The_Admiral

Having watched this stupid league shoot itself in the foot for about 16 years, I will tell you how this 3-on-3 thing will go. Through October, a lot of games will be decided before the shootout. Everyone will ooh and ahh over how dynamic this 3-on-3 hockey is. Columnists will even opine that regulation hockey should go to 4-on-4 so there's always more open ice! But by American Thanksgiving, coaches will have adjusted, and 3-on-3 overtime will be even safer than 4-on-4 was (consider that no one ever pleads for more open ice in playoff overtime, which is much more likely to end in five minutes than it is to end in fifty), and overtime will become nothing but twenty-second shifts of harmless dump-and-chase to make sure that everyone is Playing Our Kind Of Mistake-Free Hockey and other such crap, and then the number of shootouts will go way up, and general managers will wring their hands once more about how there must be something done about this damned shootout, even though the shootout is not the problem and never has been the problem because you don't have to do it if you knock it the off with the limp-dick dump-and-chase crap.

INTERPOLATION: I went to a Blackhawks game this year in March. They played the Oilers and won 2-1 in the shootout. The game itself was a total turdburger, which any of you could have intuited from the fact that it was a Blackhawks game in the second half of the regular season and the Oilers were involved. Derek Roy scored early off a deflection from Yakupov, Ben Scrivens stopped a bunch of shots, most of which were the usual blue-line bloops the Hawks fling when they don't want to challenge a goalie too much, but then one from Seabrook finally went in late. Nothing happened in overtime because nothing ever does, then the newly acquired Antoine Vermette won it in the shootout. Finally, something that night was really exciting! Purists, schmurists, let's see you sit through a live hockey game, allegedly the most exciting live sport, where very little of consequence happens and be totally fine with going home with a tie. That shootout was a godsend in terms of excitement. Even if the Hawks had lost, it would have been preferable to ending that game by saying nobody won and nobody lost. That's not even true, because 21,000+ of us would have lost for having sat through that sucky game with no true outcome. I wouldn't want every game to end this way, but Crawford and Scrivens were having objectively great nights and something had to give. I don't think that's the case every night; it certainly couldn't have been the case for those Panthers/Coyotes teams that would go to between 18 and 20 a year. Shootouts should be legal and rare. Just like abortions!

Anyway, there were 170 shootouts last year. I'll take the over.

Quebec's bid is coming from a French-Canadian media conglomerate. It's ironclad. The only problem is the league not wanting their money.

Well, to hear it from Wings/Beej fans, Quebec can't even apply for expansion because we need to add two teams in the West, anywhere in the West, AND YOU CAN'T TAKE US AWAY FROM OUR TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING

I don't really follow hockey, but I read The Instigator anyway. This league just can't help killing itself. They act like the ABA, but much bigger dollars.

I'd love to know what the NHL's 10-year plan is. Mostly so I can laugh at it.

The absolute worst is when you hear GMs and execs say things like "Oh, we don't like the shootout, but the fans love it and find it exciting!".

Don't forget nutless coaches like Dave Tippett who would just as soon burn five minutes doing nothing and pray for a shootout because that way you played Mistake-Free Hockey. If only you could legislate playing to win.

The NHL's recent track record with "opening up the game" leads me to believe this 3-on-3 will end up being hockey's answer to Floyd Mayweather and shootouts will go up. Anyone beg to differ? dare to differ?

Straight to 3-on-3 overtime after 60 minutes next year pending board approval, WHAT CRAP.

Maybe Bridgeview was a crappy place for a soccer stadium. I spent my early childhood memorizing maps and I still don't entirely remember where Bridgeview is. I think it's by Midway, but that's not very specific. Maybe the Fire should have stayed at crappy Soldier Field.

I spent three nights in Bridgeview, and I still don't know where it is. Thank goodness my GPS did....

From checking The Sweet Workaround To Not Using Crappy New Google Maps For Which You Should Thank Me, it appears that Bridgeview city limits go from roughly 68th to 103rd, but not very far across. The inner southwest suburbs have always been especially mysterious to me. I mean, Worth, Bedford Park, Bridgeview, I know these are places that exist, but in a bonus round of Where in Chicagoland Is Carmen Sandiego?, I wouldn't have a prayer.

