Great moments in OMF: Non-sports columnists columnizing on sports

(Moral of the story: Anything only known to us through black-and-white photos and film footage, probably not relevant to the present day.)

It seldom ceases to amaze why columnists who are not on a sports beat get to waste ever-shrinking newspaper space writing about sports. It almost always ends in mental cutaways to Barbara Bush saying to a reporter, "I'm embarrassed for you," or Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski bellowing, "Donny, you're out of your element!" That alone is usually enough to say, don't bother with behind-the-curvers.

Still, you wonder why someone such a columnist at the Toronto Star gets to cliché-monger his way through a fine whine about the Toronto Maple Leafs having the NHL's longest Stanley Cup drought among the Original Six teams, since the Chicago Blackhawks won for the first time in 48 seasons. It also covers a twit typist for the Ottawa Citizen using the World Cup as a device to betray his own aging white guy insecurity by recycling feeble footy jokes about "let's go to Nairobi to find out how to make a soccer ball out of garbage" and "stay tuned for Ghana versus Serbia!"

There are people who pull off the cross-over. Stephen Brunt can touch on universal themes through his books and columns. Earl McRae, whom it was privilege to count as a colleague, could do it with aplomb. There are people who are shifted from sports to "city side" to plug a hole. It's a very short list, though.

The practice could be justified by saying, "Well, sports affects people's lives and the mood of a city and everyone is entitled to an opinion." Anyone who writes a column eventually resorts to writing one about how they have no use for a particular sport (if memory serves, someone wrote a "I choose not to golf" column for the Simcoe Reformer one time, but at least it ran in the appropriate section).

It never goes the other way, though. A sports columnist does not get to say, "Screw writing about the Senators' salary cap situation. Today, I am writing about light-rail transit even though I am barely acquainted with the details and the paper has people with a much firmer grasp of the subject. It affects Senators' fans lives and everyone is entitled to an opinion."

Besides, most of the time, when the columnist ranges into sports, it's a gong show. Take it away, Royson James:

"Consider, since the likes of Frank Mahovolich and Red Kelly and Ted Kennedy, hockey’s best players have not worn the blue and white. Canada’s Team — the grand and glorious Maple Leafs — has failed to sign a single one of the game’s greatest players during all those championship-empty years.

"Wayne Gretzky may consider this his NHL home city, but Leaf team owners managed to scuttle any chance The Great One would skate for the home side. Bobby Orr, Mark Messier, Pavel Bure, Teemu Selanne, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin and the most spectacular talents shone elsewhere. Leaf fans settled for Darryl Sittler, Mats Sundin and Doug Gilmour."

Talk about a flagrant misread — which teams did the transcendent stars of the 1950s and '60s such as Maurice Richard, Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Jean Béliveau play for again? HockeyDB also has no listing of a "Mahovolich."

A cursory understanding a sports history, which granted is not a job requirement for laying out pages in either Toronto or India, would suggest it is folly to compare the Original Six days with the modern 21- to 30-team NHL. The Leafs of yore were one of just six teams. In those days before the entry draft, they had right of first refusal on any player in the richest and most populous region of essentially the lone country scouted by the NHL. All that, and Bobby Orr ended up in Boston. Speaking only as smugly as someone not yet alive may, it is a wonder the Leafs captured only nine of the 25 Cups during the Original Six period.

The Montreal Canadiens, with first crack at players in the second most populous region of the same country, won 10 over the same time span. Like Harry Sinden said once, "Let me tell you about that so-called great rivalry ..."

Point being, why give space to someone who writes the Blue Jays won "back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992" and expects overworked copy-editing cats, who someday soon will be located in Sagar, would correct it to 1992 and 1993? Or thinks he's scoring debate points by referencing how the New York Yankees "routinely sign baseball's biggest names and brightest stars" without informing readers who might not follow sports religiously that Major League Baseball has no salary cap, unlike the NHL?

The same goes for Mark Sutcliffe at the Ottawa Citizen, the same guy who finds humour in the abject poverty of Nairobi, spewing about CBC's World Cup coverage. There is no need to party like P.C. thugs circa 1991 and accuse him of anything ending in -phobia. Hacky and hickish suffice.

Someone who feels it necessary to spend two good paragraphs explaining to readers Canada is not playing in the FIFA World Cup should probably see if the LCBO has that little-known English lager Shutyerwordhole on special during said FIFA World Cup.

Far be it to say Sutcliffe is writing more out of his generational discomfort than any actual knowledge. That would be a classic case of a writer creating an imaginary divide to soothe his own ego, and he's not to be bested in that Olympic event:

"What does it say about our hyphenated national identity that between Sidney Crosby's goal and the next Winter Olympic hockey tournament, this is what passes for a unifying event: Millions of Canadians enthusiastically waving the flags of other countries?

" ... Plus, the soccer audience is more urban and urbane than the typical Canadian, which might attract a different advertiser to the CBC. Hockey evokes a rural picture, with guys in mullets and lumberjack shirts sipping Tim Hortons while they watch their kids on the outdoor rink. Soccer is played by the archetype metrosexual, David Beckham."

Metrosexual? No one has used that word in three years, although in Ottawa, being three years behind the times would have ahead of the general populace by a cool decade.

Short answer, it says we live in a great country where people have an option in their rooting allegiances. It is not harmless, although it's a challenge for the Canadian Soccer Association when the national team is playing a home friendly.

However, that is a question for the soccer crowd to answer and report back to the group. Point being, people who do not know sports being allowed to embarrass their newsrooms and the trade is bad editorial policy, or old media fail. That space could be used on something more meaningful. The non-sports columnist opining on sports belongs in the Bad Idea Jeans Hall of Fame.

It also goes against the grain of a better way to do it, finding broading meaning by staying specific to a subject. Be universal by being particular. Like, no wonder this site went back to being a hobby blog, eh? That's how the mulleted Tim Hortons patrons would say it.

Ottawa's Chris Bisson drafted by San Diego

Some of you might have noticed: second baseman-shortstop Chris Bisson of Orleans, the east end of Ottawa, was drafted by the San Diego Padres in the fourth round of the MLB first-year player draft out of the University of Kentucky.

It was a treat to write about Chris for the Ottawa Sun in 2009, and tip off readers to the likelihood he was going to be a relatively early pick.

Bisson hit .329 as a junior at Kentucky this season and led the Wildcats in base-stealing (32 in 39 tries) and bases on balls (28). He could be good fit for a National League team, especially if he adds another positions. He has the option of not signing and playing his senior season in the NCAA.

Congratulations are due to Chris' Ottawa-Nepean Canadians coaches, Don Campbell and Tim Nelson. It's pretty special to see a Canadian who is not a pitcher or corner player drafted.

Ottawa Fat Cats' elephant in the room: rainouts

Namely, what if it rains and wipes out one of their scheduled doubleheaders?

That consideration seems to be another the big brains have overlooked. It might also be reassuring if, with less than two weeks to go before the opener -- some Intercounty Baseball League teams are already playing games -- the fledging outfit had announced the signing of more than a whole one player signing on its website, although the league lists 15 under contract. No word on what level most of the players will come from, but the National Capital Baseball League (an "adult amateur league") has posted a message that the Capital City Cubs have folded, which is surely a coincidence. Way to beat the bushes, fellas.

Seriously, though, what if it rains? There were two postponements out of three scheduled games last weekend:

"There were 31 postponements in the 2009 regular season.

So it’s swell that the Fat Cats, taking Oshawa’s lost place in the loop, are paying the bus fare for other teams to travel to the nation’s capital.

It will probably save the Panthers around $1,500, (Kitchener Panthers president Bill ) Pegg guesses. It’s also fine that the Cats will put other teams up for a night in a hotel. But there will still be little wiggle room for delays when the Panthers make their lone weekend visit to Ottawa on June 5-6 for a Saturday double-header and a Sunday matinee.

" 'Most of these players work,' Pegg said. 'And we’re not the only team like that. You can't say to a guy, "Do you want to take off at noon on Tuesday and Thursday because we’re going to Ottawa." I don’t think so.'

" ... 'Most of the teams are on record as saying going to Ottawa during the week for playoffs just isn’t going to happen,' Pegg added.

"That means Ottawa needs the coveted fan-friendly weekend dates in a series. That’s another issue.

"So the IBL better pray for sunshine and clear skies, whenever the Fat Cats play.

"Otherwise, scheduling could get messy."

