox search for the person’s email address, and if they sent a message it’ll be there.  I’ve caught anyone who’s ever made that excuse to me in a white lie… not that I hold it against them. 

There is one downside to all of this, of course… with Tuffmail, I have created a monster.  I have so many settings and tweaks, and I have the spam filters so well-trained, that the pain of moving to another provider would be excruciating.  Most likely, I never will.

I don’t endorse products very frequently (and I never do it for any sort of remuneration) — but Tuffmail is one of those rare birds that truly deserves the kudos.  Email hosting is a tough business and in many ways I’m glad I’m no longer in it.  On the other hand, when I use Tuffmail I get pangs of jealousy and nostalgia.  Ah, what could have been!

Skype for the iPhone is a much-hyped and very cool app that’s not available (legally) for us Canadians despite the fact that it is free and offered by a global company.  There are of course workarounds but this is a kludge and not for the feint-of-heart.

In 2007, a story surfaced to quel rumours of an impending iPhone launch in Canada that the name “iPhone” had been trademarked by a small, Toronto-based VoIP service provider named ComWave.  A salient commenter reminded me of that fact this morning.  Since the Trademarks are legit and recognized in Canada by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (here, here, and here) Apple would clearly have had to make a settlement agreement with ComWave in order to launch the iPhone with Rogers, as it did (finally) last summer.   If such agreement allowed Apple to use the iPhone trademark in Canada so long as it did not provide VoIP services (which I would expect is the case) then ComWave still holds the keys to whether or not we could ever get Skype legitimately in Canada.  

Now, there’s likely a great reason why ComWave is playing stool pigeon in this case:  money.  ComWave is no stranger to taking on the big guys in Telecom.  It had a dustup in 2006 with Rogers over provisioning, and in parallel with its Apple discussions got into it with Cisco over its own iPhone trademark.  The company apparently created its own iPhone service in 2004, and Canadian Trademark law favours use over registration (ComWave only registered the trademark in January 2007).

Apple has a long history of running afoul of Trademarks — in fact, the company’s own name was the object of a 30-year-long dispute with the Beatles’ record label and holding company, Apple Corps.  Since pre-registries of trademarks and patents by Apple are closely watched, it’s a vista into Apple’s product planning that permeates its dark veil of pre-launch silence — so Apple chooses instead to pay settlements and other penalties after the fact in order to maintain secrecy.

Meanwhile, ComWave has got itself something of a cottage industry camping on the iPhone trademark.  For the indeterminable future, the company will be a key determinant as to what aspects of the iPhone capability we receive in Canada.

“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”  – Archilochus

Which one are you?  The ancient parable of the fox and the hedgehog has come into increasing view in popular culture lately.  And while its origins are somewhat ambiguous, the allegory has been applied to entrepreneurs, scientists, philosophers, playwrights, business leaders, economists, and even US presidents. 

One of the fables goes something like this (sorry, no link to a source … I am paraphrasing a story from my childhood):

A fox and a hedgehog were strolling through a country path.  Periodically, they were threatened by hungry wolves.  The fox — being blessed with smarts, speed and agility — would lead packs of wolves on a wild chase through the fields, up and down trees, and over hill and dale.  Eventually the fox would return to the path, breathless but having lost the wolves, and continue walking.  The hedgehog, being endowed with a coat of spikes, simply hunkered down on its haunches when menaced by the wolves and fended them off without moving.  When they gave up, he would return to his stroll unperturbed.

According to the great liberal (before that was a dirty word) historian and thinker Isaiah Berlin who in 1953 wrote the Essay “The Hedgehog and the Fox“, interpreting the works of Tolstoy, Foxes are complex thinkers who account for a variety of circumstances and experiences while hedgehogs have the keen ability to focus and drive along a single path.   As examples, Berlin flags such thinkers as Plato, Lucretius, Dante, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, and Proust as Hedgehogs and slots Herodotus, Aristotle, Erasmus, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce, Anderson as Foxes.