Maybe Bridgeview was a crappy place for a soccer stadium. I spent my early childhood memorizing maps and I still don't entirely remember where Bridgeview is. I think it's by Midway, but that's not very specific. Maybe the Fire should have stayed at crappy Soldier Field.

Because we need another weird twist, it appears that Joyce Clark of all people has some good stuff:

http://joyceclarkunfiltered.com/how-much-risk/

I am quite unhappy with the alleged actions of former city attorney Craig Tindall. When city council originally hired him I was quite pleased. He appeared to be competent and articulate. In 2011 I began to hear rumors that he was supportive of an outside group interested in buying the Coyotes. Back then no one could or would tell me who the group was. Reading the emails between him and Anthony LeBlanc, one of the current Coyotes owners, I was unaware of their obviously close relationship dating back to at least 2010. Little did anyone know they were meeting at their “usual starbucks.” It is now very difficult to accept the current parsing of words in an effort to minimize Tindall’s involvement in negotiating the IceArizona contract. It appears he was involved up to his lips.

It made me recall an incident at the end of 2012. The city was in the process of negotiation with a Coyotes team purchaser, Greg Jamison. I called Mr. Tindall with some technical questions about the deal. Cryptically, at the end of our telephonic conversation he remarked that if the Jamison deal didn’t make there was another group waiting in the wings. When I asked who, he refused to respond. In hindsight it now makes perfect sense but it raises more questions for me. I remember Interim City Manager Horatio Skeete telling me that Tindall appeared to be stalling and would hold Jamison documents on his desk for days. Skeete would make repeated requests for them which eventually would be fulfilled. Did Tindall deliberately sabotage the Jamison deal in an attempt to make available the opportunity for LeBlanc, et. al.? I honestly don’t know. You will have to decide for yourselves.

Tindall’s seeming self dealing is quite disappointing. As far back as April of 2010 in an email exchange between Daryl Jones of Ice Edge (precursor to IceArizona) Jones says they enjoyed working with Tindall and Tindall responds with “Now that’s an offer.” Was that Tindall’s subtle signal that he was angling for a job with them? Who knows? You decide. Or what about Tindall’s March, 2011, email exchange with LeBlanc urging LeBlanc to take a look at investing in a local medical device company? That action would seem to reinforce the notion that they had a close relationship. Or how about LeBlanc’s asking Tindall in October of 2011 if it was time to have a “confidential chat with Ed” (Beasley) as well as an email exchange between Tindall and LeBlanc about LeBlanc’s May, 2010 meeting with Steve E(llman)? What were these all about? We now know that LeBlanc wanted to buy the Coyotes even before the Jamison offer. We now know through more emails of Tindall’s effort to break a roadblock on July 26, 2013 (after the contract is approved) regarding the city’s paying IceArizona’s lenders directly? He emailed the newly hired City Manager (now former City Manager) Brenda Fischer apparently asserting that it was a simple administrative matter and appears to be urging her to take action.

If they leave it will be very interesting where the team calls home. The NHL (ok, the owners) stand to make a very nice windfall from expansion fees. Why "waste" a Vegas, Seattle, or Quebec by relocating there? Could we possibly see a dissolution of the team, with a simultaneous expansion franchise being granted to still take in that sweet, sweet expansion fee? It's more complicated than that but I just can't see anyone leaving that money on the table.

Maybe they settle for a relocation fee just to wash their hands of this whole affair and collect expansion fees on the other two. Also, still waiting on that Seattle building. OITGDNHL would the city with the brand-new state-of-the-art arena be behind a city that doesn't even have an arena.

oh, and

I'm sorry, I'm still in awe of Glendale's erstwhile crooked city attorney getting a job with the Coyotes. Not that he did -- I knew he would. I'm just awestruck by how amateur-hour he is about taking the gig.

Tindall, a Phoenix resident, worked for about a month with the Phoenix law firm Fennemore Craig, before transitioning to the hockey team. He enjoyed working at the law firm, but the Coyotes presented a unique opportunity, he said.

He attended a press conference at Jobing.com Arena on Aug. 6, when National Hockey League Commissioner Gary Bettman formally turned over ownership of the Coyotes to IceArizona, an investment group headed by Canadians George Gosbee and Anthony LeBlanc.