One almost wonders at the chutzpah of the Ottawa operators, making a nice, community-run Southern Ontario league re-arrange everything for them. What is their contingency for rainouts? Are we that arrogant in Ottawa to not realize we're tampering with almost a century of tradition?

Why are they charging 12 bucks a game and putting together a team of neighbourhood players who were hitherto playing in the NCBL, an "adult amateur league?" Enquiring minds are wondering.

Since the future of the Ottawa baseball stadium is hanging in the balance, these are questions the Ottawa media must begin asking this week, instead of rehashing ill-informed Expos-Jays comparisons about a baseball team in Toronto. Not next week.

(Speaking of: FYI, Mark Sutcliffe, it was not an "ESPN blogger" who said the Blue Jays should be moved to Caracas. Rob Neyer -- he has a name, you know -- was referring to that idiot in Chicago. Good luck with your next marathon, though.)

Related:
Panthers still wary of Fat Cats’ entry into IBL (Jeff Hicks, Waterloo Region Record)

Ottawa Fat Cats' field of dreams (or is it schemes?)

Ottawa's newest baseball concern is really putting the "fantasy" in fantasy camp.

The Ottawa Fat Cats, the somewhat fledgling expansion entry in the Inter-County Baseball League, are charging $850 for a fantasy camp they plan to hold in July at the Coventry Rd. ballpark. For about half that amount, you could score four tickets to tonight's Pittsburgh Penguins-Ottawa Senators NHL playoff game, and see actual household name athletes.

Not to dump on the IBL, but where did the Fat Cats get that price point? Who would pay $850 to hobnob with players from a level of baseball in which someone could actually hit .427, as Jeremy Ware (who ironically, tried out for the Ottawa Rapidz in 2008), did in 2009.

A fantasy camp affiliated with a MLB team will typically cost $4,000-$5,000, but that is for an entire week and includes airfare and accommodations. The Kansas City Royals did not even hold one this winter.

It strains credulity to believe a first-year team with largely anonymous players in a league which plays a 36-game schedule can get 40 people to plunk down $850 to toss a ball around with players from what a league one fan of the former Oshawa team described as "essentially an amateur, mostly weekend league in which the players show up when the games don't conflict with their school work or jobs."

Like the team name itself, one bad decision alone should not make or break this venture. It is enough to question the judgment of the people who are (loose usage ahead) organizing the IBL franchise and promising big things this summer. The Fat Cats already plan on having the highest ticket price in the league ($12 for single games, $18 for doubleheaders).

As for the $850 fantasy camp, who knows. Perhaps they will fly in Michael Richards to reprise the Seinfeld in which Kramer confessed to punching out Mickey Mantle at a fantasy camp ("I own the inside of that plate, Jerry").

Hoserdome: Picking the Olympic hockey team, while chewing on a Fellate of Fish

Mike Fisher is to Canada in 2010 as Ron Paul was to American politics in 2008. A few people really, really like him. Most people don't know who he is, let alone his qualifications.

Like a kid who swigged down a large Coke before a long car trip, it's impossible to hold this in any longer. The Fisher-for-Canada campaign has bordered on being a maple syrup-drenched Canadiana porn. The weak argument, which has had the most sway in Ottawa, won't die despite being stuck in Hockey Clichés 101 (Senators winger Chris Neil on The FAN 590 today: "Every game, he shows up, he plays hard. He does it at both ends of the ice. He'd be on my team."). It almost makes you wonder where we are as a sporting nation when people gleefully go along with such shallow jockism.

Fisher is a solid two-way player on an Ottawa Senators club which is getting on decentlypost-Dany Heatley (as prognosticated last June). He is the nice down-to-earth hockey player, truer to his roots than his VBF is on her visits to the salon. Even guys with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality will note he is totally man-pretty.

With all that, it is understandable why some fans want to see Fisher in Vancouver. What harm could he do as the 13th forward? It is understandable why some members of the hockey writers' tribe and CBC Sports clown Don Cherry, have played to the crowd, treating Fisher the way a public relations person treats a client.

This is not quite on a shame-on-them. You have seen Cherry's suits. You know he has no shame.

It's more of a comment on the divide between the Fish mongerers and those who would like to see sports debate in Canada -- i.e., hockey debate -- dragged out of some bygone era. It's just amusing when you have Fisher getting serious consideration in some circles, while other outside-of-Ottawa sources such as Tim Wharnsby at CBC Sports, Puck Daddy, the Kurtenblog guys don't even take the idea of Fisher seriously.

Three of five Globe & Mail writers had Fisher on their team. Two of four Hockey Night in Canada personalities, Cherry and Glenn Healy, also picked the Senator last Saturday. Oddly enough, in a Canwest News Service poll where editors, columnists and reporters made their picks anonymously, only 7% selected Fisher.

That is as it should be, since there are probably 18-20 Canadian forwards who are more eminently qualified. A cursory scan of Behind The Net shows Fisher has not exactly dominated opponents. He's benefited from playing with strong wingers, Nick Foligno, Alex Kovalev (yes, really) and the aforementioned Neil. He has averaged only 50 points per season in the post-lockout NHL. He doesn't offer much as a faceoff man, unlike other bubble players such as the Boston Bruins' Patrice Bergeron and the Chicago Blackhawks' Jonathan Toews.

Fisher being in the mix just attests to the paralysis by analysis that has gripped Canada every four years since the NHL began shutting down for the Olympics in 1998. People believe Canada needs a few role players -- cue Chris Neil, he does it at both ends of the ice! -- to play on the fourth line. Talk about a march to folly, where smart people pursue an end contrary to their self-interest (assist: Barbara Tuchman). Canada believes it can't match the offensive creativity and firepower of Russia, so its solution is to take fewer players with some serious snipe. As William Houston notes with the 2010 squad:

"Canada? An excellent team led by Sidney Crosby, but, like virtually every Canadian entry in an elite international competition, it will struggle to put the puck in the net. That's why Canadian general manager Steve Yzerman should be putting a priority on offensive talent rather than checkers. You have to assume the scorers will care enough to back check and pay attention in their own end. If it’s a choice between Martin St. Louis and Mike Richards, you go with St. Louis."

That hints at why Canada's only men's hockey medal since 1998 was aided by an all-time fluke goal, thanks again, Tommy Salo.

Who knows. Perhaps Team Canada GM Steve Yzerman will nail this and avoid the same pitfalls his predecessors did in '98 and 2006. Meantime, God only knows what is says when smart people wish to believe the No. 2 centre on a mid-pack Senators team should be one of Team Canada's 13 forwards. Ron Paul was a more legit candidate.

Enjoy the selection show on Wednesday at noon ET, presuming you can figure out which of 13 channels to watch it on.

In the interest of trying to be constructive, here is a potential 23-man roster:

• Forwards: Sidney Crosby, Jarome Iginla, Vincent Lecavalier, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Dany Heatley, Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Rick Nash, Jonathan Toews, Eric Staal, Brenden Morrow, Martin St-Louis.
  
  (Or Brad Richards, or Mike Richards, or Patrice Bergeron, or Shane Doan, or Patrick Sharp ... well, you get the point.)
  
  
• Defencemen: Dan Boyle, Jay Bouwmeester, Duncan Keith, Scott Niedermayer, Chris Pronger, Brent Seabrook, Shea Weber. (Niedermayer and/or Pronger should be left off in favour of Drew Doughty, but this is Canada. It won't happen. Whatever happened to Mike Green?)
  
  
• Goaltenders: Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Marc-André Fleury
  

Honestly, writing this called to mind the old This Hour Has 22 Minutes bit, "The Right Answer." Rick Mercer (funny in small doses) and Greg Thomey (the actually funny one) played two wingnut talking heads who would start off arguing but were really in agreement. They would shake hands and says, "And that's the right answer."

So, if Steve Yzerman actually selected Mike Fisher, and if Canada did not win gold, and if you take smug glee in that like you did when Canada with Todd Bertuzzi lost in Turin in 2006, what would that make me? An asshole. And that's the right answer.

Senators: 3,000 freebie tickets; paid attendance firm across most of NHL

Please keep in mind nothing with Ottawa Senators attendance is happening in a vacuum.

