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October 2000
NAFTA One Period, No Score......
Stand-Up Guy Award...
Lou Sounds Off
McSorley You Jest...
Sacrilege!...
Site news...
Fan Poll...
Archive
NAFTA One Period, No Score...Months ago, we promised you action on the NAFTA front -- after all the talk in the media,
in Parliament, among you fans, that the rules of the North American Free Trade Agreement
might hold out some hope for the rightfully and properly taxed Canadian NHL teams that
wobble at an economic disadvantage to the tax- and government-supported NHL franchises
in the States, we vowed that we'd take the bull by the horns if need be. We'd take it upon our
own selves to file a NAFTA challenge against the NHL and/or the US government. Some
cheered our gumption, others scoffed at our naivete, and all who've been paying attention
have been kept waiting while our pledge to take NAFTA action seemingly lay dormant.
We have an update for you.
After substantial research, and several informal discussions with professionals who have
some expertise in the vagaries of international trade law, and after preliminary discussions with
actual NAFTA officials in Washington D.C., we felt ready to launch an October surprise on
Bettman's Americentric NHL. We visualized firing a metaphorical slapshot through a tangle
of corporate legs, a blast that would tear through the back of the net and imbed itself in the
end boards with a deafening crash. We have to report that the shot we fired on Friday the 13th
instead glanced off a metaphorical bureaucratic shinpad and trickled weakly and ineffectively
wide of the post.
We feel we let you down. We feel we underachieved. The effort was there, mind you, but
not the execution. Hey, rookie mistakes. We never said we were experts at anything, let alone
international trade law. The intricacies of NAFTA regulations fill volumes of impenetrable
legalese that make the income tax code seem a light, breezy read. But this isn't over, not by
a long shot. We're going to head back into the dressing room, beat a metaphor to death, and
come out stronger and better prepared in the second period. Keep checking back; we'll have
a further update in our next news installment. In the meantime, reminded that a little knowledge
is a dangerous thing, we'd be happy to hear from any visitors to this site who have a little more
insight into precisely how the NHL, and/or American municipalities with NHL franchises, are
in violation of NAFTA. Every little bit helps. -- KER / JZK
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Stand-Up Guy Award True enough, he's never been one of our favourites; in fact, the trash-talking pretty-boy
has long been one of those players we love to hate. But not only is high-scoring irritant
Mike Modano a heck of a hockey player, he was, in 1999-2000, an outstanding statesman
for the game -- so much so that we're honouring him as the inaugural recipient of our Dudley
Do-Right Golden Soapbox Stand-Up Guy of the Year Award. Modano's eloquent
protests, against dangerous, reckless play and mindless mayhem, earned him the accolade.
The top runners-up included Lou Lamoriello (below), and one of our actual favourites,
Steve Yzerman, who openly ridiculed the NHL's asinine move to a four-on-four format for
regular-season overtime and the idiotic point-for-losing mechanism that accompanies it.
We'll be monitoring the airwaves and print media all this season in search of candidates for
the 2000-01 award, which will go to the player, coach, or executive who says the most
best things espousing Correct Thought on the state of the game. So far no one's had
anything interesting to say. -- KER / JZK
Modano,
the pacifist |
Do-Right,
the Mountie |
Lamoriello,
the music critic |
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They Call Him Lamoriello (Quite Rightly) New Jersey Devils president and GM Lou Lamoriello merited consideration for our
Stand-Up Guy Award (above) with his comments and actual action last April. Sick of the
mindless, deafening din pumped out over the PA system at New Jersey's Continental Airlines
Arena as it is at pretty much every other rink in pro hockey, Lamoriello is overseeing a
gradual return to the organ music that once provided a far less painful, far less disruptive
soundtrack to any hockey game.
"Maybe it's the traditionalist in me," Lamoriello told New York Times hockey writer
Joe Lapointe. The organ music, he said, "just brings a different type of environment" than
"the loud and aggressive music" that's polluted rinks and killed fan conversation there for the
past decade.
Lamoriello said the organ music that played during the Devils' playoff series against Florida
"brought the old goose bumps" to his skin and reminded him of how buildings used to sound.
New Jersey are phasing in live organ playing before totally eliminating the tedious cacophony
of recorded rock, but may implement a complete changeover to the organ this season.
