Media furore about Mike Danton playing CIS about prison record, not age

(Cross-posted from cisblog.ca.)

Thankfully, the media is not in charge of setting CIS eligibility policy.

There is some told-ya-so with the predictable, kneejerk media uproar over Mike Danton joining the Saint Mary's Huskies. No preening pleased-with-himself pundit was going to pass up taking a run at Danton. Not fulminating over a felon of a former NHLer playing Canadian university hockey, that is like getting a breakaway and dumping the puck into the corner.

Recruiting Danton flew in the face of someone's ideal of CIS hockey, even if that is not supported in actual fact. As Rob said in the comments, if this was a 29-year-old named "Mark Denton," no one would care. That is why CIS should stay the course and ignore the reactionary drive-by media.

Another truth: Danton's age and experience (92 NHL games) are being used as a crutch to cover up the real source of discomfort.

Some of the coverage panders to — perhaps reflects — society's prejudices about ex-cons rejoining society. It also shows the discomfort about confronting how the hockey world was such an enabler for David Frost. People don't want a reminder of what the despicable Frost got away with, so Danton and now SMU are being guilted by association.

That's the only conclusion there is after seeing the major cherry-picks some sportswriters resorted to this week.

The Globe & Mail, which cares so much about CIS it has stopped covering it regularly, has had three articles in the past two weeks pertaining to the average age of university hockey players. Edmonton Journal scribe John McKinnon called Danton a "ringer" and dredged the Jarret Reid saga that occurred more than a decade ago at St. FX. Damien Cox of the Toronto Star apparently couldn't be bothered to ask what the rules are: "Excuse my ignorance, but doesn't 161 games of pro hockey somehow make a player still able to play in the CIS? Could Chris Chelios play for U of T if he so desired?" (Answer: No, and by the way, there was a player in CIS, Jared Aulin, who had 224 NHL and AHL games under his belt when he made a comeback in Canada West.)

McKinnon didn't bother to explain why Saint Mary's should be judged over what happened more than a decade ago at another university in Nova Scotia. What is this, guilt by Grade 3 geography?

No one out of McKinnon and The G&M's reporter James Christie and columnist Roy MacGregor condescended to actually quote a coach of a Top 10 team. They also did not point out something about Saint Mary's coach Trevor Stienburg noted by a Halifax writer, Rick Howe:

"Interesting sidebar story about Trevor Steinburg growing up in Ontario and his father's parole board job. Steven Truscott lived in the Steinburg home for awhile after his parole. Truscott of course was eventually cleared of any involvement in the 1959 death of Lynne Harper."

That might have been something to mention as part of the "ethical debate."

The heart of the matter is the media could inveigh against the average age in CIS hockey and of having players with pro experience each year at University Cup time, but they don't. Only now is it suddenly a big deal. Last March, UNB coach Gardiner McDougall's national champion V-Reds last season included 26-year-old Dustin Friesen. Coach Clarke Singer's runner-up Western Mustangs had three 25-year-olds on their roster.

By the way, if this is such a "dirty little secret" in Cox's phrasing, how come it's on the Internet?

Cox or MacGregor could have said something then. They didn't, because it did not involve Danton. As Rob put it:

"Everyone who's crying over how unfair it is, how it's men-vs.-boys ... they really don't care that Danton is older than 'normal'; they care that he was just in prison for trying to have someone killed."

To hazard a guess, if asked coaches might have pointed out Danton is a rare case. The current setup works. It's favourable to CIS coaches and is player-friendly, a rarity in amateur hockey.

If coaches have a problem, it probably speaks more to their competitive nature. Basketball coaches did not like it last year when CIS gave former Syracuse guard Josh Wright a year of eligibility back when he joined the Ottawa Gee-Gees. They were worried what it meant for their team, pure and simple. They didn't go off half-cocked about the rules.

Also, if you ask an 18-year-old what his goal is in hockey, and chances the answer will be, "To play as long as I can." Any player that age who could hack it in CIS, which McKinnon calls "clearly a step up from major junior," should have his pick of junior teams.

Come to think of it, committing to play CIS straight from high school instead of waiting a few years could be foolish. It cuts 2-3 years off someone's competitive hockey-playing life. No wonder guys stay in junior and keep their options open. Duh.

Perhaps that is too practical and pragmatic for media types. Their vision seems to be of some puck-chasing 21st-century analogs to Harold Lloyd in The Freshman populating CIS rosters. You wonder if the improved quality of play in the university game makes them nervous, since it makes it harder to justify giving it token coverage.