More recently, Jim Collins (author of “Good to Great“) took this concept into the business world in his book and it is one of the central unifying themes of his work.  In his book and other writings Collins comes down pretty hard on Foxes:

Those who built the good-to-great companies were, to one degree or another, hedgehogs. They used their hedgehog nature to drive toward what we came to call a Hedgehog Concept for their companies. Those who led the comparison companies tended to be foxes, never gaining the clarifying advantage of a Hedgehog Concept, being instead scattered, diffused, and inconsistent.

This is understandable.  Collins, a former Stanford University Business Professor, comes from a hedgehog factory.  He has made a career of spooling hedgehogs into mainstream companies at the mid-management level and consulting with large, heavily-matrixed companies on business strategy and leadership.  In many respects he lives in a world constructed by and for hedgehogs — so it makes sense that he could see the “Great” companies he writes about in his books (all typically fortune 500 players) as hedgehogs.  On a long enough timeline we are ALL wrong, but it is worth pointing out that a number of Collins’ “Great” companies have suffered badly from (and others have caused) the current economic downturn, eg. Circuit City.

As Nicholas Kristof describes the dichotomy in the NY Times:

Hedgehogs tend to have a focused worldview, an ideological leaning, strong convictions; foxes are more cautious, more centrist, more likely to adjust their views, more pragmatic, more prone to self-doubt, more inclined to see complexity and nuance. And it turns out that while foxes don’t give great sound-bites, they are far more likely to get things right.

John Kerry is clearly a Fox:  self-doubting; complicated; unable to present absolute, sound byte-friendly answers to complex questions.  George W. Bush, however, presents himself as a hedgehog:  simple, direct, ideological, and absolutely assured of his correctness.  In 2004, America signed up for its second term of 4 years of hedgehog leadership to substantial effect.

In our industry, hedgehogs have the benefit of focus and the ability to keep their heads down and companies out of trouble during tough times.  They succeed through the avoidance of substantial risk and through the ability to see things through.  When they fail, it’s because their conservatism holds them back, and markets move past them; or because they can’t release their death grip on that singular idea and move on to the next thing.

The Fox has the benefit of broad vision and the ability to perceive the complex interaction of seemingly dissonant ideas, and they succeed because they are able to travel outside of marked pathways with their ideas and make substantial gains.  When they fail it’s because their reach exceeds their grasp, because they are too far ahead of the market, or because they have difficulty maintaining focus to see things through.

The one problem that Mr. Collins cannot cop to is that while Hedgehogs are mass-produceable through training and discipline (this is what MBA factories do), Foxes are not so easy to come by:  their behaviour is learned but it is most likely interdisciplinary and tangential.  As a modern example, one could strongly argue that Steve Jobs, Reid Hoffman, and many successful tech entrepreneurs are foxes.

On the other hand Bill Gates, who at one time was the richest man in the world:  pure hedgehog.  Rupert Murdoch?  Count the spikes.  There are many  successful hedgehogs in the mainstream business world and far fewer Foxes.  The structure of businesses, after all, are generally designed around hedgehogs.  In general larger corporate structures aren’t great at absorbing foxes.  It’s why Jobs quit Apple, before going back as CEO under a mandate that embraced his wide-ranging aspirations.  It’s probably why entrepreneurs such as Evan Williams, who blew out of Google as soon as he could after selling blogger.com to them, generally can’t wait to get out of the mother ship after a their lock-up periods are done.  A friend and the CEO of a company acquired by Microsoft always referred to Redmond as “they” and never “we” even while he took down an amazing salary serving as a VP for two years.

Innovation is a concept which we modernists tie into every description of a person’s thinking process.  Wikipedia says there are a few different types of innovation:  “It may refer to incremental, radical, and revolutionary changes in thinking, products, processes, or organizations.”  Perhaps the razor cuts this way:  Perhaps hedgehogs deliver incremental changes while foxes deliver radical, revolutionary changes.