One part of the Ottawa Citizen report citing a "confidential report" that the Senators have had one of the biggest attendance drops in the NHL since last season lays bare that it's not just the economy. This really lays bare that what is happening with Senators attendance is unique even within the Wonderful World of Gary Bettman:

"In a memo accompanying the data, the NHL’s chief financial officer Craig Harnett wrote, 'It is worth noting that the 3.7-per-cent decline in paid admissions is mainly driven by three teams (Phoenix, Ottawa and Tampa Bay) that are each down over 21 per cent year-over-year. Excluding these three teams, paid admissions are down 0.8 per cent year-to-date."

You have your own interpretation, which is fine. Still, that basically says about the same number of people are paying to see NHL games this year as opposed to 12 months ago. One Canadian-based franchise in hockey-mad Canada is a major exception, right down there with two teams in based in U.S. states which have been devastated by the recession (both Arizona and Florida are right up there in the home foreclosure stats).

One reason empty seats are so commonplace at a lot of games in the big four ball-and-stick leagues is that teams have cut down on the free tickets (you'll remember this coming up in discussions about the Blue Jays). You don't give away your product in such times (which might actually make it worse).

Attributing the attendance drop to three franchises, granted, might be a major lily-gild on the NHL's part. This league has been known to offer up more than the occasional lame excuse. However, it was an internal report, so that would take away the incentive to sugarcoat. (If not, then the league really is in deep water.)

Here's the red meat of the Citizen article:

"The 22.8-per-cent drop is third-highest in the league, behind only the Phoenix Coyotes and the Tampa Bay Lightning. In the 30-team league, the Senators have fallen from seventh place in paid attendance to 19th.

"The Senators’ reported attendance has not fallen as far — only about seven per cent — because the number of free tickets issued by the team has increased dramatically.

"According to the report, the team handed out an average of 895 complimentary tickets per game last year. This year, that number has more than tripled to 3,047. Only two other teams, the Dallas Stars and the Atlanta Thrashers, give away more free tickets.

"The Senators have gone from using less than five per cent of their seats for free tickets to almost 16 per cent.

" ... And the Senators are the only Canadian team giving away such a large chunk of their tickets. Ottawa has six times as many complimentary seats as the next highest Canadian club, the Vancouver Canucks. And while the Senators are third highest, the other Canadian teams occupy five of the bottom six spots in the league for free tickets."

Senators president Cyril Leeder counter-point that might contain traces of BS: "We're already doing better in December. They have had only three home dates in December, a game vs. the Montreal Canadiens (announced attendance: 18,866) and two games that drew in the 16,000s, vs. Buffalo (16,917) and a Saturday night tilt vs. crappy Carolina (16,229). Bear in mind there might have been fewer freebies dished out for those games, we don't know that.

The other defence is there were fewer premium-price games against rivals such as Toronto (such as that is a rivalry). However, the Maple Leafs and Canadiens have each made one visit to SBP, the same as this point in 2008. The Pittsburgh Penguins, defending Stanley Cup champions, have already made both of their visits (last year the Pens' second one came in the new year) and the Alex Ovechkin-led Washington Capitals have been in once. Call that point a wash, at best.

Again, these are tough times. On a broader, macro level, there may be a seismic shift in the public's willingness to pay top dollar for to attend games of the Big 4 ball-and-stick leagues. Still, it's a bit of a sticky situation for the Senators.

Related:
Banner year eludes the Senators; The team is hot, but sales are cool; 22.8% drop third-highest in NHL, according to confidential report (Ottawa Citizen)
Previous:
Senators attendance drop should raise red flags (Nov. 9)

Senators deny themselves playoff revenue to get fans back

From the pro media:

"With attendance down more than six per cent this season, the Ottawa Senators are turning to price reductions and free parking to try and boost season ticket numbers."

The Ottawa Sun's Don Brennan provided more specifics::

"All renewing full- and half-season ticket holders will pay regular season prices during the first two rounds of the playoffs in 2010 and 2011, as well as discounts in rounds three and four."

There is an argument NHL teams go a little too far with jacking up the face value of tickets at playoff time. However, as you know, the NHL is an attendance-driven league. The post-season is where franchises can really make money (not to mention, there is the secondary ticket market). The Senators, to some extent, are punting that to try to get people back for the regular season, where a first priority is just to make sure a team makes enough to recoup expenses.

It is a concern the Senators are willing to agree to cap their potential take if they go deep into the playoffs. It is like a store closing early on the last Saturday before Christmas. Speaking as someone who does love living in a city with a NHL team ("better not move to Toronto" joke goes here).

Then again, it is possible the Senators organization lived a little high on the hog in 2006-07 and '07-08. Their financial fortunes may be returning to equilibrium, so it might not be so bad (just not great).

Meantime, not that the two are being linked, but it is amusing that was announced the same day The Universal Cynic passed along at a fan's tale of what can happen when someone comes to Scotiabank Place expecting to cheer at a hockey game, instead of sitting there like mummies:

"From before they even dropped the puck, SBP ushers were eye-balling us from every post. We assumed they had never seen Sens fans as dedicated as us before and didn't think much of it (remember, this is Ottawa – home of some of the worst fans in Canada). But that was short-lived as the ushers began asking anyone near us “Are they too loud? Are they bothering you? Everyone simply answered 'No, they’re fine'. Shortly after, 2 security guards showed up to tell us to deflate a beach ball one member had brought to the game – apparently due to safety reasons. Strange seeing as good’ole Spartacat himself launches hot dog missiles into the crowd at every game.... None the less, we complied, deflated the ball and continued to enjoy the game. This is when SBP staff stepped up their efforts and began random ID checks within our group only. I’d never seen this at a game before and didn’t understand seeing as the average age within the group was 25-35 and that we all provided identification when we purchased our beers. (I'd like to see them try doing random ID checks in the 100 level!) It was becoming painfully obvious that they really didn’t want us there! Not long after, one RSA member threw a handful of popcorn at one of his friends, which proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Before we knew it, our section was surrounded by 8 police officers in full uniform. Our 2 friends were asked to leave and weren’t given any explanation. All of this happened before the half way mark of the 2nd period! And for the rest of the game people around us were continuously asked by ushers if we were bothering them, and the answer continued to be 'NO!.'

Talk about confirming the Ottawa stereotypes (although it's notable people weren't bothered; the staff were just being a little officious).

Finally, someone who might have credibility (or at least class) wants to develop Ottawa Stadium

As someone said in September, the goal for Ottawa Stadium is to get a stable tenant. The sport may be named later, baseball or soccer.

The aim is to keep a stadium out on Coventry Rd., so baseball or soccer, is not such a big deal as far as keeping it from becoming condominiums is concerned. In other words, hearing about Neil Malhotra's intentions to put soccer and be willing to share with a baseball team. It is good news there is interest being expressed by someone who is legitimate. In other words, someone who is does not call .

It is also evidence the commenters are pretty smart, since they cannily anticipated someone would show interest in putting soccer there three months ago. (Of course, there's no parking.)

As for the guy whose initials as the same those for Douche Bag, please. That pathetic little loser (take it away, David Bowie in Extras) is the greatest time-waster since Tetris. Last week he wanted a women's professional baseball team. Next week it will be a team in some other podunk circuit such as the Golden Baseball League, which operates entirely in Western Canada and U.S. and whose teams run on a shoestring, making travel to Ottawa unrealistic. Seriously, sir, you have not been honest with us and worse, you're wasting the time of good people. Any credibility you might have accidentally had is only because of a local media corps that is too time-pressed to do some digging. Go away, and let someone who packs the essential gear between the ears try to make a go out of this. You had your moment, you insult-to-the-word-pitiful glory hog.

Related:

Neil Malhotra Wants to Put Pro Soccer in Ottawa Stadium (Ottawa Citizen)

Previous:
Butler puts true fans in a show-us state (Aug. 24)
Squeaky wheel greases skids for stadium fight (Aug. 22)
Credit him for chutzpah, nothing else (April 14)
This is terrible, this idea (Sept. 3, 2007)

Vindication! Former Rapidz owner strikes out in court

The former owner of the Ottawa Rapidz has suffered another defeat.

Rob Hall of Zip.ca and Momentous has been out for vengeance since his chute-pull after the Can-Am League team's single, farcical season in 2008. Earlier Tuesday, Judge Lynn Ratushny of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed Hall's actions against the Can-Am League and Bruce Murdock, a season-ticket holder and Ottawa resident who put a lot of time and sweat equity into the ill-fated franchise. Claims vs. the City of Ottawa and Can-Am commish Miles Wolff are still extant.