Instead, they talk to people who refuse to accept what they knew and loved 20, 30 years ago is gone (what a metaphor for the newspaper industry). For pete's sake, Christie's main source was retired Mount Allison AD Jack Drover.

Please. Talk about counting on the average reader's unawareness of CIS. Drover is the stodge who presided over the death of men's hockey and basketball as CIS sports at Mount A and the crippling of the football program. He folded the hockey team at Mount A over concerns of "increased professionalism" in AUS, for crying out loud.

" ... the controversial move by St. Mary's (sic) raises the hackles of Drover and others who oppose ex-pros and mature Major Junior A players being allowed to play Canadian university hockey, effectively freezing out recent high-school graduates.

" 'Most students are 18 to 23, and mostly from the regional area where the university is located," said Drover, who coached for 25 seasons and last summer retired as athletic director. 'The rosters of CIS men's hockey teams do not represent this principle. Measures must be taken to resolve this.' "

Drover did not elaborate on why why this "must" happen outside of his desire to turn the clock back to 1979:

"There has to be a decision of the athletic directors that the roster has to represent the student profile ... You get more student support if the roster (represents) the student profile instead of recruiting with the buzz phrase 'daycare provided.' "

First off, that crack about "daycare provided" is pretty rich. The student-athlete who brought the most media attention to Drover's old school, Mount A, the past couple years, football star Gary Ross, has been rightly celebrated for balancing football and school with being a married father of three. You can't have it both ways, Jack.

The way Christie's article is written also does not make if clear whether one (untenable) solution is actually being considered seriously, or was thrown out off the cuff by a source or the writer.

"One solution would be to ban ex-pros altogether and to deduct one year of university eligibility for each year of major junior hockey played. CIS executive director Marg McGregor indicated the Danton situation will cause hockey coaches to discuss eligibility guidelines at the national championships in March."

So, agreeing to weaken teams and accepting a lower calibre of play will increase attendance and student support? Also, a four-year major junior player would get one season of eligibility. Who would even bother to come?

Furthermore, there is zero cause-and-effect between the makeup of a team's roster and student support. If students aren't turning out, it's part the team's record, part poor marketing, part greater demands on students' time and part the revolution taking place with sports consumption. (That link comes from, guess where, The Globe & Mail.)

In the U.S., whether players represent the student profile is a non-factor. Go count how many of those Boise State Broncos are from actually from Idaho.

In Canada, there are dozens of basketball, football, soccer and volleyball teams whose roster fits the quote, unquote student profile. That doesn't spur student support. Winning and convincing people the gym, rink or football stadium is a fun place on a Friday or Saturday drives fan support.

It's better if a team can win with hometown kids, but it's not an end-all. It's a more-power-to-them that Carleton's Dave Smart has built a basketball dynasty with scarcely one player from outside Eastern Ontario.

By Drover's logic, Bruce Langford's Simon Fraser Clan hoops juggernaut isn't playing fair since main cogs such as Kate Hole, Laurelle Weigl and Matteke Hutzler are from Alberta and Ontario. Yeah, that's some real skulduggery, getting ambitious athletes to leave their regional area to play for a powerhouse. What's that called, again? Oh, yeah, coaching!

Meantime, men's hockey coaches work within the unique symbiotic relationship between the CHL and CIS. The CHL gets a bargaining chip in their bid to keep players away from the NCAA. Athletes have a post-junior playing option. University coaches also get the benefit of working with more physically and emotionally mature athletes.

What's not to understand? There is no way of getting the toothpaste back in the tube until such time arrives that there is a total shift in how university athletics is supported in Canada. That is way off on the horizon.

MacGregor says CIS being a destination of choice for Canadian athletes is are "All goals any Canadian will support," but we aren't putting our money where our hearts supposedly are. If that people would be pounding on their elected representatives' doors asking why we aren't funding full athletic scholarships.

Please keep in mind this is coming from a site which would benefit if CIS hockey was as big as the NCAA. Imagine if Taylor Hall, everyone's No. 1 pick in the 2010 NHL draft, was spending his draft year playing for the Windsor Lancers instead the Windsor Spitfires.

Here are the really bad parts of MacGregor:

"(W)hile this is admirable, it has the effect of sending players 20 and older into the university ranks, making it difficult for a 17-year-old freshman to crack a lineup made up of players who have already played major-junior hockey and are already mature men.

