Brian Burke To Land In Toronto

Since Brian Burke’s reign as the leader of the Anaheim Ducks has come to a close, there has been no shortage of speculation as to where he will end up.

Each story and rumor has its own merits based around Burke’s desire to be closer to family, back in Canada, or whatever the case may be.  One thing is for certain and that is the Toronto Maple Leafs need Burke and had better get their act together and get him signed.

Why Toronto?

There are several reasons why it makes sense for Toronto to obtain Brian Burke’s services, not the least of which is his ability (and affinity) to handle the media spotlight.  And, make no mistake, when it comes to the NHL the media spotlight shines brightest in Toronto!

The Maple Leafs have positioned themselves thus far in the 2008-2009 season as a possible playoff contender, which should bode well for acquiring the Burke’s services.  With a host of young talent, Burke has a similar opportunity as was presented to him when he arrived in Anaheim.  This opportunity to build upon a solid foundation of youth and talent fits well with his innate ability to add just the right amount of experience, leadership and grit through free agency.

Is Money and Issue?

Some reports, notably out of the Boston Globe, have indicated that Burke may be headed to either Chicago or Ottawa if the money isn’t there in Toronto. However,  if the Leafs as the most profitable franchise in the league cannot “afford” Burke during their time of desperation, then they may as well just fold up shop.

Mike Milbury recently reported on CBC that he believes the table is set for Toronto and they simply need to find the time to get an offer sheet out to Burke.  Milbury concluded that he expects a deal for Burke to go to Toronto by the end of this week.

While Brian Burke as the General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs makes a lot of sense on many levels, anything can happen in the National Hockey League.

If history is any indicator, a media outlet trying to anticipate what Brian Burke may do or say is a risk to say the least.  That said, Burke should be good for a few great sound bites at his first press conference wherever he may land!

NHL Actually Tries To Promote The Game

Shane Giroux of the Colorado Avalanche blog reports:

By gum, I think the NHL has started to realize that increasing the reach of your product and getting people engaged in it is the best way to attract and retain fans. The concept had completely escaped them for quite some time and it appears they could - and I stress “could” - be coming around.

NHL Expands Television Reach to Asia

In surprise news - at least to me - the NHL is set to announce a multi-year deal to distribute NHL games throughout a large portion of Asia, including India and China.

In one fell swoop the NHL has expanded the television reach of their product from 5% to 40% of the world. Those numbers are based on my rudimentary knowledge of world population, not data I got from an official source so don’t quote me on it.

No matter how you slice it, a 700% increase in your viewership reach is cause to celebrate. If just 0.1% of those new potential viewers are fans, that’s 2.5 million more eyes watching the true “beautiful game”.

Centre Ice Online Expands to Europe

It was just a couple weeks back that I was reflecting on my “Why doesn’t the NHL Want People to Watch Hockey?” post. A post which still gets traffic from people searching for solutions to their troubles with Centre Ice Online.

The reason being that I had started a post in a similar vein which was focused on why the NHL will send players halfway across the globe to kick off the season in Europe, yet won’t alloww access to their Centre Ice Online offering to people outside of North America.

However, it turns out that Europeans are now able to subscribe to the service. I’m not sure why the question includes the Middle East but makes no mention of whether folks in the Middle East can subscribe or not. Maybe they think Europe is the Middle East??

NHL Offline

I’ve also both applauded and bemoaned the NHL’s online content offerings. The technology was very rudimentary and the look was very pre-2000 era. They didn’t even roll out a real-time game tracker system until mid-last season!

Their YouTube highlights deal is laughable and the speed and completeness of the updates to their NHL.tv section has been spotty and suspect.

The stats pages are well-done - except for the absence of shirt charts - but having them auto-refresh during the game doesn’t count as “live updating” in my book.

Overall, I would give them a C- on what they’ve offered to fans.

TSN Fills the Gap

TSN got on the ball and rolled out a live scoreboard feature* towards the end of last season. It was…ok.

But should networks be relied on to the fill the gap for the league? Not in my mind.

Stats, Stories and Recaps…Oh My!

And it appears some folks over at the NHL head offices have decided that they’ve had enough as well.

Not only are they set to launch a new version of NHL.com, but they will be rolling out the much anticipated NHL Game Center feature.

The feature rebrands NHL Centre Ice Online as Game Center Live and will also provides free real-time stats, a play-by-play game tracker known as “Ice Tracker”. It will also include in-game highlights, live chat and radio broadcasts.

On the surface, it doesn’t sound too different from the existing Scores section of their website. However if you watch the video on what will be provided, you can see the stats are more consumer-friendly and the ice tracker looks like an invaluable tool. Hopefully they will still provide access to the near-raw log files that stats junkies desire.

And if “in-game highlights” means highlights uploaded as the game is going on, well let’s just say the my inner hockey nerd and the little tech geek inside me will be holding hands and dancing for joy.

Yahoo! for fantasy hockey?

At the same time, the NHL has also announced that they are partnering with Yahoo! to provide “the #1 fantasy games experience on the Internet”.

Last year, our fantasy football league was done using CBS Sportsline but this year, we switched the Yahoo! which allows for more teams. I preferred the Sportsline offering.