The long-story-short is this is vindication for those who were sickened by how Hall and former partner Rick Anderson's gong show in 2008 almost drove the final nails into the coffin of pro ball in Ottawa. The court not only threw out the claim on jurisdictional grounds (i.e., an Ontario court shouldn't address claims against a North Carolina-based league), but also on its merits, which could be significant in the event of an appeal.

Hall, et al., still has claims pending against Can-Am commissioner Miles Wolff and the City of Ottawa (these people is nothing if not thorough). I'll just reiterate what I said in '08:

"The record will show that you and fellow/former Zipperhead Rick Anderson bought the team and acted like overgrown brats with a new toy, not as keepers of a quasi-public trust. You rejected advice from people whose track record, unlike yours, actually suggests they know their ass from second base when it comes to baseball. Worst of all, you toyed with the hearts of the fans. They honestly believed that a new team would rise from the ashes of the Lynx's Long Goodbye. They feel like fools now, and honestly, that sucks.

The legal system is not in the business of applying salve to the thin skins of megalomaniacs. As noted eight months ago, what it boiled down to is that they were trying to get back at the people for their self-inflicted embarrassment. Far be it that they could have found the culprits for causing the embarrassment simply by looking in the mirror first thing each morning.

For pity's sake, one minute Hall was talking about signing a 30-year lease on the Coventry Rd. baseball stadium and the next they were accusing the city and Wolff of duping them into thinking baseball could work in Ottawa. They talked about buying the stadium, but they wouldn't pay their bills. Say whatever you want about the litigation former Ottawa Lynx owner Ray Pecor has vs. the City of Ottawa, but when his team pulled up stakes, they left with every bill paid in full. Wolff worked to get the Can-Am team going and won over the right people at City Hall. The city, for the record, wanted baseball back.

When you get right down to it, the Zipperheads threw an OPM party (other people's money) all summer long party in 2008. Since then, they have been trying to collect a payoff on the backs of people who were sincere about keeping pro baseball alive in Ottawa.

The Rapidz quote, unquote lost $1.4 million. In reality, one of the owners' other businesses, Momentous, was the biggest creditor, to the tune of about $700,000, so one wonders if that was just creative accounting. The rest was unpaid expenses owed to suppliers. Those are the real victims, the businesspeople who have to go to bankruptcy court in hope of getting pennies on the dollar.

The bottom line is Ottawa ball fans should laugh long and loud. They earned it the hard way, by having their hearts broken.

Senators attendance drop should raise red flags

... but have you seen many displayed on cars lately?

The Sens Army is lying pretty low.

There's a malaise in Hockey Country, no question. Ottawa Senators attendance is down more than 1,100 fans per game compared to the same point last season. (The average is 1,191 after Tuesday's game vs. Edmonton.) Take a look around the next time you're out, in a non-sports context. You could shoot a cannon through a Tim Hortons during the noon rush and not hit anyone wearing a Sens hat or hoodie in some parts of town.

(Update: Forbes magazine NHL valuations are out: Note which team lost money.)

There was "grumbling" (Ottawa Citizen) about the $14 cost for the tickets to the game the club's American Hockey League farm team played at Scotiabank Place last weekend. Two seasons ago, after the run to the Stanley Cup final, parents would have paid twice that to give their kids a Bag O' Glass if it had the Senators logo.

At the very least, though, the Senators' fall from grace is an issue. Will anyone write about it in this town? In Ottawa, make the barest inference the hockey team's doing poorly and you'll taste hemlock in your chicken shawarma. You're either a naysayer, a hater or a Leafs fan — theres always a label small minds fall back on. Plausible deniability, don't you know.

The media here is understandably in the tank for the organization. It's the city's only claim on major-league status. Pointing out anything negative is a sure ticket to the shit list. So, no one is going to suggest that the Senators can only be profitable and fill the arena when they're winning even though that's a bad business model in a salary capped-league. They only will if the Senators end up cap-in-hand again like they were in 1999 and 2003 and, personally, let us hope that does not recur.

People who are not beholden to the Senators for access are starting to ask these questions about owner Eugene Melnyk's plaything. Some mental red flags went off in October when there were 2,000 empty seats for a home game vs. the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. Around the same time, James Mirtle made a parenthetical comment the Sennies "could lose millions this year if they miss the playoffs."

All told, the Sennies are down an average of 1,141 fans from the same point as last season (from 19,484 to 18,343 after nine home dates). Late last night, you could have gone on the team's website and reserved four 100-level tickets for Tuesday's home game vs. Edmonton without having to sit behind the net, even with the game a little more than 36 hours away. FOTB Jean-Pierre Allard reports, "The Orleans SENS Store has closed its doors with Christmas just around the corner."

It would be glib to say this points to a downward spiral that will end with the franchise becoming the Mississauga Senators between now and the next time the Leafs make the playoffs. To be clear, it's nowhere near that point. (Granted, that might explain why the Eunibomber lashed out at Jim Balsillie back in the summer when he was trying to move a team into Southern Ontario.)

There are outside influences weighing on the franchise. The NHL is a mess. Gary Bettman's NHL is designed to make all 30 teams semi-watchable about half the time. That has hurt the Senators, who had a stacked team from 2003 through '06, more than some franchises.

Many passive sports consumers who got on the Senators bandwagon might be backing another team. Most sports consumers in any city are fluid in their tastes. It's the nature of the beast, not matter how it angers the diehards who are there for all 82 games, since getting a life is not an option (GAC).

What's happened?

It's a combo of discontent with how the team has fallen (7-7 this season vs. a suspiciously spongy schedule), the economy, Ottawa's demographics and the city's cultural paternalism.

Ottawa is not a town of front-runners. You typically hear, "this city loves winners," when someone is trying to make an argument about bringing a CFL team back to town (and I do hope it works). That's off.

It is a town of followers which loves whatever maintains the status quo. People claim the CFL teams died because of poor on-field performance. However, the Rough Riders had decent support throughout the 1980s, when they didn't have a single winning season. It took a solid decade of losing, a league-wide crisis in the CFL and owners from (affects scary voice) out of town before people started staying away.

Institutions govern so much of life in Ottawa that people fall into herd mentalities. It happens to the best of us and most of us are nowhere near the best, present company included. Those government-town stereotypes are true to some extent. This is one of the few places where a team could even use a slogan as militaristic as "Sens Army" and "A Force United" (which some culture-jamming bloggers altered to "A Farce United" last season) without getting some media outcry.

Ottawa is like a city composed of insecure teenage girls. The analogy fits Toronto, too, except in T.O. the creature has sharper claws. If Toronto is the character Rachel McAdams played in Mean Girls, Ottawa is the one played by Lacey Chabert. Fitting in and doing whatever is popular at that moment is everything, because they know they can be cast out and won't be missed.

That seeps into sports. "Hey, let's get the CFL back! ... "Hey, Toronto has a World Series baseball team, so let's get a Triple-A club one year before a strike devastates the professional baseball industry and accelerates the death knell of the closest MLB team, the Montreal Expos." They were late to the party.

When the CFL comes back, people will attend because Roger Greenberg, Bill Shenkman, John Ruddy, Jeff Hunt and whoever becomes mayor after Legal Suit Larry O'Brien say they should. The culture is that top-down.

The Senators are not as much of a thing to do among people who only get into sports when it's part of a socially approved mass movement, the ones who are needed to sell out the building and make impulse buys. It's of a piece with having a well-educated populace which has spent a tremendous amount of time in institutions like universities, which are paternalism in a can.

Never mind that mindset has actually put the team behind the 8-ball since the early days and that they've managed to make it work as much as they can. Institutionalized NIMBYism (in the form of the National Capital Commission) eventually led to the Senators building an arena way out yonder in Kanata in the mid-1990s, far from the city's population core. In Toronto, the teams might (might?!) suck and blow, but at least you're downtown once the Blue Jays, Raptors, or TFC are through indulging their flair for mediocre public display.

In Ottawa, you're stuck waiting a half-hour to get out of the parking lot before driving home. People in the public sector were willing to trade sleep for seeing enthralling, winning hockey, as opposed to what they're getting.

That should hopefully help explain there are somee small warning signs are there. It's certainly fair game at a time whe the Canadian hockey mafia start speculating whenever any U.S.-based team has a small crowd (granted, we're talking less than 10,000 in some places), but oh no, you couldn't possibly suggest Bettman's idiotic-times-eight business practices will impact a small-market franchise in Canada playing in a poorly located arena.