"In the case of 29-year-old Danton ... this gap between man and child is even more alarming. The notion of a still-growing high school graduate challenging a mature man with three years of NHL hockey to his credit is simply preposterous. No wonder the academically and athletically gifted Canadian high school graduate looks south before looking around home."

Seventeen-year-old freshmen (an American term, ironically) seldom crack the lineup anyway since 22-year-old seniors are bigger and stronger. By MacGregor's logic, let's restrict all CIS sports to teens, even though undergrads can easily be 22 or 23 without having done an extra year anywhere.

Ten minutes of clicking through HockeyDB reveals the truth. The "17-year-old freshman" (MacGregor) and "the kid who graduates high school on time and would like to attend university at the age of 18 and perhaps play for his school" (Cox) does not exist. Did you notice the subtle cheap shot there, implying all CIS players are academic deliquents?

The average age of Saint Mary's team this season is 23.1. The youngest player, second-year forward Andrew White, was born in 1988.

The youngest regular in the eight-team AUS in 2008-09, Dalhousie's Shawn Frank, turned 20 midway through the season (Jan. 6). The youngest player in Canada West, Alberta's J.P. Szaszciewicz, turned 20 five months before the season started. There were a handful of teenagers in the larger OUA. Strange as it sounds, if someone that age could handle the pace of the CIS game, they would be playing junior hockey somewhere.

It would have been nice if MacGregor had faced those facts, or at least done some simple math:

"As for 'professionalism,' the rules are mild — one year of eligibility lost for every year of pro — which still leaves Danton with two years eligibility for university hockey.

"A 31-year-old varsity player?"

Actually, if Danton suits up this season, his eligibility runs out in March 2011, when he is 30. That doesn't mean other 31-year-olds can't suit up for CIS teams, but someone that old playing university sports is just such a rarity.

This is getting to be a wordy and belated post, apologies. There was some uncertainly whether it was needed on a niche site such as ours. Ultimately, there had to be a response, since the traditional media blew this out of proportion and painted a false picture of hockey and Canadian Interuniversity Sport. Danton going to SMU isn't really a sports story. It's about how society accepts ex-convicts, which is more of a news story.

Not everyone would take the chance Steinburg (pictured) and Saint Mary's athletic director Steve Sarty are taking. As a disclaimer, this is more of press criticism than an endorsement.

Saint Mary's has staked a lot on Danton. There probably will have to be some boundaries for dealing with the media. Stienburg will have to put boundaries on how Danton, a former NHL agitator who was good for a 100-plus penalty minutes a season, conducts himself on the ice.

You do not have to be onside with this, let alone nominate them for sainthood. However, it would be great if the media worked to get past their prejudices, its guilt about the Frost saga, and tried some clear thinking. They could have at least made a token effort to understand the new reality of CIS hockey. Instead, they ended up doing a lot of talking and zero listening. Shame on them.

Related:
Former university coach assails Danton ruling; CIS team rosters, currently without age limitations, should better reflect the student profile, Drover argues (James Christie, The Globe & Mail)
Using Danton as a ringer is disgraceful (John MacKinnon, Canwest News Service)
CIS needs to use common sense about allowing 29-year-old former pro to play (Roy MacGregor, The Globe & Mail)

Morning with Mr. Canoehead ...

Stuff that should bounce off you like raisins off an Oldsmobile ...

Alex Rodríguez told a Cleveland columnist that "basketball and golf" are his favourite sports — two weeks after he told a Toronto writer he "can't get enough of" hockey. It's like someone — call him Steve S., no, too obvious, S. Simmons — got sucked in Rodriguez's PR spin.

The fact the prison (Pittsburgh Instition) that Mike Danton has been moved to is actually closer to David Frost's house than the one he was at before.

Being over 30. It means 29-year-old MP Pierre Poilievre is no longer your generational representation in the House of Commons. When the best defence for someone is that he is not necessarily racist, just an idiot, maybe he shouldn't be in Parliament.

Doug Gilmour was interviewed on Rogers Sportsnet during the Red Sox-Jays game last night. Talk about timing: The Jays had lost nine in a row, so they talk to the coach of the Kingston Frontenacs. And what happened during the same inning Gilmour was interviewed? The Jays scored five runs and won the game, so Gilmour was responsible for a turnaround that might only last one game — just like with the Fronts.

(Actually, Peter Zezel must have been pulling some strings.)