As a fox, I know that many of my successes have come when paired with hedgehogs.  A hedgehog can pluck a singular concept from the maelstrom of energy emanating from the fox and run with it along a narrow path.  Steve Jobs had Wozniak on the engineering side, and just as significantly Mike Markkula on the financing and business affairs side.  The latter two are quintessential hedgehogs.

While it’s valuable to know whether you’re a fox or whether you’re a hedgehog, it is not particularly constructive to assign a static value judgment to one versus the other.  At varying points in the arc of a business, a prevalence of influence from either a fox or a hedgehog can make or break a company.  Witness the foxes that artificially inflated hyper-economies at Enron (Jeff Skilling) and AIG (Joseph Cassano) to great personal benefit but ultimately destroyed hundreds of billions of dollars in wealth.  And meet the Hedgehogs, Gil Amelio and John Sculley, who sapped the growth of Apple, diluted its brand value, and very nearly bankrupted the company.

So figure out what you’re good at, chase the visions you believe in, and if you’re fortunate enough to work in an environment that embraces and supports your particular attributes, you’ll ultimately be successful.

One of the most popular articles on my blog recently was a post about C-17s encountering difficulties landing at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.  The US Air Force announced recently that they had completed their investigation into the incident, essentially concluding that the crew failed to follow landing checklist procedures while on approach to the airfield.  This was in part due to a number of minor distractions on approach and in part due to a not-that-uncommon last-minute flight control handoff. 

I feel badly for the crew, but on the other hand I think it’s your first day of flight school where you’re taught that the big red lever controls the wheels and that they should probaby be DOWN when you’re landing.  The report is available here.  More photos are here.

It’s such common wisdom to say that your team gets you into the playoffs but your goalie gets you to the final that the phrase has become a hackneyed cliche. But there’s a new cliche in town:  One lesson is starting to become clear in the new NHL is that you’ve got to build it, not buy it.

These competing cliches have become a touchstone of sorts in the case of a certain recently dethroned uber-goalie, and a number of local Canucks bloggers are hot-under-the-collar in response to journos insisting that the team’s only path forward is moving Luongo out to free up cap space.

It was with the goalie-gets-you-there hypothesis that many Canucks fans simply assumed that Roberto Luongo, with his ostensibly justified high salary, made it a foregone conclusion that the Canucks could go deep this year (and last year) into the playoffs.

But is it true?  Can you buy your way deep into the playoffs by splurging big on a marquee goalie?  I decided to test the theory. 

Here are a couple of quick tables that map out goaltender salaries, starting with Conference Finalists:

Chicago Blackhawks
	Starting Goalie: Khabibulin, Nikolai AGE:  35 $6.75 Million	Backup: Huet, Cristobal AGE:  32 $5.625 Million
Pittsburgh Penguins
	Starting Goalie: Fleury, Marc-Andre AGE:  23 $5.00 Million	Backup: Garon, Mathieu AGE:  30 $509,000
Detroit Red Wings
	Starting Goalie: Osgood, Chris AGE:  35 $1.417 Million	Backup: Conklin, Ty AGE:  32 $750,000
Carolina Hurricanes
	Starting Goalie: Ward, Cam AGE: 24 $2.667 Million	Backup: Leighton, Michael Age: 27 $600,000

… and here’s another showing the dropouts from the Conference Semifinals:

Vancouver Canucks
	Starting Goalie: Luongo, Roberto AGE: 29 $6.75 Million	Backup: Labarbera, Jason AGE:  28 $461,000
Washington Capitals
	Starting Goalie: Varlamov, Simeon AGE: 20 $155,000	Backup: Theodore, Jose AGE: 31 $4.5 Million
Boston Bruins
	Starting Goalie: Thomas, Tim AGE: 34 $1.1 Million	Backup: Fernandez, Manny AGE: 33 $4.333 Million
Anaheim Ducks
	Starting Goalie: Hiller, Jonas AGE:  26 $1.3 Million	Backup: Giguere, JS AGE:  31 $6 Million

Here’s what may have changed:  with today’s salary cap consciousness, overspending on a goalie means that it becomes more challenging to build a team in front of him.  This is a reality which, as I pointed out the other day, is hitting Gillis in the face at the moment with the Sedins asking for a fortune and more than 10% of the team’s salary budget tied up in one player, Roberto Luongo, and another big chunk presumably being allocated to The Twins.