However, if the description of what the NHL/Yahoo! partnership will provide is accurate, they just might come through on the claim that it will be #1 for fantasy sports.

The main benefit of this partnership is integrated video footage straight from the NHL which will be tied to each player. So you can track your players progress through the season and research for your next blockbuster trade using stats and video without needing to leave the site.

That is genius and, if properly implemented, will single-handedly bump it above any fantasy hockey offering I know of.

News.com picks up the story

The NHL has done enough with their new offering to get what I would almost call “mainstream” coverage from Cnet’s news.com. I’m sure that caused a lot of back patting and cork popping in the NHL’s marketing division.

The article contains one details that I didn’t spot anywhere else. The Game Center Live feature will utilize Flash for the streaming video, doing away with Windows Media Player. A very savvy - if not obvious - move on their part.

The news.com article also contained some choice quotes from the NHL’s senior VP of marketing, Perry Cooper. To summarize he informs us that NHL fans are tech savvy, are not “non-affluent”, and don’t necessarily cheer for the nearest team.

That’s a lightbulb that needed to go off some time ago in the marketing department.

If this all gets pulled off properly they could launch themselves all the way to an A- report card.

“Illegal” Streams

There are of course other ways to catch games online, though not with any sort of service guarantee. One of the best ways to check out many live sporting events is via myp2p.eu.

If Yahoo! still streams games this year but requires you to be in the States, you can always get around that by using a free proxy server based in the States. Huge lists of proxies are easy to come by on the ol’ Interweb.

Also, as noted by Jibble this morning, Justin.tv often has NHL game feeds.

Ducks and Sharks Play Vegas

The Ducks will “test the Las Vegas hockey waters” and play a Rookie Game versus the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday, Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The NHL marketing machine appears to be playing into the hand of the much rumored future expansion to the Las Vegas market.  If the league wants to be front and center among a variety of potential new fans, then Las Vegas is the next place to be.

Let’s see - Imagine the biggest Casinos on the strip shelling out complimentary tickets to a Celine Dion concert followed up the next evening by an NHL game.  I’m no high-roller, but that sounds about right to me (minus the Celine Dion ticket).

In my opinion, the league should not look at the Las Vegas market in terms of expansion but rather relocation.  It is quite apparent that some of the current markets cannot support a National Hockey League team and that there is demand and support (at least financially) in other markets such as Hamilton and Las Vegas.

A look at the Rookies

Featured players on Anaheim’s rookie roster include seven of 10 selections from the 2008 NHL Entry Draft, including centers Nicolas Deschamps (second round, 35th overall) and Eric O’Dell (second round, 39th overall), defenseman Justin Schultz (second round, 43rd overall), left wing Josh Brittain (third round, 71st overall), goaltender Marco Cousineau (third round, 83rd overall), center Brandon McMillan (third round, 85th overall), and defenseman Stefan Warg (fifth round, 143rd overall).

The Ducks roster also features 2007 first-round selection Logan MacMillan (19th overall) along with fellow 2007 draft class members Eric Tangradi (second round, 42nd overall) and Maxime Macenauer (third round, 63rd overall).

Tired of All The Crosby Hype

Time for another “Bubba rant”.

Am I the only person alive who feels this way, or are other hockey fans getting sick and tired of the never-ending love-fest for Sidney Crosby? “Sid the Kid” this and “Crosby” that, it’s practically all you get to read about.

The hype started way back before the youngster was even drafted. It continued into his rookie year, (even though he didn’t earn rookie of the year honors), and now the over-kill has reached a crescendo of epic proportions.

This blogger has finally reached his breaking point.

Reading articles day after day which state things like “Crosby has his team in the Finals” makes me wonder if the rest of his team-mates feel slighted. The last time I checked, hockey was a team game. Did the other Penguins have nothing to do with getting the team into the Finals, or are they not worthy of mentioning in the same way?

The problem is, it doesn’t stop there.

There have been numerous articles written about how Crosby is the “Face of the NHL”, or is the “Future of the NHL”. Excuse me, but in my mind “the kid” might not even be the best player on his team, let alone the entire NHL.

Let’s put the hype aside for a moment and take a look at some facts.

During the regular season, Evgeni Malkin led the team in scoring with 47 goals and 106 points in 82 games. Crosby scored 24 goals and had 72 points in 53 games.

While Crosby had a bad ankle and missed several games because of the injury, Malkin still averaged more goals per games played (.57) than did Crosby (.45). Malkin’s shooting percentage was 17% while Crosby’s was 14%. Both averaged about the same amount of time on the ice per game, (21 minutes).

While Crosby was injured, Malkin stepped up and arguably was more of a force than Crosby had ever been. The team responded and played their best hockey of the year, (before the playoffs) during the superstar’s injury. Was the team trying to send a message to the rest of the NHL? Maybe, just maybe, they are not a one-man hockey team?

The battle for the Conn Smythe should be interesting. Will Crosby win it by default? He has a slim lead in the playoffs scoring race with 21 points while Malkin and Marian Hossa have 19 each.

Although, the surprise of the playoffs for me so far has been the outstanding play of Marc-Andre Fleury. He certainly has to be in the running.