Christian Lacroix filing for court protection. It's tough to feel symapthy for a company which sold clothes which people couldn't fit into even if they could afford them.

Something to be grateful for is the British practice of listing the home team first in a sports schedule, which opposite to how it's done in North America. It eliminates the confusion that arises when the TV listings say, "Breakfast at Wembley." Sometimes it takes a second to realize there's no team called Breakfast.

Lastly, the line of the week from TV Feeds My Family, on the morally bankrupt Save Local TV campaign: "The Canadian network program buyers are down in LA right now, doing their damnedest to save local television. Somehow — even though they all say they're broke — they'll come back from the annual LA screenings with most of the 22 new U.S. network offerings."

Last thing he'll wanna do is hang around there

Mike Danton is apparently back in Canada and in a jail that is not so far from his tormentor, Dave Frost:

"After petitioning to be moved to a Canadian prison since 2005, Danton finally got his wish on March 19th as he was transferred to Kingston Penitentiary.

"Under Canadian law, Danton is now eligible for full parole."

Anyway, the Hockey God should have plenty to say.

(Update: Kingston reporter Rob Tripp, who's a digger if ever there was one, says Danton's likely at Millhaven Pen. But was it Millhaven Maximum Security?)

Related:
Danton transferred to Canada, now eligible for parole (TSN.ca)

Blog blast past: A Frosty reception in K-Town

Former hockey coach David Frost's sexual exploitation trial began earlier today in my hometown of Napanee, Ontario. It's been covered by ESPN.com. The author Laura Robinson is apparently going to be there. Not to claim any connection to this sordid story, beyond having played the odd hockey or ball game in Deseronto as a youth, but from Aug. 9, 2006, here's one of our posts about the reception Frost received when his spouse opened a business in Kingston.

So David Frost, the Rogue Agent and short-list candidate for sketchy character of the century, is apparently involved with a newly opened juice bar in none other than yours truly's adopted hometown of Kingston, Ontario. Fan-freaking-tastic. How lovely is that?

For the uninitiated, Frost is the ex-hockey agent who was so controlling and manipulative toward his clients and players that ex-St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton felt he had no choice but to try and have him killed.

According to one report, Frost isn't the owner or proprietor of this new juice bar in Kingston's downtown. Far as anyone knows, his wife is running the show.

Just like how, on paper, the Rogue Agent (the words of the investigative journalists at CBC's the fifth estate), didn't have anything to do with the Pembroke Lumber Kings, the Junior A team part-owned by one of his other "Brampton Boys," ex-NHLer Sheldon Keefe. Regardless, he was still caught by the fifth estate's cameras being around the team last season. He wasn't the owner, the coach or the general manager, but he was hanging around.

Fans who bravely came forward to talk to the CBC said he was pretty much up to his old tricks, controlling and manipulating young men through threats and intimidation. The kind of treatment you generally get when you join a cult.

This new Frost-related venture came to light through an e-mail that's been forwarded from one Kingstonian to another over the past few weeks. By the time it landed in my inbox with the subject line "slimy grease ball," it had been sent to about 100 addresses.

There's no telling how many more people might have forwarded it since then, or told people about it. Aside from leaving the names of the people and the business itself out, there's no ethical dilemma in revealing how Kingstonians feel about David Frost being associated with a business in their town. It's one man's opinion, sent to dozens and dozens of people who may be inclined to feel similar sentiments:

The 'new place' is billed as a nightclub, eatery. I have not been to this fine establishment and won't ever. I read an article in a local paper stating the proud owner is none other than David Frost's wife. The article went on to say that he has nothing to do with the business. I was downtown last night for dinner and who do I look over and see walking out of the [name of the establishment in question deleted] but the slimy grease ball himself. Interesting to see how long the business will last when people find out who is affiliated with it. (The italics and the link are in the e-mail.)

One of the initial set of recipients has told the original writer, "good call," adding "a friend of mine from work saw him (Frost) sitting in there when he went to check the place out a couple of weeks ago. he turned around and walked out. that guy gives everyone the creeps."

There's nothing to stop Frost, or his spouse, from trying to earn a living. A juice bar in Kingston has a chance to be a successful business, what with all the Queen's University students who always want to be trendy and never read the newspaper.

Still, what does the outrage of one e-mail tell us about David Frost, and what he did or didn't do to Mike Danton and his family? Danton is now in jail, his life ruined. His family, the Jeffersons, has had one son torn away from them and had a younger son essentially molested in a 2000 hazing incident where Frost apparently pointed a rifle at him. The whole sordid saga is shrouded in mystery, but Frost is there, always.