Perhaps more interesting than the above table is this chart I whipped up (covering the regular season, 2008-2009) which shows that splurging on goalies doesn’t necessarily deliver absolutes either:

What’s the lesson from all this data?  First:  clearly, individual salary is not entirely predictive of individual performance.  Second:  When you account for outliers like Chicago, Detroit and Carolina, there is a slight inverse corresponence to goals against and goalie spending (ie. you get scored on more when you spend less on goalies) for NHL teams.  However, the margin of difference is only about 20%, and this year four of the six biggest goalie spenders were gone within the first two rounds.  Only Chicago (which is extremely top-heavy on goalie salary) and Pittsburgh (at $5.5M) remain among the big-spending playoff teams.  What makes the difference at the top end?  A hot rookie.  Or, in the case of Detroit, an underappreciated veteran with a bad agent.

Chicago found itself in a fortunate position this year with a fairly low player salary budget (so many rookies and sophomores) that it could invest in fairly known quantities in Huet and Khabiboulin.  That’s depth that may be required to take them through the next two rounds in the playoffs, and it is a strategy that is quite unique to the NHL — but shows that Chicago is the first team to truly embrace the cap and turn a limitation into a key advantage.

So for the playoffs this year, there’s a really interesting opportunity to see which strategy prevails.  What does this mean for the Canucks?  As the very sage Ben Nevile, one of my commenters pointed out the other day, Schneider could be the difference — but for now, he’s very much a wildcard.

The Canucks could indeed trade Luongo if Schneider were to make a Cam Ward-ian appearance at the beginning of next season, and this could provide the team with an immense advantage overall … but until then?  Gillis is hamstrung, unless he can throw together a deal to move Luongo and get a veteran lower-priced goalie in return as a part of the package, which is quite possible.  But few teams have the cap room, and you’d hope to move him to the East Coast so as to prevent having to deal with him on a routine basis all season long (I doubt very much he’s interested in moving to Edmonton anyway).

The major lesson of the above analysis, therefore, is that a goalie on his own might get you through a season — but not the playoffs.  That takes a broader depth chart, thanks to video preperation, off-ice scoring strategy, and the isolation of a goalie’s weaknesses that emerges from playing him 6 or 7 nights in a two-week period.  Had Luongo not been injured and had such a slow recovery when he did return, I’m sure he could have propped the Canucks up to a league-leading points total … but with modern-day goalie-busting techniques, such as he and Varlamov felt in their respective final games, teams can no longer (if they ever could) ride the goalie through the playoffs.

The Canucks in particular are at a dangerous precipice between the pipes… but from threat comes opportunity.  Do the Canucks trade their best player to address both?

Let’s face facts, sports fans… the Canucks were not, this year or any other year, a team slated to go deep in the playoffs by anyone.  While fans railed against what they saw as biased coverage of the last remaining Canadian team’s play by a bunch of CBC haters, they were simultaneously in denial of the fact that, when contrasted with the contest presently underway between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins, this team was not a Stanley Cup contender even if they had beaten the boys from CHI-town.  Many of the team’s biggest paycheques were going to guys who were constantly hurt and/or underperforming, but that’s just an excuse — the Canucks still do not, and are not soon likely to, have the depth to go far in the playoffs.  As armchair GM I feel it is my responsibility to try to reconcile this for next season … but it’ll be a tall order just keeping the core of the team together this summer.