As for the Senators organization, as someone who's interested in successful group dynamics and leaderships — call it compensation for some career-related issues — one does wonder who keeps Melnyk in line. (This is speculative, to be sure.) Former GM John Muckler and former president Roy Mlakar were old-time hockey guys. One can imagine them telling Melnyk to shut up and that the only thing he knows about ice is that it's needed to make diaquiris. You wonder who's there to tell Melnyk he's not going to recover that $4-million bonus he had to pay Dany Heatley since it was a binding contract, or that suggesting fans and critics should "get a bomb and blow themselves up" is unbecoming.

Deny, deny, deny, all you want, but the Senators have some issues off the ice (as for on the ice, let's leave that to the professional sportswriters). The easy way out is to say it's the economy, calibre of opponents or people staying home to save local television by making sure they watch all 3 CSIs on CTV.

It will get harder to ignore if the Senators keep sliding. No one can stand here in 2009 and tell you where the NHL will have teams in 2019. Just don't be too smug.

(For anyone doubting the 1,191 figure, I counted. Bear in mind it's a small sample size and there are variables such as day of the week and opponent. For instance, last season's 10th home game was on Saturday afternoon, this season it was Tuesday:)

Opponent '08-09 '09-10 Total
Det/NYI 20,182 18,075 -2,107
Phx/Atl 20,179 19,360 -819
Bos/Pit 19,318 17,014 -2,304
Fla/TB 18,952 17,732 -1,220
Ana/Nsh 19,762 18,970 -792
Wsh/Bos 18,485 20,154 +1,669
Phi/Atl 18,938 17,297 -1,641
NY/TB 19,061 17,511 -1,550
Mtl/NJ 20,475 18,971 -1,504
NYR/Edm 19,619 17,977 -1,642

Avg. 19,497 18,306 -1,191

Canada's green jersey ... ol' lightning wit strikes again

This actually happened and can be corroborated.

Early Saturday afternoon. Two guys speed-walking through the parking lot at Lansdowne Park, where as per usual more people are trickling in for a trade show at Aberdeen Pavilion than an OUA football game at Frank Clair Stadium (official attendance was a pathetic 1,116 for the Windsor Lancers at the Ottawa Gee-Gees). As they walk, someone calls out, "Hey, what's with the Sweden shirt?" referring to one man's choice to wearing the bright gold Tre Kronor jersey to layer up against the fall chill.

What he said: "Bought it at the World Juniors, plus I have Swedish heritage."

What he could have said: "It's nice to wear a national team jersey that actually matches the country's flag." Who knew at the time Canada was preparing to wear a green jersey at the world juniors?

Allard: Could it be that Heatley was right?

Jean-Pierre Allard shares some thoughts about the Senators, their ownership and the local media corps in the wake of the Dany Heatley debacle now that the snivelling sniper has been traded to San Jose, where the man-to-woman ratio at bars is typically 4:1. (Good thing he's a got a girlfriend in California, if that story is true.) J.P. also warned in July that the Good Ship Melnyk is sailing into some choppy waters, with a broken rudder.

I've gone back and read all the microfiches of the Heatley era here in Want-out-tawa and have not found one single critical comment written by, the Ottawa Six Scribes (TOSS) (other than he failed to score 50 goals or is a lousy shootout driver). It cannot be that Dany Boy wanted out for the "Uh Oh" Corvo factor. Nor was he ever verbally promised a renegotiation if he scored 40 goals for a truly lousy team in a season where they had a junior coach, Craig Hartsburg, so it can't be explained by the "Yashin-Sexton line."

Nor was Heater ever embarrassed by the team dressing him in a nurse's outfit, so forget the Daigle angle. There is no way that he is pissed at the team for re-signing three-goal man Chris Neil or for not trading Jason Spezza before his no-trade clause kicked in July 1, though these would explain everything about him uninviting himself from the Spezza nuptials. I could not find anything to the effect that Heatley was miffed that the team had a parade for winning a big fat can of air, before playing the Ducks in the 2007 Stanley Cup final.

Nowhere was there anything about him voicing his displeasure about the team taking Ray Emery's job away from him when he was hurt and bad-mouthing him around the league. I thought I had seen something about Heatley pleading with John Muckler, whom owner Eugene Melnyk later fired for finishing second in the a 30-team league, to keep Zdeno Chara instead Wade Redden in 2006, but that was in a non-confirmed blog of twits and two-facebookies.

Apparently, Heatley almost did a spit-take with his Starbucks coffee when he read that Mike Fisher was crowned King in this town with the astronomical salary he was given to score 13 lousy goals. This has not been confirmed either but he absolutely loathed hearing "shutdown defenceman" and "Chris Phillips" in the same sentence.

So my guess is that when Professor Bryan Murray heard that Inspector Cory Clouston was gonna wait to see the white of Dany's eyes before deciding if he was a type-A personality (as in alternate captain), he figured he better talk to him the day before "tanning camp" opened.

When he saw Heatley's lazy eye had not perked up, he had no choice but to tell the Hogtown Horseman (Melnyk) that he had to trade him. Never mind that Heater would have been an Oiler for two freaking months by then, had he decided to play on the NHL's best ice surface and for the worst GM.

Before pulling the trigger on a trade that did not include Patrick Marleau, Ryane Clowe or one of those, what are they called, defencemen (19-year-old Erik Karlsson will instantly become the Eastern Conference's answer to Nicklas Lidström, I forgot), he sent his two loyal lieutenants to have a cheap breakfast at IKEA with the ingrate. Heatley quickly asked Captain Alfie if he could piggyback on him when he rides his skidoo to practice next winter. When Daniel said no to his brother Dany, the soon-to-be Shark then turned to Phillips if he could ride shotgun in his SUV and number 4 said: Don't even think about it.

That's when the differences became "irreconcilable."

Seriously, judging from the Senators organization's dubious track record in money games, plus all the tasteless promotions, questionable personnel decisions and horrendous mismanagement of its star players, could it be that maybe, just maybe Dany Heatley took a long and profound look at the big picture and decided he wanted no part of this team while his career was still in its peak years?

Who knows. Here's hoping that some astute member of the media will pull the story from him one day.

This is the one and only time I will be chiming in this season. On the advice offered by CBC Sports boss Scott Moore during last spring's playoffs and decided to take up gardening. Apparently, this sport is less hectic and physically easier than watching NHL, especially when you have to get up and change the channel every time Don "Disgraceful" Cherry comes on or an Ultimate Boxing Event breaks out.

Where have you gone, Davey Keon?

DanyWatch Day 88: Alfredsson doomed to have Heatley in the room

Finish the sentence: Daniel Alfredsson would prefer the Ottawa Senators trade Dany Heatley, lest he actually have to exercise leadership when the going gets tough.

Ask Scott Niedermayer what Alfredsson did the last time the Senators were in an inescapable jam. It is understandable why Alfredsson's well-after-the-fact comment, "Obviously, it would be best scenario for everyone," is going to get a fair bit of play in the city. He is the captain, the bland, pale, in-bed-by-11 personification of Ottawa. The sportswriters in the city worship him.

Not that this is coming from someone who has any idea about how the group dynamic of a NHL dressing room, but why say this with training camp opening a week from Saturday? Alfredsson kind of answered his own question with the second part of quote, "But if it was that easy, I think something would have already been done," comes off like the last thing he wants at this point in his career is have to deal with a schism (real or Schefterian) between him and the younger top-end forwards, Heatley and Jason Spezza.

Not that this is coming from someone with a screw's clue of how the group dynamic works in a NHL dressing room. Effective leadership involves having an optimistic face and always having contingencies for worst case scenarios. The Senators are six kinds of stuck. It is self-evident that Huey Lewis' Happy To Be Stuck With You should replace as Glenn Frey's The Heat Is On as the the gadawful '80s song which is played at Scotiabank Place after Heatley scores.

No one can really defend Heatley, but given his ability, he is at least entitled to some consideration. He is supposedly thin-skinned, so how

Mats Sundin, during his tenure in Toronto, would have got walloped if he had waited until a week before training camp to suggest the Leafs trade a disgruntled elite player (this is obviously hypothetical, presuming you could be unhappy playing in Toronto and presuming the Leafs had two elite players at once).

Point being, this might be the season where the halo gets torn off Alfredsson's head. The captain goes down with the sinking ship.

(Sorry, I know I have been irregular posting, but it had to be said.)

About Ottawa's bid to join an imploding soccer league...

(Not to mention that empty ballpark.)