It says that the general public in the Kingston area, which unfortunately for everyone else Frost seems to have made his home base, is damn right to want to have nothing to do with anything that might bear this guy's taint.

The courts couldn't stop him, since he was tough to pin down, even though as far back as 10 years ago when he coached Danton with the Junior A Quinte Mohawks in Deseronto, Ont., people in that Eastern Ontario community knew something was very, very wrong, but were too intimidated to rock the boat.

A lack of oversight by the powers-that-be in the hockey world allowed him to run roughshod over players. Sure, there was disciplinary action and a court appearance after he allegedly assaulted one of his own players in full view of hundreds of spectators, but at the end of the day, the courts and the hockey people didn't seem to do enough.

From the time in 2001 that a psychologist turned over photos to the authorities that depicted child abuse against Danton's younger brother, it took the NHL Players' Association four years to remove him from its roster of agents. That's cold, hard fact.

The only group who could deliver something remotely resembling justice were the journalists, including but not limited to the fifth estate's Bob McKeown, a fellow alum of the Queen's Journal, Greg McArthur, then of the Ottawa Citizen and now of The Globe and Mail, Sun Media's Steve Simmons and ESPN The Magazine's Bruce Feldman and Gare Joyce (who also wrote about it for Toro magazine.)

Frost's wife is free to run her business, of course, but at the same time, people in Kingston have the power not to help it succeed by voting with their feet and refusing to support it. More than a few already seem dead-set against getting in line to sample any of the establishment's Kool-Aid, to borrow Danton's immortal phrase. Can't disagree with that for a second.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

Snark Break...

As you and your (former) best friend had to be pulled apart while after an argument over the world's greatest marathoners got out of hand.

How did that Barack Obama sign end up in the yard of the Alaska governor's mention?

Figure skating meets will have fewer judges. This is a positive step toward no figure skating at all.

Saying "some of the color and personality has been removed from the sport" with regard to NASCAR is wrong on two counts. It has few people of colour, and it's not a sport. Please give some thought to why the drivers in NASCAR can act like buffoons and it's all part of the show, while no one would stand for it in other big American ball-and-stick games.

In all seriousness ... far be it to question what it says about us that many, present company included, can't find the outrage that there should be over the Mike Danton/David Frost story. It's such a sick story and one can only imagine what it's like for the principals, including some people in the Napanee area, to keep retelling the stories that are now more than a decade old. Where would the harm be if Danton was brought home to serve his sentence in a Canadian jail?

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• The Big Lead has posted its preview of the Raptors.
• There's no way of confirming or debunking this gut feeling, but the Kingston Frontenacs might lead the OHL in the most goals allowed in the final minute of a period. They had one last night in Saginaw (7-3 loss) and one against Oshawa last Sunday. By unofficial count, the Fronts are 0 for their last 19 power plays.
• It's irony on a base level that a list of the most subversive comedians of all time could leave out Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks.

FROSTY TIMES AT FACEBOOK

First we heard of this: Someone created a bogus Facebook page for Rogue Agent David Frost -- destroyer of Mike Danton and alleged user of the jailed former NHLer's credit cards -- that was up for about a week before it was deleted.

A small item actually appeared in last week's Napanee Guide (one of my hometown's two weeklies). Reportedly, the page described Frost's relationship status as "It's complicated." Funny, sort of, but the OPP aren't laughing -- they're investigating.

Related: Previous David Frost posts

FOLLOWUPS: ROGUE AGENTS, DOOKIE 'POETRY'

We don't forget about a story once we've had our initial fun with it:

• Just another weird twist in the saga of Rogue Agent David Frost; he was charged with fraud after using a credit card registered to another person to pay for gas in Kingston.
  
  The card was registered to... Mike Danton. Frost, still facing several sex charges, did hint to a reporter that he's thinking of leaving the Kingston area, but he would say that just to get my hometown's hopes up, wouldn't he?
• Speaking of rogue agents, remember news of the disgraced Alan Eagleson's memorabilia auction, which even got mentioned on Sportsnet Connected? His old pals in the working press, Bruce Dowbiggin and Russ Conway, have proven that he's selling a fake Bobby Orr sweater.
• In our Mariners preview, we took note of pitcher Miguel Batista's wordsmithing, adding, "No one's literary ambitions should ever be mocked. (Except for this guy's.)."
  
