Could the Rangers have a shaky future?
My two favorite people, Gary Bettman and James Dolan, are at it again.
Without getting into the frivolous details, of which you can read about all over the Internet, the NHL is suing the owners of the Rangers, Madison Square Garden, over a lawsuit brought about by MSG last September. As you all know, every team website looks exactly the same. They have the same layout, and the same features. The NHL runs this with little input from the individual franchises.
This upset MSG. The Rangers owners felt as if they can better market the team with their own fully functioning website without the mass “cookie cutter” appeal the current situation brings. So MSG sued the NHL last year to get the rights to their website, claiming the NHL was acting like a trust/monopoly/etc. Courts ruled in favor of the NHL, and thus rangers.nhl.com was born.
Angry at the organization for suing them last September, the NHL got as sue-happy as MSG and is suing back. Only, the implications are much greater than matching scrollbars on websites. Claiming that MSG breached the NHL’s Constitution, the NHL wants to show MSG who is boss. Unfortunately for the Rangers, there are many possible consequences for their bad behavior. “A vote of three-quarters of the members of the league can decide to issue fines, suspend or terminate membership in the league, order a sale of the club to a new owner or suspend or expel individuals involved in the team's management.”
http://www.startribune.com/sports/wild/20565284.html?page=2&c=y
Fines I can deal with. The rest of it brings infinite amounts of problems.
The odds that this gets worked out with fines only are the most probable scenario. I’m OK with this scenario. I agreed with MSG last September, because I do believe the Ranger organization can do a better job marketing itself then the NHL can. “Cookie cutter” websites take away from the differences between the teams… and the more alike we become the harder it is to see the blurred lines of 30 different franchises. However, MSG does like to flex its muscles, and it’s unfair to the other 29 teams in the league. If we’re going to have cookie cutter websites, the Rangers can’t be different. Suing the National Hockey League wasn’t the smoothest move in Ranger history.
But really, was there ever a smooth move? One Cup since 1941, just saying.
The way I see it, Bettman and Dolan have a lot in common. They like money. They like basketball and hockey because that brings them money. They like power. They could have talked this over lunch, and not only could they have resolved the website issue, they could have raised Ranger ticket prices AGAIN, which could have made them more money. But instead, Bettman got all bent out of shape and started fining the Rangers $100,000 a day that they didn’t change their website. So MSG got ticked and took them to court. Both parties were acting a bit outlandishly over close-to-nothing.
This will end in fines. However, I want to take a look a different scenario. A hypothetical possibility. Read the quote again. “A vote of three-quarters of the members of the league can decide to issue fines, suspend or terminate membership in the league, order a sale of the club to a new owner or suspend or expel individuals involved in the team's management.”
Our options are limited to fines, sale of the club, or termination of membership in the league. Awesome.
Termination of membership in the league.
An improbable option would be the sale of the New York Rangers from Cablevision/MSG/the Dolan Empire. This would be the option if this takes a turn for the worse. But who really cares? The franchise continues, the NHL is happy, and we’re good to go.
Wrong. The person/company/whomever buying the Rangers couldn’t pick them up and send them to Winnipeg or Kansas City. They need to stay in New York. Will the Rangers be able to play in Madison Square Garden if they are ripped from MSG’s hands? Doubtful. So where do the Rangers play? You can’t exactly just build an arena in the middle of New York. How soon could you build an arena, even if a black hole opened up right above Manhattan and made a clearing for your brand new arena? Where would the Rangers play in the meantime? Share home ice with their good friends Lou Lamoriello or Charles Wang?
The Rangers, the Devils and the Islanders are currently broadcasted locally on MSG and MSG plus television stations. Sure, the new Ranger owners could strike a deal with the Yankee network YES or the Mets network SNY. But since the owners of the Rangers and MSG own Cablevision, the only available cable provider for parts of New York, could life become more difficult for broadcasting not only Ranger games, but Islander and Devil games as well?
Worse news for Rangers fans yet is that some people actually think the NHL could do OK without their most profitable American market, as they could send an expansion team to New York and find an arena in Brooklyn, which could be split with the returning New Jersey York Nets, or worse, split the Prudential Center with the New Jersey Devils. http://www.thestar.com/article/446522
It won’t happen. Fines are most likely. This could even be settled out of court. But termination is a plausible threat. Termination of the franchise! New York would be angry. Hockey traditionalists would be angry. Fans would be angry. It makes me angry this was even mentioned.
Would New York accept a new hockey team? Could we learn to love them? Could I?
It won’t happen. Over a stupid website? It can’t happen.
Would 2/3’s of the Board of Governors ever agree to kicking out any franchise, never less an Original 6 team that makes more profits than very other team besides the Maple Leafs?
But since when was this about the fans, anyway? And with Gary Bettman and James Dolan, will it ever be?
Friday, June 20, 2008
Order in the Court; NHL v MSG
Friday, April 25, 2008
From the AHL desk...