The mud fight between USL team owners and the league's new corporate overlord will chart the course which determines whether pro soccer comes to Ottawa.

There is more than a cute little juxtaposition involved with Jeff Hunt and the Lansdowne Live gang in Ottawa applying for a franchise in the United Soccer Leagues First Division on the day after several of the league's owners all but declared civil war on USL-1's corporate ownership (and on the day before city council holds a huge meeting to discuss Lansdowne Live's proposal for the derelict stadium).

You could read into that the Ottawa is trying to get into a league several current owners are trying to get out of, but that would just be negative and bitchy. Also worth noting high up is that deep-down, the gut feeling is Hunt wants a USL team in Ottawa and it's not a smoke screen.

First, the mud fight: Several owners, including those of the Montreal and Vancouver teams, have drawn a line in the stand about their desire for "a team-owner controlled league" after Nike sold its controlling stake last week. To put it mildly, it's an interesting variable to throw into the equation. Montreal Impact owner Joey Saputo is also apparently interested in getting the Trois-Rivières Attak into USL-1 if his team leaves the league for MLS.

It wouldn't necessarily hurt the Hunt bid, which is in partnership with John Pugh's grass-roots Ottawa Fury. It will affect it if it turns out the map of pro soccer in "northern North America" is about to get redrawn. It also seemed to be an underplayed element in the initial wave of hometown coverage from Ottawa Business Journal, CBC.ca and Sun Media.

This is not a commentary on the Ottawa bid or Lansdowne Live's motives. It is definitely politic to create the impression with an ever-skeptical public and city council that the stadium is going to be used for more than a CFL team and retail. Hunt's release mentions having the CFL, pro soccer and two university football teams all sharing the stadium, which sounds very promising, but also very busy.

It is a positive to have tapped into Pugh's sweat equity and expertise (although it could have been done 10 months ago). At least Hunt, et al., got the right idea eventually. Your guess is as good as any why this apparently never occurred, far as was reported, to Senators owner Eugene Melnyk.

Meantime, please keep in mind Ottawa still has another stadium dilemma with the ballpark on Coventry Rd., which is going unused. One does idly wonder if Hunt is playing coy and plotting perhaps putting a soccer team at that stadium. That way, they have a hand in control of two venues and keep someone else from developing it as a concert venue.

Triple-A baseball stadiums in Portland, Oregon and San Juan, Puerto Rico, have proven adequate for pro soccer (imagine the first-base line as one sideline, with the third-baseline as one end line), with temporary bleachers out in deep left field). That is a valuable asset the city of Ottawa is not using. The Coventry Rd. stadium could also be used by the W-League Fury and the various youth teams. Far-fetched, I know. Maybe the other site ends up as condos.

Baseball is still in the picture, of course, but the goal is to get a stable tenant using that stadium. If you're a taxpayer, the sport can be named later.

Meantime, good on Hunt and Pugh et al. One would hope the USL's issues don't undermine their goal of attracting a pro soccer team, in any reputable league.

Ottawa Can-Ams: Butler doesn't have the goods

No doubt Dave Butler might try to turn the fact the Can-Am League has a franchise
which has no place to play to his advantage:

"On Tuesday afternoon Nashua Mayor Donnalee Lozeau, as she had promised Monday, prevented the (American Defenders of New Hampshire) ... from playing their regularly scheduled game against the New Jersey Jackals. In addition to the tractor parked at home plate, new locks were put on the stadium gates, presumably to prevent the team from allowing fans to come in the ballpark."

Speaking of Mr. Butler and his plans to put a Can-Am team in Ottawa ... apparently someone reviewed his business plan, so-called, and the reaction was along the lines of, "That's it?!" It was no more detailed than the sparse outline he provided on Monday for the media.

Forget strike three. Butler is on about strike eleven, if anyone in Ottawa cares to check the scoreboard. Sorry to be turning this into a single-topic blog. Getting all those football previews written for cisblog.ca is taking up a lot of time.

The Defenders will likely play out their season on the road, to hazard a guess.

Related:
Defenders locked out of Holman (Tom King, Nashua Telegraph)

Ottawa Can-Ams: Dave Butler puts true fans in a show-us state

Put up or shut up, David Butler.

An attention-seeker with zero track record as a sports operator can only do harm to efforts to get any kind of franchise up and running at Ottawa's Coventry Rd. stadium. The big publicity stunt that you saw today was a pathetically obvious attempt to try to do a selling job on the city council.

Most reports have ignored that the sub-lease the Can-Am League negotiated with the ownership of the defunct Ottawa Lynx expires at the end of September. Butler is trying to create a groundswell of support — a hackneyed ploy straight from his hero Frank D'Angelo's playbook — before the amateurs have to clear the floor and make room for the big boys who would like to lay hands on that piece of property. That is his journey.

Anyone who has been following this story these past two years knows Butler, will in all certainty, go back under his rock once his 15 minutes are up. The real risk is that Butler can do damage to groups who want to make serious inquiries about the facility, be it for Can-Am League baseball, another ball team, perhaps soccer (you could get the capacity up to 14,000 seats by putting temporary bleachers, but where would people park?).

Stringing along the public while an indifferent and/or lazy media laps it up (hey, have to generate content and it is the last week of August) could be damaging. If people buy Butler's cock-and-ball story and it doesn't work out, which is pretty damn likely, it hurts the chances of a more credible operator doing something. It could also mean the city would be less likely to make a fair deal on use of the stadium. (For those who don't know, all the sports facilities in Ottawa, such as the Sensplex, are heavily subsidized by the city, but the ballpark was not, although that was one among many reasons the Lynx are livin' in Allentown.)

Meantime, for the media who gave Butler his photo op, how hard is it to work the Google on the Internet machine and get some idea of what he is about? How tough is it to contact Can-Am League commissioner Miles Wolff?

Dave Butler and his partner, Duncan MacDonald are inexperienced and in 99.9% likelihood are underfunded. They have no experience. It is established beyond a reasonable doubt that Butler has not produced when it matters. He could not even get the team bus to arrive at the stadium to pick the Rapidz up for a road trip last season. No amount of calling yourself an "Ottawa businessman" (CBC's term) and saying you are "ready to go now" will make up for being cash- and knowledge-deficient. If he can pull it off, more power to him, but it is probably not happening and shame on the media for letting itself be taken on a trolley ride.

Forget asking to see the colour of someone's money — in this case, it's more like seeing if someone has money, period. Meantime, once that lease is up at the end of next month, someone more credible probably will roll out a plan. Beware anyone who tries to push his case through the public.

Related:
New Ottawa baseball pitch lands at city (CBC.ca)

DanyWatch: Talking about the game for a change ... but there's a time and place

How about that: On Saturday, when Ottawa Senators designated quitter Dany Heatley dominated in headlines and on sports networks, the Ottawa Citizen dedicated an editorial to sports. Only it was about Dave Smart and the Carleton Ravens!

It is freakin' sweet to see the "Eastern Ontario Ravens" get that kind of love. Carleton could not buy that kind of publicity. When else will Odessa be mentioned in the editorial page of a newspaper in Canada's capital city? Effin' A. It would not do to soak the blanket, wring it out and rant about sports being on the editorial page, or why newspapers still have editorial pages. That seems to be where this is headed. Come along, let's all be contrarian bastards!

First off, the op-ed pages are a huge space-waster. People make up their own minds rightly or wrongly. The Simpsons nailed it 10 years ago when Ned Flanders told Lisa he read everything in the newspaper, "but the opinion page. I don't need to be told what to think — by anyone living."

What Spencer Hall recently said at The Sporting Blog about the death of the general sports columnist goes triple for the op-ed pages. (Pete Toms, always an early adopter, pointed out in conversation a couple years ago there was no reason for him to read a general sports columnist.)

"... the audience is no longer captive. They can roam the internet looking for whatever they like, and if they're under 40, they're not waiting for it to come to them on their doorstep. They are still prisoner to one constant, however: the hunger for quality ... it's not because the audience lost the taste for something necessary. It is because they were making do all along with what they had, and left the instant they got a better offer.

There are practical reasons. Reporters and editors are having a tough time finding enough space for good storytelling. The high cost of paper, for instance, has meant some newspapers have reduced their paper size. The Ottawa Sun recently lost an inch.