Below is a chart on several key players, some relevant data, and what I think I might try to do:

	Roberto Luongo Age: 30 Salary:  $6.75mm Expires:  2010 W-L:33-13-7 GAA: 2.34
It becomes quite difficult to solidify a reputation as the best goalie in the league when you continually play for dog teams that can’t perform in the playoffs.  This team (and every team you’ve played for) leans far too heavily on your unique talent but east of Cambie street you get very little respect in this league.Giving you the captaincy (even without the C sewn on) was a bullshit PR move and could only have served to cause you to lose focus and get off the bead of what it is that you do so well.  Get back to being “just” the greatest goalie ever, stick with us through some changes, and for emotional balance leverage the two guys you have in your own back yard that have lots of mental toughness and carried weak teams through the playoffs:  Richard Brodeur and Kirk McLean.  The armchair GM would be happy to hire them as consultants to focus on the mental aspects of your play.
	Mattias Ohlund Age: 32 Salary:  $3.5mm Expires:  2009 25 points
I think we’re going to lose you to an East Coast team in bidding this summer. Vancouver fans don’t respect your contribution enough.  I think you’ve had a tough couple of years trying to fit into the Vigneault system, which has required you to take too many penalties and lose focus from your offensive play.I don’t want to lose your grit, but the budget’s tight.  I’d like to sign you to a multi-year contract at your present salary, but I doubt you’d go for that considering who’s been calling.  So I would hope to keep you here with a two-year at $2.5mm — and it’ll be hard to find room under the cap for that.  You’re a franchise player.  Stay here 3-4 more years and we’ll retire your jersey, give you a shot at a cup with some rebuilding, and you can play in front of the home crowd for Sweden in 2010.
	Sami Salo Age: 35 Salary:  $3.5mm Expires:  2011 25 points
What, are you made of porcelain?  We need you to play a whole season.  Please ensconse yourself in bubble wrap and suspend yourself with bungee rope in a lcoked room between games.  We’d like the keys to your Porsche — we’ll be sending a driver in an armoured, padded vehicle with a 7-point safety harness to pick you up for games from now on.If you can put together a full season you’re awesome — but we can’t keep backfilling you.  Fans love you.  I like saying your name with a Squire Barnes lisp.  What the hell: you can’t go anywhere, we’re not trading you… get out of my office and back to the gym (though please pick up some tensor braces and make sure you stretch thoroughly in order to prevent injury or strain).  Please do not buy a Segway or any two-wheeled vehicle.
	Taylor Pyatt Age: 27 Salary:  $1.575mm Expires:  2009 19 points
You are six-feet four, and you weigh 235 lbs.  In today’s NHL that is neither lean enough to be fast, nor thick enough to be tough.  You’re a UFA this summer.  I don’t understand why Vigneault continues to throw you on the ice in critical situations — end of the game, power plays, penalty kills, etc.  You are almost always behind the play.You were a healthy scratch several times in the past two years.  You are being given chances to showcase your skills (probably because we were hoping to trade your ass) but you’ve really let us down.  19 points in 69 games, especially given the guys you’ve played with, means you haven’t been a factor at all.You have NO grit, speed, nor puck-handling dexterity.Happy to let you go — but if you want to stay here 1) figure out what kind of player you are, 2) hire a personal trainer and develop this summer, and 3) we’ll pay you $1M on a one-year contract.  Sorry about your tragic loss, but this is a business.
	Mason Raymond Age: 23 Salary:  $833.33K Expires:  2010 (RFA) 23 points
In your case, I don’t think the stats have told the story.  You’re a hungry, fiery player with grit and I feel that AV has completely underutilized you.  For a 6′0 guy to be the team’s fastest skater is impressive.  You’ve gotten your feet wet in the league, you played your way onto this roster, and you’ve tasted the playoffs.  Now you need to play your way up to the second line.  I think you could be huge as a forechecker and your hands are awesome.This is your sophomore NHL summer.  You’re only 165 lbs. soaking wet.  Would like to see you bulk up without losing speed, just to prevent you from getting knocked around too much.  Work on the upper body, not just the legs, and eat a sandwich once in a while.  You’re great kid, now get out of my office so I can deal with the next guy.
	Willie Mitchell Age: 32 Salary:  $3.2mm Expires:  2010 23 points
Hockey loves the hometown boys.  Port McNeill is pretty close to Vancouver.  Check.OK somebody liked you last summer and gave you a pretty rockin’ deal despite a weak season.  This year you did a lot better, so she time is right to keep that momentum and own the zone.  At times this year I watched you and you seemed to have your head in the clouds, crossing over inexplicably and floating the puck when a slap-pass was required.  Your turnover stats look pretty bad.  You are, though, a big part of the breakout.  If Ohlund goes this summer, you’re a huge part of the defensive corps and the younger kids will be looking to you for leadership.  At times you seem disinterested in defensive play.  Get angry in September and find your grit.Step up, and we’ll renew next summer — no probs.  Want you to finish your career here.