  That may have to be reconsidered after friend and reader Julian Dickinson forwarded a link to former Duke basketballer/current NBA benchwarmer J.J. Redick's poetry, so-called, which Sports Illustrated actually published two years ago:
  
  No bandage can cover my scars
  It's hard living a life behind invisible bars
  Searching for the face of God
  I'm only inspired by the poems of Nas
  
  Anyone else think that finding out that a Dookie was name-dropping him in poems inspired Nas to write Hip-Hop Is Dead?

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

WHERE'D THE YEAR GO... AUGUST

As 2006 draws to a close, we are reminded of a few of the events that brought us closer to you: Dick Cheney shooting a guy in the face, premium ice cream price wars, dogs that were mistakenly issued major credit cards, and others who weren't so lucky ... In our continuing quest to secure a lower rung on the inferno, Out of Left Field looks back at the wild 'n' nutty month of August.

Ross Rebagliati apparently thinks a stoner snowboarder character on a TV show is based on him. Yeah. He's the only one out there.

That's what you like to read about: A sketchy character such as David Frost (the agent for imprisoned former NHLer Mike Danton) being involved with a juice bar in your hometown.

If there's a God, Lloyd Eisler will one day find out if there's ice dancing in hell.

Greg Marshall, welcome back to CIS football... but Western's bigger athletics budget and (ahem) admissions requirements won't save you from getting your ass handed to you by the Queen's Golden Gaels. (You know we're all friends, right Mustangs? I mean, we belong to the same country clubs, metaphorically speaking.)

The Colbert Report takes a shine to the OHL's Saginaw Spirit. Surely this just a passing fancy.

Ah, New York baseball sex scandals. And meet Ryan Leli, the apparent long-lost son of Jerry Seinfeld who's met every celebrity except Jerry Seinfeld.... and got busted for allegedly impersonating a journalist. As D.C. Sports Chick noted, 'There aren't many guys who are shorter than Tom Cruise!"

OK, so the Green Bay Packers didn't finish dead last and they went on to sweep the Vikings this year. The Mean Girls analogy used in the NFC Norris preview still stands.

Good thing that Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby came out the very weekend the Blue Jays faded from the wild-card race, because the laughs came in handy.

If NHL players should be really PO'd after this season, Al Strachan did warn us about it.

Apparently, it's not a steroid scandal if the NFL's involved.

The Ottawa Lynx are going-going-gone, but all hope is not lost that Ottawa could support some form of minor-league baseball.

Hey, someone had to stand up for those poor-sport Little League coaches in Utah.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

HOMETOWN BREAKDOWN: 2 WILD 'N' CRAZY GUYS SHARE THE HEADLINES

Not much time here for a full post, so here's a couple followups about two wild 'n' crazy guys that gravitated toward my hometown, Kingston, and shared the headlines on consecutive days in early August. Now they're together again -- in the news, at the same time.

BUFFY THE ALLEGED HOMEWRECKER: HEY, DO THEY HAVE ICE DANCE IN HELL? (Aug. 8)
Our man Lloyd Eisler ... you all remember Lloyd, he's the two-time Olympic ice dance medal winner who left his spouse, Marcia O'Brien, high and dry with two baby boys to run off with his celebrity skating partner, actress Kristy Swanson, star of such high-minded cinema as The Chase and 8 Heads In A Duffel Bag.

Now Skate Canada has suspended the last of the romantics, from coaching this year. Who knows why. There's probably backroom political stuff that no one outside of the cloistered skating world cares about. (They don't fire people for "moral turpitude" much anymore, since everyone's cousin is a lawyer these days.)

Still, given what we know about Lloyd's lack of commitment to the spouse and family he already had, it sort of looks good on him, don't you think?

Eisler banned for year; Skate Canada forbids star from coaching (Kingston Whig-Standard)

ROGUE AGENT GETTING A FROSTY RECEPTION IN MY HOMETOWN (Aug. 9)

Yeah, it was quite the little coup two months ago to find out that former NHL player agent David Frost (agent of the imprisoned Mike Danton) had been spotted in downtown K-town hanging around a newly opened juice bar.

Some upset locals were vowing not to give the place their business. This was two weeks before Frost was charged with a dozen counts of sexual exploitation, by the way.

Maybe those threats not to go there didn't make one difference one way or the other, but The Whig reports today that the Juice Nightclub and Eatery has been padlocked for being $32,000 Cdn behind on its rent. The location, 172 Ontario St., is considered to be one of the worst locations in town. It probably isn't going to get any better.