Day after day, though, two perfectly good "opens" (newsroom argot for pages with no ads) are tossed away for no good reason other than it's always been done that way. To hell with that. First and foremost, op-ed pages do nothing for advertisers, due to the outdated view advertising and editorial must be separate. Meantime, it is inefficient use of space:

• Editorials: A media outlet's stance can be expressed by betting blending analysis and insight into the articles at the front of the paper. There is a reporter at the Simcoe (Ont.) Reformer, Monte Sonnenberg, who has always worked on that principle. Monte always had his facts together while realizing it is more fun and rewarding for all if the reporter lends a certain philosophical bent to the process (to borrow Heatley's favourite word). .
  
  Monte won a National Newspaper Award recently in the local reporting category. It was not by happenstance. It was something he built up to by refining his pitch.
  
  
• Letters to the editor: Put them on the Internet or direct users to message boards which is what newspapers should have started doing in 1995. Instead, they got started about 10 years late trying to democratize the media and even then, stopped about a quarter of the way.
  
  
• Opinion columists: 95 per cent of the time, any reader worth having knows what the opinion columnist is going to say just by the headline. Most just preach to the converted. To borrow some Flandersese, they have become that gosh-darn pre-dilly-ictable. It is the media equivalent of plain white bread with a glass of water for dippin'.
  

You see the irony. The era of the general sports columnist is over because people can get sports opinions so fast and furious. Yet newspapers, and the Citizen is not being singled out here because it happens quite often, are putting sports opinions in place of news coverage. They are chasing a percentage they cannot catch. What a waste.

Normally, what the Citizen puts in editorials would not matter much to me. It only came to attention via cishoops.ca. That kind of proves the point. As Hall says, the model now for opinion writing is "a devoted specialist ... or even a tangent-hopping single-topic writer ... or heaven forbid, writers who didn't write about sports at all."

An editorial on a sports really should be reserved for when it will affect people who don't follow sports. A good example is when politicians are mulling whether to spend taxpayers' money on a new stadium (and isn't that a going concern in Ottawa right now?)

This more about the mentality, than the Citizen's choice of topic. It was ballsy for it to break the Hockey Reflex. It was a bit of an oasis at a time when the hockey sweater Canada will wear at the Vancouver Olympics is a lead story on a CBC national newscast (take it away, TSM).

There is the argument that media outlets should be more responsive to readers' issues. The Globe & Mail's profile of thetyee.ca's founder, David Beers, mentioned how it once "posted a request for donations, with the twist that donors could vote for which political issues they would like the site to cover, with the money divided accordingly. Over $10,000 poured in."

In Ottawa's case, everyone and her/his cat allegedly wanted to hear about what's to be done with this Dany Heatley. All summer, anything Heatley-related has usually been one of the most popular stories on ottawasun.com.

It does not matter that nothing new whatsoever came out of Friday's clusterfudge. It is even more irrelevant that expecting anything of worth to come out of an athlete's conference call is absurd and anyone who tried to trade off should feel ashamed. Dany Heatley needs to ask his agents what his opinion is on toothpaste, so why are we wasting our beautiful minds hanging on his every word? There is still a far greater audience for Senators non-news than there is for Canadian university basketball. And that's fine.

It was wicked to read about the Eastern Ontario Ravens. Never mind that someone working for free coined the phrase "flinty Eastern Ontario toughness" before the Kingston trio of Rob Saunders, Stu Turnbull and Aaron Doornekamp completed their eligibility. It can also be excused that Syracuse was not included among the big-time Big East basketball schools, even though it did have NBA lottery pick Jonny Flynn playing for them last season.

This is Dave Smart's due, for certain:

"There is the sportsmanship that the team shows in its wins and rare losses. And there is also the pedigree of the players. If you look down the Ravens roster, you will see, not unlike other years, that of the 14 listed players on the program, only two are from outside Eastern Ontario. They are not the Carleton Ravens but the Eastern Ontario Ravens. They are players grown at home.

" ... Smart suffers no fools, accepts no mistakes, will not countenance any bad sportsmanship on the court. He rides referees like cowboy on a bronco. He is single-willed and accepts nothing less from his players. You must be a patient man to play for Smart but the rewards are great and he garners respect from his charges. He makes his players better people."

OK, so here's a simple answer about the article that seemed to be the spur under one's fingernail: Carleton cannot buy that kind of publicity.

Of course, that's because op-ed pages don't bring in any advertisers and don't add any value. You see the artificially created dilemma.

Ottawa Can-Ams: Squeaky wheel greases skids for stadium fight

David Butler can only go so long without seeing his name in print, but that's not a worrying thing.

Butler's grandstanding on Friday was valuable. It pointed out that the future of summer sports, not necessarily baseball, in Ottawa is joined at the hip with who gets control of the stadium. It's not about the sport (it might be about which sport, since you could put a soccer team there). At least if Butler is running his mouth, perhaps it plants a seed with someone else about operating a summer team in Ottawa (Can-Am League, whatever league, maybe footy) in Ottawa.

Please forget the irony in his comment, "We are going try and make a run at it again" (Sun Media) with a Can-Am League ballclub. Butler using word we is a hoot and a half. For two years, he has refused to say who is part of his group which wants to turn Ottawa's baseball stadium into a multiuse entertainment facility. As for again, what was Butler's involvement the first time, besides screwing up the buses for the Rapidz' first road trip?

Anywho, the league's "best bet for strengthening itself could lie in Canada," according to indy baseball scribe Bob Werz. Trois-Rivières is the closest to a firm possibility. Suburban Montréal would be perfect if it was physically possible to put Ottawa's entire stadium on rollers and move it two hours east. Ottawa offers a stadium and some loyal fans.

The Can-Am has received a shot in the arm publicity-wise from Éric Gagné bringing his supposedly shot arm to the Québec Capitales. Running with eight teams is better than the current six, since it makes for a less repetitive schedule. There is some potential, although broader sports-watching trends don't hold much sway in Ottawa. Nothing that happens anywhere else could ever have sway in Ottawa. That point was reaffirmed during the whole MLS-CFL debate in late 2008-early '09. The right side came out on top, but it was rich to see the pro-CFL side dismiss MLS as small-time. It has had tremendous launches in Seattle and Toronto (the expansion Sounders' average attendance rivals the baseball Mariners, albeit it with one-fourth as many games) and will be hit in Portland and Vancouver.

Whoever tries to make a go with baseball in Ottawa is going to have to step up in a market where two ball teams have gone by the wayside. Most people don't know or care the Triple-A Lynx were bled dry or that the Rapidz were rendered a joke by nimrod owners who didn't know their assets from second base. Perception is reality.

Meantime, the onus is on the media to be more judicious with figuring out if someone is credible rather than saying, "Hey, this guy says he wants to own a baseball team." Don't we all want to own a baseball team, and have an elephant?

David Butler is a trifle. The same might go for this other character who has come out of the woodwork, Duncan Macdonald. His description screams, "true believer." Macdonald says he worked for the Toronto Blue Jays during their World Series years. Apparently he did some scouting, but in the grand scheme part-time scouts have about as much to do with a Major League Baseball team's success in a given season as the assistant to the travelling secretary.

Listening to Butler describe his grandiose vision is like listening to George Costanza describe his fake house in the Hamptons. Butler at least has the good sense to scurry off and let it die rather than drive his dead fiancée's parents out to the end of the island.

That doesn't mean Butler won't try the same old ploy of telling anyone who will listen about using the stadium for concerts. It's awfully familiar:

Ottawa Business Journal, Aug. 31, 2007: "David Butler has interests with a prestigious list of firms to turn Lynx Stadium, which hosted its last Triple-A Ottawa Lynx game today, into a multi-service entertainment and sports complex within perhaps 20 months."

Sun Media, Aug. 21, 2009: "David Butler ... says he has submitted a proposal to the city and to Can-Am League commissioner Miles Wolff to re-open the doors of the Ottawa Baseball Stadium and field a team.

" ... However, given the checkered history of baseball at the Coventry Rd. stadium, Butler says he wants to use the facility for more than just baseball.

"Butler would like the city to allow the stadium to be used for concerts and other events.

" 'Baseball would be one product,' said Butler. 'Nobody will make just baseball work. I want something there every day.' "

The point is the baseball story is not going away in Ottawa. Having a stadium and a population of 1 million increases the odds of someone taking a shot. Of course, having a population of 1 million also increases the number of people who will listen to David Butler. C'est la vie!

DanyWatch Day 39: Mr. Heatley, tear down those walls

The other shoe to drop in the Dany drama will be whatever pair of Manolos that Jason Spezza's very blond bride has chosen to go with her wedding dress.