"The intention is to get the organ to take over," Lamoriello said, adding that Devils fans
reacted positively to the new sound, sending their thanks through e-mail.
"So many of the younger fans have never been exposed to it," said Continental Arena
organist Robert Shaheen, who observed that fans gave him the thumbs-up signal of approval.
Shaheen, formerly the organist for Islander games, noted that one man told him he called the
front office between periods to express his gratitude for the organ music.
"Perhaps the league is listening to direct feedback," observes Lapointe, citing remarks by
Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and by Frank Supovitz, the NHL's vice president
of special events. Leonsis told Talk Magazine that fans had asked him directly "to lower the
earsplitting volume of the PA system."
Supovitz actually acknowledged that the thundering audio garbage, meant to somehow
attract "the young, male demographic," can be, er, well, unpleasant and inappropriate, to say
the least. "It can be jarring," he finally conceded. "People know they are being manipulated,
and they don't react to that. You have to pick the right piece of music for the right moment."
Or, geez, maybe just let the fans start their own cheers. -- KER / JZK
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McSorley You Jest October 6: Marty McSorley gets an 18-month rap on the knuckles for using his stick
last February to cave in Donald Brashear's temple. And the media reaction to this Canadian
court decision? The same yawningly tired old cliches about how the judiciary has no place
in sports, railing against anyone "self-servingly" endorsing legal action against these "rare
exceptions" that "happen only once a year or so," and parroting the tedious old tripe about
how the NHL should be allowed to "police itself." Well... why? How can anyone still justify
so thick-witted and thoughtlessly obstinate a stance when the NHL, the unfortunate role model
for all of hockey, has clearly demonstrated -- time after time, decade after decade, incident
after incident, again and again and again -- that it resolutely refuses to ever, ever, deal
appropriately with the most sickeningly dangerous, obscenely embarrassing situations that
repeatedly occur, and occur primarily due to its own chicken-eyed inattention?
In fact, instead of whining about it, these jaded isolationists ought to be delighted by the
result of McSorley's trial: first, it leaves Marty pretty much free to ply his trade, if there's a
team out there interested in paying a few mil for a plodding 37-year-old stick-swinger; second,
news of a trial and "conviction" gives the NHL an undeserved positive PR spin, mitigating the
international furor over the original assault, by superficially seeming to stamp the assault as a
unique event and providing the illusion that justice was done; and third, McSorley's sentence
imposed not a pittance of a fine, let alone jail time, so no deterrent whatsoever has been
established for whichever goon who'll inevitably commit the next such incident.
What may confuse the pro-thuggery pundits are McSorley's comments following the trial.
The high-profile, see-no-evil cranks who contend McSorley's action was an unparalleled
aberration, and hardly the sort of thing coaches encourage, were contradicted by their own
poster boy. Although unpunished and barely even chastised, he suddenly cast himself as
Martyr McSorley, taking a hit for the good of the game or something. "I absolutely refused
to put the game of hockey on trial," McSorley said. Yet, speaking to the Toronto Sun,
Vancouver Province, and the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, Massachusetts, he then went on
to allude unflatteringly to the level of violence in hockey and its tactical deployment.
"I could have had coaches, general managers, Hall of Famers testify. I could have showed
hours of videos, which would have showed ugly incidents of what really happens in the NHL.
I didn't feel that was necessary. I didn't want to turn this into a circus.
"It's unfortunate that the only place I was able to bring light upon the situation was in a
court of law," McSorley continued. "Many people wanted this to be a trial about violence in
hockey and I did my best to steer away from that." He said many fellow players encouraged
him to tell all. "So many of these guys looked upon this and told me to do the best I could do.
They told me, 'Don't worry about the game. You have your own life to live.' I couldn't do that."