Detroit has a few players who will be making a case for themselves as well. Henrik Zetterberg has 21 points while Pavel Datsyuk has 19. Nicklas Lidstrom is always a force on defense and Chris Osgood has been a rock between the pipes.

Any of them are as equally deserving as Crosby, at least so far.

I have a feeling that the Red Wings will be out to show the world that it might just be a bit too early to dub “the kid”, as the “Face of the NHL”.

More Stanley Cup News

It seems that the NHL had another brain-dead moment when they scheduled this series. The first three games between the Pens and Wings are on the same exact nights as the NBA Eastern Conference playoffs. That means that the Detroit Red Wings will be playing on the same nights as the Detroit Pistons play.

For instance, the Pistons will be playing at home tonight, the exact same time that the Red Wings are playing at home. The NBA set their times up first, so it’s hard to believe that the NHL couldn’t have been a bit more creative with their scheduling. Maybe they are required to do Versus’ bidding, regardless of other factors?

Would it be surprising to see a few empty seats at the Joe tonight as corporate executives who have over-lapping tickets make the tough choice of watching the Pistons game instead of the Wings? Not only that, but the NHL will be butting heads with the television coverage as well. If you are a Pistons fan in addition to being a Wings fan, which game will you watch?

Fans Vs. Versus

If you are just an “average joe” sports fan surfing the channels for something to watch tonight, are you more apt to watch the basketball playoffs on ABC TV, or watch hockey on Versus? Don’t think too hard before answering that question. Most of the “average joe’s” won’t even be able to find the hockey game.

While Versus is liable to do very well, (for them), as far as ratings go for this game, the overall ratings could be much better if things were handled properly and with better planning.

Right now the NHL has a huge opportunity to bring new fans into the sport because of this premier match-up between two of the most skilled, exciting teams in the league, yet it seems as if the people at the top of the league think small. As long as they continue to think small, the league will always remain a 2nd tier sport to most people who follow sports.

By the way just in case you haven’t heard, Sidney Crosby is the youngest Captain to ever play in a Stanley Cup Finals. I thought you might like to know that little tidbit before I sign off and go mow my yard.

Gary Bettman’s Fortune Revealed

I find it rather interesting that on the week of a Stanley Cup final series that promises to be an instant classic, this image of Gary Bettman finishing his meal at a New York area Chinese restaurant has surfaced.
Do you think Mr. Bettman’s fortune will come true? Or, has it already?

In related Bettman news, I will point you to review Mr. Bettman’s logical reasoning skills as identified by Mr. Golbez at Hockey Rants in 2005.

*Note the satire.

Is Patrick Roy A Coaching Candidate For Colorado?

Shane Giroux presents his thoughts:

The speculation began even before Quenneville was let go. With Patrick Roy having begun a coaching career, everyone wondered if Roy would ever coach the Colorado Avalanche.

Now that Quenneville is gone, the speculationstartsin earnest as the two most common names being bandied about are renowned 3-time Jack Adams award winning and Stanley Cup winning coach Pat Burns along with one of the most famous - or infamous - goaltenders of all time, Patrick Roy.

Intensity or Illness?

But not only did St. Patrick grow infamous as a goaltender with a penchant for the dramatic and the ability to get in players heads, he has grown infamous behind the bench of the Quebec Remparts.

In his first year coaching the Remparts, Roy led the team to a Memorial Cup championship. It was only the 7th time that a rookie coach has won the Memorial Cup. I was in Quebec the day the team paraded down the streets and you could feel a sense of aura around the team and Patrick. It’s an aura that seems to follow him around like a shadow.

However that aura quickly turned dark the following year as Roy was involved in two incidents which reminded everyone of his quick and fiery temper. Following a game against rival Chicoutimi, a group of Chicoutimi fans swarmed the Remparts bus. Roy got out and in the scuffle was alleged to have struck Chicoutimi co-owner Pierre Cardinal.

Engage The Rage!

Roy stayed on as coach, the media firestorm subsided and the Remparts marched on to the playoffs. Then during a 10-1 beat down at the hands of Chicoutimi, a brawl broke out which saw goaltender Jonathon Roy, Patrick’s son, fly down the ice and attack Chicoutimi’s goaltender, who was not even close to a willing participant. Shortly after the scuffle was broken up, Jonathon flipped off the Chicoutimi crowd.

Why does this reflect poorly on Patrick? Well, it would appear he urged his son on. Watch closely after the ref initially restrains Roy and you’ll see Patrick make a gesture to the effect of “Get the F@*& down there!” The result was a 5-game suspension for the elder Roy and 7 games for junior.

Roy May Be Too Hot To Handle!

Francois Giguere has gone on the record stating the next coach for the Avalanche must be willing to play a high-tempo, puck possession game. It will also need to be someone who will hold players accountable for mistakes and not be so easy-going.*

He has said nothing to the effect of wanting a hot-tempered coach that will need to be handled with kid gloves lest he destroy another office.

*That last part was stated on CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada last night and I couldn’t find a clip to share.

What do you think?  Should Patrick Roy be considered for coaching positions  in the National Hockey? League

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