Dany Heatley actually spoke to a reporter for about 30 seconds this week. The rub is Spezza is getting married in Ottawa on July 25, so either Heatley will snub his linemate and a mid-summer piss-up with the boys to avoid the hometown press corps, or he'll have to address questions lest the happy couple be overshadowed. In that regard, maybe he comes off better for not giving an interview to the Kelowna Daily Courier, a fine broadsheet and saving himself for Ottawa.

"Then came the questions: Dany, I'm so and so from The Daily Courier, was hoping I could shoot the breeze on some hockey stuff with you?

" 'Not right now, man. Sorry, I'm just about to take off, actually,' said Heatley, pleasant but clearly surprised to see a reporter standing there.

"OK, fair enough, could we set something up for later on, maybe later in the week or next week?

" 'You know what, I'll take your card and I'll give you a call or have someone give you a call. We'll be in touch.'

"And so ended a rather anticlimactic encounter."

Heatley doesn't deserve sympathy, just understanding. It barely needs reiteration that his agents told him to keep it zipped and that strategy backfired. When one side is not talking, the other side gets more time and space for its perspective. It is pre-Politics 101.

If anything, the way the Heatley story has arced illustrates what Bill James once called the "cultural rift between sportswriters and players which became manifest in the 1970s."

People in general, present company included, are behind the curve when it comes to James' point, made in 1984, that "the walls between the public and the participants of sports are growing higher and higher and thicker and darker, and the media is developing a sense of desperation about the whole thing. It is easier to ape Steve Carlton's example in how to deal with a reporter than it is to mimic his dedication to excellence, so every day more players become unapproachable; the simple expectation of being able to communicate with the inside is decaying."

Damien Cox noted in the foreword to his Martin Brodeur book that hockey writers seldom get more than a couple minutes to talk to a player one-on-one before some team functionary appears to whisk him away. Dealing with the media, especially print reporters who have to find something to write about beyond the games, since TV usurped the job of covering the game some time around 1960, is a potential negative. Never mind that, as the Toronto Maple Leafs figured out, it's better to get torn a new one on the front of the sports section than have a positive story back on page S8 (or farther down on the website).

You see the dilemma. Traditional media trumpets its access and access is carefully curtailed, plus the changes happening to print media mean it's harder to get authorization to send a reporter to camp outside Heatley's home. You know why you seldom see any notable NFL news break on a Saturday during the season? Because the coaches and players are in virtual lockdown. Those bitter jokes columnists of a certain vintage crack about how the day is coming when athletes will only communicate with the public via Twitter and their personal website have a ring of ironic truth.

Meantime, Heatley skates into all of that with his trade demand, puts walls up, and gets crucified. Honestly, reading that story in the Kelowna paper, he doesn't come off as the evil guy all too many people in Ottawa have portrayed him as for the past five weeks.

As for leaving people "hanging" as Chris Stevenson noted, the season doesn't start for two months. Even exceptionally thick hockey players must know there are no guarantees in life.

Related:
Heatley seen, but not heard (Larry Fisher, Kelowna Daily Courier)

The Danys of our lives: In which we go broke appealing to the highest common denominator

Ottawa Senators fans are right to fume over DanyDebacle '09. The point remains, as noted yesterday, that the "endless flame-fanning and rip-jobs in the Ottawa media ... got really old really fast."

Call it naive, whatever, there was a time this cowboy would have been one of the 450 get-a-lifers on the Fuck Dany Heatley Facebook group. It is just hard to see the gain in slamming Heatley day after day for not just surrendering his "negotiated right through the no-movement clause to have a strong say in where he gets traded." (Pierre LeBrun, ESPN.com.) It's negotiated. Contrary to what some bar patron quoted in the Ottawa Sun, the Senators cannot actually "stick him in the minors and let him rot." This came to mind before Jason Spezza stood by his wingman in an article posted on the website, by the way.

Being a fan is not expressed by venting the kind of rage typically seen on cable news (please don't take that last part literally, it's just a good article). There is no desire to side with Heatley (AKA Joseph Stallin) side for the sake thereof. It would just be nice if the city's rank-and-file looked a bit better informed about sports. There is an exemption if you write half-funny, like Scott Feschuk at Macleans ("A small number of Ottawa residents are still keen to give him the key to the city, though only if he agrees to accept it rectally.")

Anyway, it's not a defence, but Alanah McGinley at Kukla's Korner has an all-things-considered post on the whole mess that reasonable-minded Senators fans ought to read.

"... most of the rhetoric floating around seems to go off the charts.

"And why? Well, the justification for this is clear, we're told. First, Heatley went public with his desire to leave Ottawa. Next, he turned down a possible escape trade to Edmonton, making the situation infinitely worse.

"However, being that I’m willing to give Heatley the benefit of the doubt, I’m also willing to believe in at least the possibility that there were other factors at play in the choices he’s made in the last few weeks. After all, it wasn't so long ago that a goalie named Ray Emery was in the hot seat, getting blamed for all the destruction around him as his once-mighty Senators took an abrupt and unexplainable plummet into the crapper. And back then, everyone whispered all sorts of unsubstantiated and shocking gossip blaming Emery for the team’s fortunes.

"But then Emery left and seems to have done reasonably well since then. And yet Ottawa is still... Ottawa.

"So isn’t it remotely possible — just an tiny bit possible — that the problems in Ottawa might have more to do with the Senators organization itself than any one player? If so, then maybe Dany Heatley's comments to Darren Dreger last night, implying he felt he was getting deliberately screwed around by the team, are at least reasonable from his point of view. (Not that I have any reason to believe he was, simply that I'm no more likely to let the Senators off the hook than I am to let Heatley off for this mess.)

"On the other hand, Heatley is the one that made this public and that wanted out of a contract that HE willingly signed in the first place, so he has plenty of fault in this no matter what. And I’m not saying the Senators are the 'bad guys' in this drama, either. Only that we don’t necessarily know the whole story. And since Heatley strikes me as a reasonably smart guy able to anticipate he'd look pretty bad in all this, I can only assume he felt he had good reasons to take this path.

"Whatever the truth, it seems likely there's far more back-story to this than simply 'Dany Heatley is an evil psycho,' and everyone's sanctimonious moaning about how terribly Heatley has treated the 'poor Ottawa Senators' strikes me as an infantile over-reaction. At the end of the day, it's just business, and conflicts aren't unheard of in business, especially given the amounts of money at stake.

"... until some clever and gutsy Ottawa hockey journalist writes a tell-all book about Heatley and/or the Senators, I'm reserving judgment."

Point being, it's a little much to hear people making statements such as, "He's hurting the city's reputation." Hurting the city's reputation is supposed to be Larry O'Brien's job ... at least for the next couple weeks.

Meantime, LeBrun's column is a pretty balanced take on the ramifications of Heatley killing a trade. Freudian slip fans will note he refers to the Ottawa media as "the Senators' media," which is odd. Self-serving though it might be, agent J.P. Barry told LeBrun the Senators kind of screwed themselves:

"I specifically told (Bryan Murray) two days ago, long before the trade happened, 'Do not trade him to Edmonton until you have other options.' And he turned around and consummated the trade despite my request. The result of which is that I get a phone call from a guy that I really respect in Steve Tambellini, who was excited, and I had to inform him what happened.

"I think it was completely mishandled by (Murray). It was a pressure tactic. He loaded up the gun and put the gun against our heads."

"We advised Bryan continually that Dany requires more than one option (team) to make a decision and, as of last night, we still only had one option, so he still wasn't able to make a decision, given that there still was only one option in front of him."

Meantime, fans have a right to be livid. They also have an option to play it smart and unlike the option Heatley had, it doesn't involve having to pack for Edmonton. Bonus! Oh, sorry, shouldn't use that word.

Remember, we're all in this together.

As a post-script, Down Goes Brown imagined how a conversation between Heatley and Oilers president Kevin Lowe might have unfolded:

"Lowe: Now, just so I'm clear on your side of things, you're demanding a trade because...

Heatley: ... because I can't spend another day in Ottawa. I'm miserable beyond any measure of human understanding. Every day I spend in Ottawa is the worst of my life, and the only joy I find is in the knowledge that every day wasted in that god forsaken town brings me one day closer to the icy relief of death.

Lowe: I see. And you're not waiving your no-trade clause because...

Heatley: ... all that still sounds better than spending the winter in Edmonton."