	Alex Burrows Age: 28 Salary:  $2mm Expires:  2010 51 points
You have played your way onto every team throughout your career.  With 52 points in 82 games you have really delivered in 2008-2009, particularly since AV has not always played you on top lines.  You’re probably the fittest player on the team, and a role model for guys making twice your salary.Your unique attribute is your work  ethic.  You need some bulk up top, because when you eventually settle into second line left-winger status you’re going to get tossed around like a bean bag.  I think you’re going to look like the bargain of the century in two years.  We’ll get you a speedy centre to get things going.
	Kyle Wellwood Age: 25 Salary:  $998K Expires:  2009 27 points
I’ve known and played with a lot of guys like you who never got the chance to play in The Show.  You’re immensely, naturally gifted as a player but as a teenager it always came so easily to you that you never really developed a work ethic.  After a few years with the Leafs you became a guy constantly on the bubble, and nowadays that is what is driving you.Wake-up call:  We signed you and put you on waivers (for no really good reason) last year after you failed the fitness test, and nobody even called.This is it.  I’ll sign you right now for $800K for a year because I know I’m the only guy who’ll take a chance.  You’re still on the bubble.  We saw flashes of brilliance this year, but you’re still falling behind.  That’s OK if you use this summer as your time to train like crazy, make me a liar, and come back to camp in lean and mean shape with some speed that can match those hands.  Keep skating all summer.
	Mats Sundin Age: 38 Salary:  $7mm Expires:  2009 28 points
You’re no Neidermeyer.  You’ve proven that you can’t sit out half the season and expect to compete in the NHL.  You came back from semi-retirement old and slow and not nearly pissed-off enough.  You hoped the Sedins and Luongo would carry you to your ring but we did not get the leadership on the ice I’d expect to see from a guy who’s been a consistent 70-80 point-getter for 10 years — and one that we paid $4 million bucks for.So yes, this is goodbye.  There’s no role on this team for you, but I think you knew that.  I always knew you were a summer rental.  See you at the retirement press conference, and enjoy the flight back to Sweden.  And when the Rangers call?  Don’t do it.  You’ll smear your glorious Leafs legacy (choke).
	Ryan Kesler Age: 24 Salary:  $1.75mm Expires:  2010 59 points
When we originally signed you, we thought you were the next Trevor Linden.  It hasn’t exactly been an easy path, and so you were often on the bubble.  This past year you really shined.  What I’d like to see you deliver is a 75-80 point season in 2009/2010 as a center.  If so, you could be our future and we’ll hit you with a contract at least as sweet as your wild-eyed three-year, $2.475-million entry level contract a few years ago.Time to step up and deliver on the promise that we saw when we passed up Mike Richards and Corey Perry for your ass.  I’d like to think you could be the captain of the team but not yet.  One more season like this year’s and we’ll talk about it when you’re up next sumer.  You play better when you’re hungry.  You ought to be a second-line centre by now.
	Kevin Bieksa Age: 27 Salary:  $3.75mm Expires:  2012 43 points
This was the best year of your career, despite a couple of injuries that had us leery.  You’ve showed real toughness at times and delivered 43 points offensively which made you the top-scoring D-man on the team.We have however noticed your defensive play suffering.  You’ve made some brutal bets on the pinch and lost, creating momentum-killing 2-on-1s and leading to some highlight reel goals for other teams.  Luongo can only do so much to cover for a defenseman who’s not even in the play.  Additionally, while we like your grit, we hate your timing.  Pitchforking that guy in Game 5 vs. Chicago with 6 minutes to go almost definitely cost us a Game 7.Clean it up and work on your D game and you’ll be worth every penny.
	The Sedins (H D) Age: 28 Salary:  $3.58mm Expires:  2009 82 points each
You each got 82 points this year — one each per game — with no injuries.  Once again, you were absent for much of the playoffs.  You need to understand that people will key in on you and work with the Right Winger we give you.  Because you are a package deal, any team that signs you to a big contract is going to mortgage their whole future to do so.  I know the Rangers will call. Anyone who can sign you both won’t be able to field a very good team beyond your line.We have invested a lot in you and consider you to be franchise players.  I would match any offer up to $4mm each and for 3-4 years, but above that I’m pretty hamstrung by trying to surround you with the league’s best goalie and a strong D.  But ANYONE who signs you at your presumed asking price, given that there are two of you, will be challenged to surround you with a talented team.