Frost's spouse ran Juice and the degree of his involvement wasn't unclear. Then again, he seemed to be spending an awful lot of time around the Junior A Pembroke Lumber Kings last winter when he wasn't the coach or general manager.

According to what one reader who coaches hockey told me two months ago, Frost considered his duties in Pembroke to include leaning out from the press box to spit or spray water at the players on the visiting-team bench directly below him. You don't say.

Landlord shuts door on Juice nightclub (Kingston Whig-Standard)

Fun stuff in my hometown. Back with more later. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

ROGUE AGENT IN COURT: BY THE WAY, IT'S PRONOUNCED NAP-A-NEE

There was a pretty sizable media horde out for Rogue Agent David Frost's first court appearance in Napanee, Ont.. (birthplace of yours truly and Avril Lavigne, in that order*) on charges that he sexually exploited a group of teenagers.

However the court case turns out, it's hard to reject Deadspin's sentiments expressed prior to Frost's court appearance: "We don't know if he's actually being escorted by mounties, but if he is, we hope the horses kick him in his f------ face."

Some Deadspin commenters have started joking, "Free Mike Danton." If you want to make the T-shirts, yours truly will gladly split the profits 50/50.

Oh, and yes, that juice bar in downtown Kingston that Sportsnet reporter Erin Paul did her stand-up from... that is the very place Frost had been involved with, which had the locals none too happy, as you'll recall.

DIGRESSION ALERT

FYI to the on-air talent at Rogers Sportsnet: It's pronounced Nap-a-nee, not Nap-nee. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago, but it's believed to be a Mohawk word for "place of only two seasons, hockey and fastball." TSN's Rod Smith and Brent Wallace did have it right on the 6:30 p.m. Sportscentre.

Toronto-centric TV talking heads seem to struggle with that second vowel in middle-of-nowhere Eastern Ontario place names. In April, when two students at Ernestown Secondary School in Odessa (10 minutes east of Napanee) were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, at least one national newscast called it Earns-town.

Yes, the sleepy little backwater burgs of my formative years have been in the news for all the wrong reasons this year. Who knows, maybe when Avril Lavigne put Napanee on the map three, four years ago with her climb up the pop charts, it was part of some deal with the devil and now the bill is coming due. Feel free to discuss this among yourselves.

Much obliged to Eric McErlain at Off Wing Opinion for the link earlier.

(* This isn't ego talking, just a mere expression of fact: Yours truly is seven years, eight months and 25 days older than Avril, and no, I didn't have to look that up. OK, it is the ego talking.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

ROGUE AGENT UP ON SEX-ABUSE CHARGES

Two weeks ago, this space mentioned how disgraced ex-NHLer Mike Danton's ex-agent and possible destroyer, David Frost, had been spotted haunting a newly opened downtown juice bar that his wife was running in Kingston, Ont., and some people there were none too happy about it.

Well, this isn't going to be good for business: Frost has been charged with a dozen counts of sexual exploitation and one count of assault, involving seven teenagers (four boys, three girls) in the Deseronto/Napanee area west of Kingston.

Frost will appear at the courthouse in Napanee on Wednesday. There's no club here how much, if any, of a media horde will descend on my birthplace for this, since (a) there's a publication ban on certain elements of the case and (b) the media seems reluctant to really go after this, perhaps since it points up a lack of adminstrative oversight by the old boys' club that runs hockey in Canada (i.e., various minor associations, junior leagues, the NHLPA).

Granted, this does follow in the wake of two major sex-abuse scandals that both broke in the mid-'90s -- the one that took place at Maple Leaf Gardens and the one in Western Canada involving Graham James. Maybe there's some outrage fatigue, but to my mind the Frost-Danton saga is the biggest scandal in Canadian sport since Ben Johnson got busted at the '88 Olympics.

Anyway, if you are a member of the media and you're going to be headed to Napanee, a good place for lunch is La Pizzeria on Dundas St., the main drag. It's not only Avril Lavigne's favourite pizza place, but in 1994 I helped my dad put up drywall there.

Related:
David Frost Wikipedia page (already updated with criminal charges!)
Hockey agent charged with string of sexual assaults (Belleville Intelligencer)
Rogue Agent Getting A Frosty Reception In My Hometown (Aug. 9)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

ROGUE AGENT GETTING A FROSTY RECEPTION IN MY HOMETOWN

Here's something to brighten the middle of your workweek: David Frost, the Rogue Agent and short-list candidate for sketchy character of the century, is apparently involved with a newly opened juice bar in none other than yours truly's adopted hometown of Kingston, Ontario. Fan-freaking-tastic. How lovely is that?

