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Kings’ Season Heads to the Deep South

After being embarrassed by one of the worst teams in the league (and their former coach Andy Murray) in St. Louis, the Kings followed it up by laying a goose egg in Nashville. The 7-0 defeat tonight was nothing short of embarrassing and the frustration of the team is beginning to show. It culminated in the Kings’ so-called number one goalie, Dan Cloutier, giving up 6 goals in just over 2 periods, spearing another player, starting a fight and getting ejected (video here).

It was bound to happen at as Cloutier is known to have quite a temper. Fighting is part of hockey and is a integral part of the game, but there is a line drawn when you attempt an act like spearing that serves nothing but to intentionally injure a player. Cloutier need to do something, like stop a puck for instance, but spearing was not it.

It would take a lot of digging and a few beers to find anything positives out of this game other than a high draft pick. The highlight of the game was normally soft-spoken team captain Mattias Norstrom standing up for the younger players on the team who had been subject to repeated runs throughout the game, if anything it’s a teaching tools for the young players of when to take your lumps and when its time to drop gloves and do something about it. As for this seasons its time to pray for a miracle, scout the next year’s draft and hope the young talent that the Kings have in the system develop quickly.

 

An All-Star Fiasco

I still love my hockey, even as I sit here and watch the NHL shoot itself repeatedly in the foot and wonder why they continue to decline as a sport in the US. Its only a matter of time until NASCAR, Arena Football, Competitive Gardening, Golf, Bowling and the WBNA all pass the NHL in popularity. It has already begun here in Los Angeles, where the Anaheim Mighty Ducks are broadcast on some station I’ve never heard of and the Kings were dropped from ESPN Radio 710 in favor of the Clippers, USC Football and USC Basketball. It seems like the only thing less popular than the Kings is the Air America programming they now preempt.

Then comes this year and the NHL All-Star Game, which for some reason the scheduled in January, when everyone is focused on the NFL Playoffs, beyond that as to not lose viewers they make the game on a Wednesday night just to ensure that either West Coast fans will miss the beginning of the game and East Coast fans will miss the end. Why no just wait until February, you know the dead month in sports between the Super Bowl and March Madness, and play the game on a Saturday night when more people are home.

Then comes the big news for the NHL the new uniform design, with the official unveiling coming at the All-Star Game no will be watching. As part of the roll out for next season they designers have been going from team to team for the players to try them out so they can work out the bugs. Unfortunately for the NHL, the reaction from teams like the San Jose Sharks early in the tryout rotation isn’t good:

At the end of the day, players were asked to leave their jerseys hanging in the stalls.
“I’ll hang it right in the garbage,” Smith said.”

One has to question the logic of the NHL rushing into this even more if the majority of players and fans prefer the current jersey style. My preference is for the current style of NHL Jerseys, they make the sport different and that isn’t always bad.

This season also marked the first year of the NHL’s big push for online voting for player selections to the All-Star Game. What it has gotten the NHL was a bunch of internet nerds leading a campaign to get a no-name journeyman in the starting line up and well, its working:

Rory Fitzpatrick is a journeyman National Hockey League defenceman currently playing for the Vancouver Canucks, who hasn’t picked up one point in 20 games this season. He has nine goals and 18 assists over parts of nine NHL seasons, and has never played more than 60 games in a single NHL season.

Despite the less than gaudy statistics, Mr. Fitzpatrick sits second in voting among defencemen in the NHL’s Western Conference for next month’s all-star game in Dallas.

For that, Mr. Fitzpatrick can thank both the NHL’s new voting system for the all-star game — which encourages hockey fans to vote as often as they like — and a Buffalo computer nerd who has persuaded Internet geeks to “Vote For Rory.”

 

Dungy for NFL Commish?

Len Pasquerelli believes a dark horse candidate will emerge as Paul Tagliabue’s successor and thinks Colts coach Tony Dungy might fit the bill.

By now, most fans have read the names of NFL vice president Roger Goodell, team presidents Rich McKay of Atlanta and Dick Cass of Baltimore, and league counsel Jeff Pash as current league officials who might be elevated into the commissioner job. All are worthy candidates, but the suspicions of many owners is that Tagliabue’s successor won’t come from that list, and by the end of the process, it will actually be a relative football unknown.

Here are some names, none of which have been on the radar screen yet, that have been suggested by some owners as potential commissioner candidates:

• Bill Bradley: The former United States senator, and onetime candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bradley certainly knows a lot of about the marriage of sports and politics. A member of the basketball Hall of Fame, and Princeton-educated, Bradley possesses the best of a lot of worlds. But his age (62) and the fact most owners vote Republican probably work against him.

• Chase Carey: File this name away, because he could be near the top of any “outsiders” list. Carey is the president and CEO of DirecTV. Prior to that he was chairman and CEO of the Fox Television Group. In his 50s, he still plays rugby and has a very active lifestyle. With the league fixated on creating new revenue streams through the Internet and digital media outlets, he would be a guy with some expertise in an area that some visionaries see as the NFL’s next great frontier.

• Tony Dungy: OK, so the Indianapolis Colts’ coach is hardly an outsider. And he still wants to coach a while longer and, hopefully, to capture the Super Bowl title that has so far eluded him. But by his own admission, Dungy doesn’t plan to be a lifer in his current job. Few men in the league, at any position, are so universally respected. A long shot, no doubt, but a guy not to be summarily dismissed.

• Arlen Kantarian: Everyone praises his work as the chief executive of professional tennis for the United States Tennis Association. Notable is that he once worked for the league, as the vice present of marketing for NFL Properties. The landscape has changed a lot since he left the NFL, but he remains well-regarded and has a few advocates in the league.

• Tim Leiweke: The president of the Anschutz Entertainment Group, whose holdings include the Staples Center, hockey’s Los Angeles Kings and soccer’s Los Angeles Galaxy.

An interesting list. Dungy, especially, would be a bold pick. He lacks a law degree and the sort of business experience one might expect in a CEO of a multi-billion dollar business but the man undeniably knows football, is highly intelligent, and has a strong work ethic.

Update: Rick Gosselin thinks the NFL needs to think global.

But the NFL’s next step is beyond its popularity in the United States. It’s a global step – and the new commissioner must take football there.

“The challenges going forward,” said Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeff Lurie, “are how to grow the sport in the world of globalization and digitalization – how to maintain the integrity and the popularity of the sport but grow it in a new media world, in a new global world.”

Which is where the ability to speak several languages comes into play.

“In the sports world, as in the business world, you see China, India, Latin America, Eastern Europe …” Lurie said. “Those are the real growth areas. We happen to have an extremely fan-friendly product, but we have not made a lot of inroads in the global marketplace. “That’s a big, big challenge going forward for the National Football League. We need someone to help grow the brand.”

That line of thinking would open up the possibility of a Condi Rice bid. While she has said she’s not interested for now, the NFL can offer her one hell of a pay raise.

 
 


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