Huh? We're not sure why, either. McSorley bafflingly implies he dearly wanted to lift the
rock from a verminous pit of hockey violence, the very environment in which he himself has
long thrived, in which he in fact has been a leading proponent -- and then, given a singularly
advantageous rostrum from which to do just that, he wraps himself in a shroud of noble
selflessness for having ignored the wishes of his fellow players and turned down that very
opportunity. Thank you, Doctor McSorley. Further discussion of the case will be organized
by Professor Irwin Corey. -- KER / JZK
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Sacrilege!There was an absolutely brilliant idea presented in this space last winter (not one of our ideas;
a brilliant one) regarding the disposition of Maple Leaf Gardens, last of the ancient, sacred
temples of hockey. Our guest contributor's solution, in a nutshell: have the NHL buy the arena
and maintain it as a living, history-rich, hockey exhibition space in connection with the Hockey
Hall of Fame just blocks away. An elegant solution for the league. Affordable, practical,
respectful, and worth more than the building's weight in positive PR. Did common sense
prevail? A higher purpose? A reverence for the game's heritage? Here intervenes the sound of
dark laughter. Although the Gardens' facade, like that of Montreal's hallowed but eviscerated
Forum, will remain, the now-vacant arena was bought in July by the less-than-cuddly-sounding
PenEquity Management Corporation, a Toronto real estate developer, who will gut the
Carleton Street landmark and retrofit it with retail stores, restaurant space, and, eventually,
condo apartments. "Maple Leaf Gardens is an icon," said Ken Travis, project development
manager for Pen Equity. "We want to keep its integrity." Uh-huh. The developers claim the
ice surface will be retained for use as the Leafs' practise facility, although more than two-thirds
of the seating space will be destroyed, and bits of the infrastructure will be sold or auctioned off
at a later date.
Where the Wild Things Are
August brought news of, what else, more imbecilic behaviour by the NHL. The Globe
& Mail's Allan Maki reported this in as fine a rant against the league's dunderheads as we've
ever seen, but we'll make a long story short. In a move so stunningly, obtusely mean-spirited
that the NHL seems to be making a deliberate effort to mark itself as a villain straight out of
Dickens, the league has initiated a lawsuit against... the Canadian Wildlife Federation.
"The NHL has begun legal action against the CWF because it produces a nature publication
for kids called Wild Magazine," writes Maki. "The name Wild belongs to the CWF, which
applied for the rights to the name in 1995 and received Trademarks Office approval in 1999"
-- well before the league vomited up yet another pathetic expansion team, one with perhaps
the most ludicrously stupid moniker ever sewn onto a hockey sweater.
"The NHL has asked the federal government to take away the CWF's right to the name
so that Minnesota can go about the business of selling Wild jerseys and merchandise," Maki
explains. "The league has also asked the CWF be restricted in how it uses the word Wild and
that the Canadian Trademark Act be revised and that the CWF pick up all the costs for this
legal power play."
The CWF, for the record, is a charitable operation that educates young people on the
value of conservation while working to preserve wilderness and wildlife.
With this move, the NHL has finally demonstrated that nothing is beneath them. This is
the kind of soulless corporate entity that would take glee in foreclosing mortgages on elderly
widows, kicking orphans out onto the street, and strangling puppies in front of children. And
it's a business too crashingly stupid even to realise that this sort of stuff makes them look bad.
Let's hope this time the league doesn't just tuck its tail between its legs and abandon the field
of battle, as it did after its foolhardy attack on NoGoal.com last summer. Let's hope they
take it to court and get their ass kicked by the CWF.
The Chicoutimi Blasphemy
The Wild lawsuit isn't far removed from the league's bullying, blunderbuss attack on
NoGoal.com. But for real desecration, for absolutely, inexcusably, irredeemably cynical
sacrilege worthy of the most vulgar Visigoth or Conquistador, we have to look not to the NHL,
but to In the Game Trading Cards. For the sake of nothing other than potential cash profit,
the company has taken a priceless chunk of hockey history -- the only goalpads ever worn
by the legendary Georges Vezina -- and turned them into unrecognizable confetti.
With our apologies to knowledgeable fans, an aside here, to youngsters and newcomers
to the game, necessary for their understanding of the scope of this atrocity: Vezina, who turned
pro in 1910, was arguably the game's first great goalkeeper, and among the best who ever
played. In a 15-year career with Montreal Canadiens, Vezina never missed a start, playing 328
consecutive league games, 39 more in the playoffs, and helping Habs to five league titles and
two Stanley Cup triumphs. So cool under pressure that he became known as the Chicoutimi
Cucumber, Vezina was stricken with tuberculosis in his final season; his ascension to hockey
godhood was sealed when he collapsed on the ice during his last game. He was carried off,
bleeding from the mouth, and died a few weeks later. The league honours his memory with the
Vezina Trophy, awarded each season to the NHL's best goaltender. He is a giant and an icon
in the game's history.