For the uninitiated, Frost is the ex-hockey agent who was so controlling and manipulative toward his clients and players that ex-St. Louis Blues player Mike Danton (bottom photo) felt he had no choice but to try and have him killed.

According to one report, Frost isn't the owner or proprietor of this new juice bar in Kingston's downtown entertainment district. Far as anyone knows, his wife is running the show.

Just like how, on paper, the Rogue Agent (the words of the investigative journalists at CBC's the fifth estate), didn't have anything to do with the Pembroke Lumber Kings, the Junior A team part-owned by one of his other "Brampton Boys," ex-NHLer Sheldon Keefe. Regardless, he was still caught by the fifth estate's cameras being around the team last season. He wasn't the owner, the coach or the general manager, but he was hanging around.

Fans who bravely came forward to talk to the CBC said he was pretty much up to his old tricks, controlling and manipulating young men through threats and intimidation. The kind of treatment you generally get when you join a cult.

This new Frost-related venture came to light through an e-mail that's been forwarded from one Kingstonian to another over the past few weeks. By the time it landed in my inbox with the subject line "slimy grease ball," it had been sent to about 100 addresses.

There's no telling how many more people might have forwarded it since then, or told people about it. Aside from leaving the names of the people and the business itself out, there's no ethical dilemma in revealing how Kingstonians feel about David Frost being associated with a business in their town. It's one man's opinion, sent to dozens and dozens of people who may be inclined to feel similar sentiments:

The 'new place' is billed as a nightclub, eatery. I have not been to this fine establishment and won't ever. I read an article in a local paper stating the proud owner is none other than David Frost's wife. The article went on to say that he has nothing to do with the business. I was downtown last night for dinner and who do I look over and see walking out of the [name of the establishment in question deleted] but the slimy grease ball himself. Interesting to see how long the business will last when people find out who is affiliated with it. (The italics and the link are in the e-mail.)

One of the initial set of recipients has told the original writer, "good call," adding "a friend of mine from work saw him (Frost) sitting in there when he went to check the place out a couple of weeks ago. he turned around and walked out. that guy gives everyone the creeps."

There's nothing to stop Frost, or his spouse, from trying to earn a living. A juice bar in Kingston has a chance to be a successful business, what with all the Queen's University students who always want to be trendy and never read the newspaper.

Still, what does the outrage of one e-mail tell us about David Frost, and what he did or didn't do to Mike Danton and his family? Danton is now in jail, his life ruined. His family, the Jeffersons, has had one son torn away from them and had a younger son essentially molested in a 2000 hazing incident where Frost, among other things, apparently pointed a rifle at him. The whole sordid saga is shrouded in mystery, but Frost is there, always.

It says that the general public in the Kingston area, which unfortunately for everyone else Frost seems to have made his home base, is damn right to want to have nothing to do with anything that might bear this guy's taint.

The courts couldn't stop him, since he was tough to pin down, even though as far back as 10 years ago when he coached Danton with the Junior A Quinte Mohawks in Deseronto, Ont., people in that Eastern Ontario community knew something was very, very wrong. A lack of oversight by the powers-that-be in the hockey world allowed him to run roughshod over players. Sure, there was disciplinary action and a court appearance after he allegedly assaulted one of his own players in full view of hundreds of spectators, but at the end of the day, the courts and the hockey people didn't seem to do enough.

From the time in 2001 that a psychologist turned over photos to the authorities that depicted child abuse against Danton's younger brother, it took the NHL Players' Association four years to remove him from its roster of agents. That's cold, hard fact.

The only group who could deliver something remotely resembling justice were the journalists, including but not limited to the fifth estate's Bob McKeown, my fellow alum of the Queen's Journal, Greg McArthur, then of the Ottawa Citizen and now of The Globe and Mail, and ESPN The Magazine's Bruce Feldman and Gare Joyce (Joyce also wrote about it for Toro magazine.)

Frost's wife is free to run her business, of course, but at the same time, people in Kingston have the power not to help it succeed by voting with their feet and refusing to support it. More than a few already seem dead-set against getting in line to sample any of the establishment's Kool-Aid, to borrow Danton's immortal phrase. Can't disagree with that for a second.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.