	Alain Vigneault2007 Jack Adams award winner 2007/08: 39-33-10 2008/09: 45-27-10
Some coaches are able to work their magic in the locker room, some do it by running perfect practices, and others do it behind the bench.  In the regular season great practices, and solid locker room and off-ice leadership keep teams healthy, prepared, and in-the-game.  In the playoffs, though, coaches do their work behind the bench.As this was your first career NHL playoff run as a coach, I guess we can’t be too harsh with you for losing.  I have to be honest — watching what happened in Chicago, where the Hawks clearly changed the entire complexion of the play without any adjustment or response from the Canucks — I wanted to fire you.  But then, reflecting on the stats of the regular season, I think we just need to develop you and get you some help.Speaking of which…
	Trevor Linden Requires no introduction.
Hey Trev, ’sup?  Feeling refreshed after a year off, freed from the shackles of watching Naslund flail as a Captain and watching the NHLPA eat itself alive trying to maneouvre with that weasel Gary Bettman?We miss you.  Fans still show up to games wearing #16 jerseys.  You cast a long shadow, my friend, and rumour from some former Canucks players has it that even thought you didn’t wear the “C” these last few years in Vancouver, you were.  Suffice to say:  You cast a long shadow.Within the next 16 months, Ryan Walter or Rick Bowness will be moving on.  I’d say you’re a shoo-in for Assistant Coach.  The salary sucks, but face it — you bleed blue and green.
	Cody Hodgson Age: 19 Salary:  $875K Expires:  2011
I think we made the smart decision growing you slowly this year, sending you to the Battallion, letting you play on Team Canada in the Canada-Russia series, and now pulling you up to the Moose.  Your play has been exceptional — now you know what it’s like to spread your wings and rock the ice and be a dominant force.Next season please arrive at camp prepared to play in the NHL.  Speed and dexterity are your biggest assets, and you’re big enough not to get tossed around.  Toughness and grit will have to come over time.  You’d make a great roommate for Burrows — only you’re a little more talented than Burrows — because he’ll keep you focused on your fitness and work ethic.  Don’t let this go to your head, we’ll give you a lot of PP ice time next year, probably playing on the Right Wing.
	Marian Gaborik MINNESSOTA Age: 34 Salary:  $3.2mm Expires:  2009
Wanted:  RIGHT WINGER who can hold his own with the Sedins, stand in front of the net when he has to, and wire shots top-corner while hapless defensemen chase the Swedes around in the corners.  Hey Marian, know anybody?Oh that’s right… your pal Pavol is on the Canucks, hit 53 points, and will be here til summer 2010.  Unless of course we can’t attract you as a free agent this summer, in which case we’re going to trade his ass (he nets a $4 million salary).  Since your injury makes you a bit of a risk, I’ll throw $3.5mm on a one-year contract to you but would discuss anything up to $4.0mm on a two-year deal.  If the latter, then you’ll be riding to games in the bubble van with Sami Salo.We’ll try you with the Sisters, and if that doesn’t work out I’m sure you’ll enjoy spinning around the ice with Demitra.  And hey, Willie’s here too… you remember him?
	Ossi Vaananen Age: 28 Salary:  $1mm Expires:  2009
I checked my magic 8-Ball: “future hazy”.  Will re-sign for 2 years at $875K.  Otherwise, seeya.  Thanks.  See you in September.  PS – there are too many vowels in your name.
	Alexander Radulov Age: 22 Salary: $919K Expires: 2009
Ok now, if ever there is a Russian player destined for first-line greatness in the NHL, it is 22-year-old Alexander Radulov.  He is, though, the centre of a huge controversy between the NHL and the Russian Kontinental Hockey League.  Last year, though he was signed to a pithy $1mm contract with the Predators, he ended up inking a three year deal worth $13mm with the KHL’s Salavat Yulaev Ufa.  This contract was signed days before a treaty agreement was reached between the NHL and KHL regarding transfer of players. The Russians view this as payback for the yanking of Ovechkin and Malkin, among a host of others, into the NHL from domestic clubs. What’s happened to the Preds now is essentially what might have happened to the Canucks had they not been able to lure Bure overseas after picking him so many years ago.  This summer, the stage is set for a Battle Royale between the NHL and the KHL’s Alexander Medvedev — the outcome of which might mean Radulov’s return to the National Hockey League as an unrestricted free agent.  This will be THE story of the summer.
	Maxim Afinogenov Age: 29 Salary: $3.5mm Expires: 2009
Building on the Russian Right-Winger theme:  Hey Max!  How would you like to play with the twins?  I know things have been sucking in Buffalo lately.  You need a change of pace!  Your scoring is off, but I think you’ve got potential.I’d throw you a three-year, $3.0mm bone to head over to Vancouver where the ladies will love ya, the Sedins will pass to you, and you can head back up the roster to the first line and net around 75+ points.  Sound good?  Sign here.

