Well, it's been decided...this ol' blog will be halted for the good of the new enterprise, savenhl.com.
We'll have a blog over there, but since we've begun with six writers, I might write an entry once a week along with my bi-weekly columns, so it doesn't make much sense to continue here even if I'd link this to the site and blog on my own. Don't want to overdo anything, which makes my regular tasks at work and for this new web site that much more difficult. At the least, some stuff I do over there will make it over here, but since I'd want any prospective employers to look at the web site, I'll concentrate on that.
Funny, I've started two blogs since this all became popular, and neither lasted a full year. So it goes. At least with this one, my goal has been reached, and I'm moving up to something which will have a lot more steam behind it and is destined to have all our names recognized much sooner and by more people across the blogosphere and beyond.
It's been a good run, despite last year being a horrendous season for the Flyers. Makes me wish I would have thought of this back at the start of the 2005 season, but I realize you just can't do everything that crosses into mind on impulse. I'll be working with five like-minded individuals, and if all goes well, we'll have creative fires stoked by each other's input.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
Get on with it, already
Neither Teemu Selanne nor Peter Forsberg have decided where they'll wind up for this coming NHL season, and it's three weeks until training camps open up.
Unlike North American players, Europeans have that one golden option staring them down if millions of dollars and national recognition doesn't cut it. You know, the one they have no problem shoving in the face of their coaches and general managers during contract negotiations - the option of playing either in their homeland or somewhere else in Europe. It's always presented like being delivered from servitude because overseas years last 40 games plus no more than 12 in the playoffs, instead of the unending grind of 10 preseason, 82 regular-season, and 20+playoff contests in the NHL.
So, I'm personally not holding my breath or engaging in water-cooler talk either at work or with friends over their indecision. Whether or not either one signs anywhere won't be a big enough impact to change a team's fortune.
If Forsberg doesn't know by now if his ankle/skate boot issues could be resolved, he's not going to know by September 10 or October 3. If Selanne can't make up his mind whether or not he wants to stick it out one more year despite hitting the 500-goal mark and winning a Stanley Cup, it's his own fault and he shouldn't be keeping Anaheim or any of the other 29 teams interested in limbo.
Unlike North American players, Europeans have that one golden option staring them down if millions of dollars and national recognition doesn't cut it. You know, the one they have no problem shoving in the face of their coaches and general managers during contract negotiations - the option of playing either in their homeland or somewhere else in Europe. It's always presented like being delivered from servitude because overseas years last 40 games plus no more than 12 in the playoffs, instead of the unending grind of 10 preseason, 82 regular-season, and 20+playoff contests in the NHL.
So, I'm personally not holding my breath or engaging in water-cooler talk either at work or with friends over their indecision. Whether or not either one signs anywhere won't be a big enough impact to change a team's fortune.
If Forsberg doesn't know by now if his ankle/skate boot issues could be resolved, he's not going to know by September 10 or October 3. If Selanne can't make up his mind whether or not he wants to stick it out one more year despite hitting the 500-goal mark and winning a Stanley Cup, it's his own fault and he shouldn't be keeping Anaheim or any of the other 29 teams interested in limbo.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
The Dead Zone
This is a pretty maddening time here at The Hockey Stop. There's not much really going on outside of a few ancillary pre-arbitration signings and the never-ending speculation on whether Teemu Selanne and Peter Forsberg will return to soome NHL team before training camp begins in five weeks. It's far too early to indulge in team previews, but too distant from the free-agent frenzy to determine who might have a leg up coming into this season.
I'm wrestling with pouring some more good hockey-related stuff into other websites, and the decision on how much to do and what kind for each. One will be purely fun with some long-time hockey-mad compadres, and the other will be my main source of "recognition" for which I've written since March. If I write for both, I might have to fold up this here oasis of sanity because I'd be stretching myself too thin, or at least turn this into a cut-and-paste enterprise for the stuff I'd do for the other two web sites. There are no guarantees for both, and maybe the best scenario that comes from all this potentiality is that I can always come back here and write the same pure stuff with a variety of topics, tone and depth like I've done since last September.
The only thing I can think to say now is, I hope there aren't too many hundreds of people who pre-ordered the new Flyers jersey. There are a precious few markets in the NHL where fans will line up with credit cards in hand, en masse, to purchase a product sight-unseen with the potential to be a crime against league fashion. It's yet another in a series of crushing vise grips the organization has on the psyche of the Philly hockey fan - that the promise of a season far from the bottom of the league causes the faithful to desire a $150 sweater that hasn't seen the light of day.
The franchise got lucky in the first wave of third jerseys that all they had to do was make black a primary color. With these new Reebok-inspired slender-cut jerseys with the emphasis on length and not width, and the existing orange-black-silver-white third unis floating around, I can't see much good coming from the new design. The last major change in color and design of the logo came in 1981, and from a marketing standpoint, it may be the right time to do some tweaks to something other than hue or piping. I'm not holding my breath, though. I'd rather they be a better team in older ware than a slick new failure.
I'm wrestling with pouring some more good hockey-related stuff into other websites, and the decision on how much to do and what kind for each. One will be purely fun with some long-time hockey-mad compadres, and the other will be my main source of "recognition" for which I've written since March. If I write for both, I might have to fold up this here oasis of sanity because I'd be stretching myself too thin, or at least turn this into a cut-and-paste enterprise for the stuff I'd do for the other two web sites. There are no guarantees for both, and maybe the best scenario that comes from all this potentiality is that I can always come back here and write the same pure stuff with a variety of topics, tone and depth like I've done since last September.
The only thing I can think to say now is, I hope there aren't too many hundreds of people who pre-ordered the new Flyers jersey. There are a precious few markets in the NHL where fans will line up with credit cards in hand, en masse, to purchase a product sight-unseen with the potential to be a crime against league fashion. It's yet another in a series of crushing vise grips the organization has on the psyche of the Philly hockey fan - that the promise of a season far from the bottom of the league causes the faithful to desire a $150 sweater that hasn't seen the light of day.
The franchise got lucky in the first wave of third jerseys that all they had to do was make black a primary color. With these new Reebok-inspired slender-cut jerseys with the emphasis on length and not width, and the existing orange-black-silver-white third unis floating around, I can't see much good coming from the new design. The last major change in color and design of the logo came in 1981, and from a marketing standpoint, it may be the right time to do some tweaks to something other than hue or piping. I'm not holding my breath, though. I'd rather they be a better team in older ware than a slick new failure.
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