Last night, the Albany River Rats ('Canes) v. Philly Phantoms (Flyers) game went into 5 overtimes. 5
Supposedly a game that started at 7 PM ended at 12:39 AM, 5 hours later when Ryan Potulny of the Phantoms (and ex-Bear Grant's little brother)scored the game winner. The Rat goalie Michael Leighton saved 98 of 101 Philly shots during the game (they think both are AHL records)while the Phantom goalie had to deal with a slightly more reasonable 67 shots (65 of which were saved.)
With this win, Philly's up 3-2 in the series. And everyone involved in the game never EVER wants to do this again. (AHL full article here)
My question is how many FANS were still in the building when the game finally ended, as the exodus from Giant Center for the first OT is always pretty significant. I can't imagine more than 1 or 2 hundred actually stuck around. I'd also LOVE to see video of the end of it, because I can't believe anyone can skate for 5 hours and not just be completely wiped by 12:30 in the morning. Wow. The next game in this series is gonna su-uuuuck for those two teams. Luckily for them, it's not until Saturday. (although watching them try to play a back-to back tonight would have been hi-LARIOUS methinks.)
Tonight, however, the Bears try to re-live the Caps' playoff claw-back, as they are currently 1-3 in the series against the Baby Penguins. Any crazy thoughts of winning you want to direct their way at, oh, 7PMish would be good.
Think about these guys:
and then we've got scoring and NOT scoring covered.
Also at THTM
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Quote of the Night
From CapsChick, who will deny she said it, but should have known better to begin with..
"And the Penguins are winning... it's fun"
(just to save a little of her street cred, she's trying for a numbers win for the Caps over the Sabres. But still.)
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Stuff I guarantee you did not know about the Calgary Flames
I'm feeling better about my hockey team these days. A week or so ago, when they started their road trip in Chicago, things did not look good. A bad road trip would pretty guarantee a finish out of a playoff spot... a decent one, and we'd stay alive.
What we've got is a GREAT road trip. Four wins in a row... some high scoring (mostly from our top line), good times, good times.
In particular, Calgary's 9-6 win over Tampa (sorry, Finny!) was a catalyst for visiting the history books of Flames seasons past. The Calgary Herald's beat writer for the Flames has a list of statistics:
- Thursday's three-ring circus in Tampa marked the first time since Feb. 10, 1993 the Flames had two players fire hat tricks in the same contest.
- Dion Phaneuf became the first Flame to get five assists in a game since the great Al MacInnis on March 20, 1994 (at Toronto).
- Only three other NHL blue-liners have had five-assist games in the past nine seasons
- The Flames haven't scored nine in a game since they scored 10 against Tampa, of all teams, on Jan. 2, 1996.Fifteen total goals was the most since
Feb. 21, 1997Feb 21 1992, when the Flames outgunned the Kings 9-7. (He said 1997, but I was actually at the game for my birthday, and I know it happened much much earlier than 1997. Sad!)
Thursday, September 27, 2007
A moment of serious......
From http://canadianpress.google.com/:
ASIAGO, Italy - Darcy Robinson, a Canadian playing for Asiago of the Italian hockey league, died during Thursday's season-opening game. He was 26.
The native of Kamloops, B.C., fell to the ice without being hit during the first period of a game with Renon and was rushed to a local hospital where he died, Asiago said. No cause of death was given. The game was suspended.
Robinson was beginning his second season with Asiago. The defenceman, who held dual Canadian-Italian citizenship, played junior hockey in Saskatoon and Red Deer. He was selected 233rd overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1999 draft.
Prior to playing in Italy, Robinson played for the AHL's Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the ECHL's Wheeling Nailers.
He had six goals and three assists with 66 penalty minutes for Asiago last season.
He might not have been the best hockey player in the world, but he was a good guy. I'm sure that he'll be missed by the people that knew him. Hell, I miss him and I only knew him from the Chasing the Dream vids.
RIP, Darcy Robinson. We remember you.
(edit: more info coming in on google news at this point... still no cause of death, but some of his former teammates saying some awfully sweet things.)
(also at talk hockey to me) Read More......
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Checking references
By now, the worst kept secret in the NHL seems to be that Calgary is thinking pretty hard about hiring Mike Keenan as their head coach. While he's one of the first coaches in the NHL I remember having a hate for, these days, I only have a mild dislike for the guy (my full take on this is on our blog), and obviously, I've never actually had to cope with his coaching before. And it can't be worse than "Nervous" Jimmy Playfair in charge of the boys for yet another year...
So who has a horrific Keenan story? Why should I be afraid? Or...should I be very very happy?
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Hey Ladies!!!!
Alright girls I am SOO excited. A week from today I am going to be shadowing Aaron Portzline (the Columbus Blue Jackets writer for the Columbus Dispatch) and I need your help. I gotta come up with some questions...so please let me know what I should ask...who I should chat with or what. You can leave me comments here...or you can e-mail me at BethanyM85(at)gmail(dot)com or whatever...but please please give me some pointers!!! The questions are for the players...so help...please
Read More......