Going back over this post, I have committed the Canucks to around $50mm, give or take $2mm.  For instance I’d obviously be happy to say goodbye to Pyatt were Afinogenov to be lured to the team.  But with a cap of $56.7mm next season for team salaries, that leaves very little room and I have filled 15 of 23 roster spots.

According to HockeyBuzz O’Brien, Bernier, Rypien, and Hansen are also key free agents this year.  They will be demanding salary bumps and presently the four of them account for about $4.5mm all in.  Add to that Edler’s $3.25mm salary, Demitra’s $4mm, and various odds & ends, and that’s another $9mm unaccounted for in my planning.

The reality is that the Canucks are not going to be able to strengthen the roster substantially from within the Free Agency market.  The youth movement, as Chicago has evidenced, where underpaid young players overperform, is where teams get a solid strategic advantage these days. This places heavy emphasis on Hodgson to crack the lineup and be a dominant player in 2009-2010, as the Canucks don’t have much else under development.

That said, a couple of things happened this past year:  1)  Salaries inflated across the board, but teams are seeing revenue decline, and 2) The economy collapsed, and the NHL started talking about lowering the cap in the next few years.  This will see teams being far more conservative in their offers to Free Agents, which will be enhanced by the frankly startling diversity of talent that is set to hit the market in June.

So:  Will Ohlund take a pay cut to stay with the only NHL team he has ever known?  Will Bernier (and other teams) recognize that he’s not worth $2.5mm yet?  Will Hank and Daniel bankrupt the team that has developed them into Top 20 players by making a big cash grab, or would they like a shot at the cup?  If they reach for a $6mm salary each, as some suspect, the twins and Luongo alone could account for more than one third of the team’s salary cap at nearly $20mm.

Mike Gillis has a real problem.  If few or none of these situations plays in his favour, then I suspect it’ll be 5 or more years before they have a team in contention… and they’ll have to do something the Canucks are rarely successful at doing:  developing a group of players from the draft into top-line players right away.  It could be a very long winter indeed, even by Vancouver fans’ standards.

… all of which underpins the fact that, strong or not, this was probably Vancouver’s best chance at a Stanley Cup for the past 15 years, and at least the next 5.