Tuesday, January 13, 2004
The indoctrination was successful!
Bruce Garrioch and the other hacks in the Ottawa hockey media had their meeting with NHL VP Bill Daly yesterday.
Bruce's article about the meeting is telling.
Some of the quotes:
Though Gretzky -- a part-owner of the Coyotes -- and Lemieux -- who has a stake the Penguins -- haven't been actively involved in discussions with the union, Daly indicated their input is a possibility.
"If we feel they can play a role and help the process, we're not going to rule out anything," Daly said in an interview at the NHL headquarters in Manhattan.
In other words, if Gretzky and Mario are willing to peddle the league's propaganda to convince hockey fans that missing NHL is a good thing, the league will be happy to have them aboard.
One thing is certain: There haven't been any productive discussions since June 4 when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and union head Bob Goodenow met.
So if there's been nothing new to report for over six months, what is the point of the meeting? Why wouldn't a press release suffice?
Daly isn't willing to come out and say there will be a work stoppage, but he says the league has done market studies and more people in Canada support a lockout to getting the system corrected than people in the U.S.
Maybe that's because a greater percentage of people in Canada care about hockey then in the US?
"The results of support have been very strong in Canada and in the United States. People want us to fix the problem and they feel it needs to be fixed," said Daly.
"It's much stronger in Canada than it is in the United States. Canadian fans are telling us that we need to fix it because it's important for the game."
What is the problem that needs to be fixed?
To many fans, the problem is tickets are too high. To people in Winnipeg the problem is that they don't have a team. A lot of people naively believe that a new CBA will fix these problems.
In Canada, five of the six teams look like they're making the playoffs. Three of those teams have their fans thinking they can win the Cup. Do half the American teams think the same thing? Can you name 12 American teams that have their fans thinking they can win the Cup? There's a chance there won't even be 12 American teams in the playoffs.
During the 90-minute session -- which Daly has held with media across North America this season -- the league marched out enough numbers to boggle the mind, but the bottom line is the current CBA is not working.
There's an old saying that if you can't dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with bullshit. Does anyone really think that anyone in Ottawa's media can crunch a shitload of numbers? For the most part, these guys couldn't even get a journalism degree from a university (Ian Mendes from Sportsnet would be the exception since he does have a journalism degree from Carleton University's well respected Journalism program). I suspect that many of them would have a hard time doing their taxes.
Bruce's article about the meeting is telling.
Some of the quotes:
Though Gretzky -- a part-owner of the Coyotes -- and Lemieux -- who has a stake the Penguins -- haven't been actively involved in discussions with the union, Daly indicated their input is a possibility.
"If we feel they can play a role and help the process, we're not going to rule out anything," Daly said in an interview at the NHL headquarters in Manhattan.
In other words, if Gretzky and Mario are willing to peddle the league's propaganda to convince hockey fans that missing NHL is a good thing, the league will be happy to have them aboard.
One thing is certain: There haven't been any productive discussions since June 4 when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and union head Bob Goodenow met.
So if there's been nothing new to report for over six months, what is the point of the meeting? Why wouldn't a press release suffice?
Daly isn't willing to come out and say there will be a work stoppage, but he says the league has done market studies and more people in Canada support a lockout to getting the system corrected than people in the U.S.
Maybe that's because a greater percentage of people in Canada care about hockey then in the US?
"The results of support have been very strong in Canada and in the United States. People want us to fix the problem and they feel it needs to be fixed," said Daly.
"It's much stronger in Canada than it is in the United States. Canadian fans are telling us that we need to fix it because it's important for the game."
What is the problem that needs to be fixed?
To many fans, the problem is tickets are too high. To people in Winnipeg the problem is that they don't have a team. A lot of people naively believe that a new CBA will fix these problems.
In Canada, five of the six teams look like they're making the playoffs. Three of those teams have their fans thinking they can win the Cup. Do half the American teams think the same thing? Can you name 12 American teams that have their fans thinking they can win the Cup? There's a chance there won't even be 12 American teams in the playoffs.
During the 90-minute session -- which Daly has held with media across North America this season -- the league marched out enough numbers to boggle the mind, but the bottom line is the current CBA is not working.
There's an old saying that if you can't dazzle them with brilliance then baffle them with bullshit. Does anyone really think that anyone in Ottawa's media can crunch a shitload of numbers? For the most part, these guys couldn't even get a journalism degree from a university (Ian Mendes from Sportsnet would be the exception since he does have a journalism degree from Carleton University's well respected Journalism program). I suspect that many of them would have a hard time doing their taxes.