Brian Price of Toronto, president of In The Game Trading Cards, spent an unspecified
five-figure sum to purchase Vezina's authenticated pads from a private collection this past spring.
Would these unique, invaluable artifacts be treasured among Price's memorabilia? Or would
they be, as they should have been, donated, or at least sold, to the Hockey Hall of Fame?
No, of course not. Price is the living embodiment of Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic:
a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. He had the irreplaceable
relics diced and shredded into 320 four-by-one-centimetre pieces of useless scrap fabric, and
had the resulting bits of confetti glued to the backs of 320 random hockey cards, which sell
for $4.99 a pack.
"Part of me, as a lover of the game, did not want to do it," said Price. But most of him,
as a vulgar money-grubbing philistine, delighted in it, apparently. Collectors will have about
one chance in 2,400 of finding the Vezina detritus in any pack they buy. Price would have
produced a few more cards with evidence of his desecration attached, but could not get the
buckles from the pads to adhere to the cards.
"When I heard about it, wearing my museum hat, it was horrible," said Hall of Fame curator
Philip Pritchard. So rare are examples of Vezina memorabilia, the Hall has no Vezina exhibits,
even though the netminding legend was, along with Chuck Gardiner, the first at his position
enshrined in 1945.
Next season, look for the next step in hockey card collectibles, as little chunks of the
corpse of Rocket Richard are attached in special premium card packs. -- KER / JZK
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Site newsIf you've been here before, you'll notice we've redecorated. After a year and a half on line
as The Death of Hockey, we've moved some of the furniture and given everything a fresh
coat of paint, and we're now calling the place Above & Beyond Hockey. While our central
mission remains the same -- the snappiest commentary and sharpest criticism we can muster
for you on the state of hockey and on the NHL in particular, combined with fan interaction,
an actual activist role in trying to save the game from the NHL's nauseating incompetence, and
a little literary self-promotion in the bargain -- the new title is meant to reflect a broader focus,
including a stronger emphasis on hockey's history and more statistical insights as the season
progresses.
It also reflects the result of some extensive technical adjustments to our HTML code.
From the start, we've tried to keep the site's construction sufficiently simple and free of
extraneous bells and whistles that our content would be accessible on even the oldest, most
basic browsers. The growing number of upgrade versions of the most popular browsers,
however, not to mention the immense personal variations in default settings, make it impossible
for this or any site to appear just as we'd like it for every viewer, and we discovered we looked
really bad on the newest browsers. So, bowing to the inexorable advance of technology,
we've tweaked our code to look best on the most current versions of Netscape, Explorer,
and AOL. We'll probably have to do it all over again in another year, but for now we hope
everything looks pretty for you. Mainly, though, we hope you find the substance more
compelling than the style.
We look forward to your reaction and your frequent return -- and we invite you to
take a peek at our new toy, the Above & Beyond Hockey Fan Poll, and leave your response.
[ The poll debuted on this page, and is now located at the entrance to our Fan Forum --where,
as always, we encourage you to speak up and speak out in a more serious exchange of views. ]
-- SIR
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Archive
Current news Illuminating your world
March '00 McSorley: Black Eye for an Eye for an Eye / NAFTA Promise /
Stand-Up Guy Award nominees
Jan-Feb'ry '00 Canadian Government Bail-Out / NAFTA / Toronto Star: Damien Cox
December '99 Youth Hockey Injuries / Saving Maple Leaf Gardens / On the Air / Holiday Thoughts
November '99 4 on 4: Save us, Stevie / '99 Stanley Cup: Game 7 / Modano: redeemed? /
AOL poll / Holiday shopping ideas / Site news
October '99 NHLFA Membership Push / NoGoal.com / Buffalo Snooze /
Phoenix Freebie / Death of Hockey Audio
September '99 NHL Thugs Gang Up on Hockey Fan Page
December '98 The Village Voice: "The Death of Hockey"
February '98 The New York Times: "Hockey's Proposed Cures Could Kill the Patient"
___________________________________________________________
by JEFF Z. KLEIN and KARL-ERIC REIF
published by Macmillan Canada
available at Chapters, Indigo, and other fine booksellers throughout Canada
and on-line from Chapters/Indigo and the Hockey Bookshelf
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