Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Closing The Door

I am not just a blogger about Hockey, but for some strange reason the sport seems to draw you in and captivate you. I'm a basketball and soccer athlete and played both on a highly competative level for some time, but as a fan its different watching a team you love be pulled away. As a competitor you can fight as hard as you can and say I did everything I could but we still lost and be able to sleep that night.

Being a fan is much more difficult. Especially if your team is the Atlanta Thrashers. We had to sit through years of an incompetant GM, owners suing themselves, and and underbudget team flounder for 11 years with one glimmer of hope. Being a coach its frustrating to watch and a quote comes to mind that makes me wonder how the gentlemen, scratch that, IDIOTS that call themselves the ASG were able to make enough money to run this team.

It simply reads this: "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result."

Its not super profound, its not awe-inspiring, its a simpe fact of life. The only things that never changed before we saw this team start to turn some corners this year were Don Waddell and the ASG running this team into the ground.

Now as Gearon got on the radio and said the reason for a low payroll was "going youg like they did in Pittsburg creates a lower payroll". Thats a lie, you let players walk because you couldn't look them in the face and ensure that all your efforts would go to building a winner. THE PLAYERS KNEW YOU CARED MORE ABOUT BASKETBALL THAN HOCKEY. All of Atlanta knew that when you let Waddell fire Heartly when in reality it was waddells turn to be shown the door since he was incapable of finding the right players for his coaches.

We hire Rick Dudley and the biggest names on our team sign a 5 year deal and the players that are traded here are excited about being here. Take Waddell out and look at the change. Why we didn't get Brian Burke to start off with is beyond me (Yes I get Waddell is a product of the Big Red Borg but he never really had any personal responisiblity there).

Now, I could go on and rant about different things ownership could have done to make this better and how we should have fired waddell before we let Heartly go but it comes back to the owners here. Not once did they stick up for the players and really show they cared, rather they mocked the fans and showed how little they knew about relations.

I am not here to chide or start a war, rather its a simple fan showing some frustration and wanting to know why a city won't stand up and force these owners to be responsible and build a franchise here like they promised to do.

Maybe third time is the charm... If we ever get one.

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

What In The...

The letters about sums this cluster**** (insert dirty 4 letter words here): WTF (or whisky-Tango Foxtrot as Mr. Rawhide likes to say.

So I think we are at 4 sale options here for the entities in Atlanta:


  1. TNSE- just wants the Thrashers

  2. "The Balkin" (decoded to JR Smith of Detroit) wants All 3

  3. Some mystery local ownership group that wants all 3

  4. Former Houston Astros owner who just wants Phillips and the Hawks

Confused yet? The worst part about it is ASG refuses to talk to anyone about where any of the groups proposals are. So we are blind in the dark with a 25% chance of getting this right... I feel like im in the middle of Arrandas "Still in the Dark".


Anyone with more expertise that wants to chime in and try and clarify this mess please do because that bottle of jack that is sitting in my condo looks really friendly for the rest of this week.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Its been a while...

First off, sorry for the long absence, but work is work and sometimes it decides it wants to take over your life. A lot has happened in this year and One story is particularly important to me: the ASGs charade of trying to sell the Thrashers.

Now before I go into this lets look at the Thrashers history. Perennial finishes in 10-15 place in the East, one division championship and a swift sweep in the playoffs that year. So obviously their track record is not on their side, but then agin is it really all the team's fault?

The Atlanta Spirit Group have claimed that they lost over $130 million on the Thrashers over the years, but the funny thing is when Ted Turner owned the team they made small profits every year. Now granted small profits are nothing to write home about but what I want to point out is even though the team was in the bottom 5 of the league there were adament fans and supporters of a better future. The real drop in money is when the Spirit group took over in 2003 thats when things starting going south. We're talking noticible cut backs in staffing at the arena, an ability to neglect a GM that needed to be fired or promoted (which eventually happened), and a lack of caring toward the fan base in general.

Over all the years of increased ticket sales and raising costs for consessions, the team kept the payroll as close to the bottom of the price floor as possible. As fans became annoyed and starting retaliating back at the owners they simply said, "show up and well put a better product on the ice". But being a fan, why do I want to watch a team that I know is going to get killed because you won't pony up the money to get the players we need and are constantly fighting with yourselves on who is the next best free agent in basketball... THEN if its worth it to sue a guy over it. Oh wait, thats how we got to this position in the first place. The ASG really just know basketball and bought the hockey team to offset its gains.

Now, the ASG are back in court again to sue the firm that helped them get the Thrashers and made the team "unsellable" by the way the contract was written. Now, not to be rude or take personal shots at anyone, but how are you stupid enough to think that you can sell someone else's assets without them concenting? Belkin personally was a majority investor which mean they needed his good graces to relieve themselves of this burden (as they would say). By taking him to court and freezing his input of course you can't sell because he has leverage to hold against you in court. This is obviously something no one can really say is competely true, becuse lets face it, no one is in the ownership group and is in the court room hearing the arguments.

Now, people say that there are problems everywhere in this organization but I don't think thats entirely true. The ASG knew Waddell couldn't handle everything alone and leaving him out there to dry and take the heat from the fans was the ASGs way of staying out of the spotlight and letting themselves battle among themselves for who has the better idea of what a good purchase is (Kind of of ironic they ened up this way now isn't it?). Now, I am not saying Waddell is all to blame here because most of the players that leave Atlanta say its a beautiful city and this team is just not run well. Thats interesting, the players know the ownership is a problem, they say the MANAGEMENT is the issue and not the coaching (OK, Kovalchuk and Kozlov voiced it was a problem but thats about the only whispers you heard of that).

Ok, so now we have two parties mad at the ownership: players and ticket holders.

Now, as all this comes out that they they don't have the money to take the losses anymore. Let me get this straight... you sign a tier II star in the NBA to a 6 year $120 million contract and you cant fund a hockey team where you have successfully ruined any fan base by keeping the payroll at $40 million. You just payed one individual half that amount and he isn't worth that at all. How can you justify that? I mean, that's just like saying to a friend I don't have any extra cash and then buying something at the next store with cash with them there. The hockey team is losing you money because you built it that way.

Now that they have successfully run this team into the ground we get the daily rumor mill grinding that Atlanta is going to Winnipeg, done deal, etc. Funny thing is the ASG get more out of the sale if the team stays here in Atlanta. Out of the deal that is proposed by Canadian Media Outlets, the sale is $170 million, of that $170 million, 60 goes to the NHL for relocation. Now, if a local buyer takes it at $110 million, then ASG still gets rent checks for the 41 dates and will keep getting that till they sell the rights to the bonds on the arena. So as messed up as this scenario is, the ASG actually shouldn't sell to the True North Sports because that is the worse deal they could sign.

That is just my take, so do as you may with it.