“The opportunity came up with the new owners and I thought, ‘Well alright, I’ll give it a shot. It seems like fun,’” Tindall said.

Yeah. Like he just wandered in and someone offered him a job. "hurr durr, seems like fun!" Chicago's paths from public corruption to private enrichment are so well-worn that no one really has to say anything as they go, so the artless brazenness on display here is just so jarring to me. I bet you could walk in on this guy nailing your wife from behind and he would say "you seem to have caught me trying to retrieve a pen I dropped, which I can't quite reach."

NAILED IT

A legal-affairs expert for a Phoenix news radio station initially said Glendale had no chance of winning their case. Now she's walkin' back so nice that I can hear "Billie Jean" playing:

http://ktar.com/305/1843535/Legally-Speaking-We-finally-know-why-Glendale-canceled-the-Arizona-Coyotes-lease

FINALLY! We finally have the basis of the city of Glendale's argument as to why it is canceling the arena lease agreement with the Arizona Coyotes.

According to what it provided in a Wednesday motion, Glendale's position appears much stronger and more legitimate than it did earlier this week.

Glendale filed a motion to modify the team's restraining order to ask permission from the Superior Court to not hand over the payment of $3.75 million that is due in two weeks' time to the Coyotes.

The Professional Management Services and Arena Lease Agreement between the city of Glendale and the owners of the Coyotes requires the city pay $15 million per year in quarterly payments of $3.75 million to the organization. The next payment under that agreement is due on July 1.

The court issued the temporary restraining order on July 12, 2015 requiring, in part, "the city of Glendale to continue to perform and comply with all of the city's obligations under the agreement."

This meant the city would be required to make the payment; however, the city does not want to. It wants the court to relieve it of this requirement, or alternatively, allow the city to place the payment into an escrow account to keep it safe. If the court isn't willing to do that, as a last request, the city is requesting the bond (required to be paid by the Coyotes) be increased by $3.75 million to protect the city (if the city wins it wants to be able to get that money back and if it's handed to the Coyotes it may never recover it.)

Glendale's position is that it does not have to make this payment at all, and, in fact, can recoup all payments previously made to the Coyotes under the agreement since there was a violation of Arizona Revised Statute 38-511 (affectionately called the "Self-Dealing Statute").

Quick background: On June 10, the City Council voted to direct its city attorney to cancel the agreement because Craig Tindall and Julie Frisoni left Glendale and went to work for the Coyotes, thus triggering the remedies under the state law. Glendale argued in its motion that Tindall and Frisoni were "significantly involved in initiating, negotiating, securing, drafting or creating" the agreement on the city's behalf and, since they went to work for the Coyotes within three years, it has the right to cancel the agreement and recover any consideration it has paid under the agreement. Since it has the right to recover any consideration, then it should not have to pay the $3.75 million due on July 1.

In its motion, the city refers to and attaches several email strings between Craig Tindall (who was Glendale's city attorney until April 2013 and then became special counsel) and Anthony LeBlanc from 2010-2013; emails between Tindall and the city of Glendale regarding the Coyotes after Tindall resigned from the city (but still remained an employee of the city under a severance agreement); and emails between Julie Frisoni (who at the time was the communications director and later the assistant city manager of Glendale until April 2015) and the city in June 2013.

The city also explains its belief that:

"It was Tindall's ardent support for the agreement in the face of opposition by the then-city manager, the then-acting city attorney, and the city's outside counsel which is believed to have influenced and helped to secure the city council's approval of the agreement in July 2013."

Remember, according to counsel for the Coyotes, the negotiations for the agreement occurred in June and July of 2013.

The motion further points out Frisoni was employed with the city until April 22, 2015 and while she was the city's assistant city manager she was "significantly involved in securing the agreement's approval, including providing information to city council members in support of the agreement just days before the Council voted on the agreement."

On the Coyotes' defense that the city waived their conflict of interest:

Glendale pointed out in the motion the situation with Tindall and Frisoni is exactly what the law is there to prevent: self-dealing by government employees. It insightfully explains that this "conflict" cannot be waived under the law because to allow a self-dealing employee to waive their own conflict would defeat the entire purpose of the law. Well stated, Glendale.

Yeah no crap you can't waive a conflict of interest with yourself. That's why it's a conflict of interest! The Coyotes are so dumb.

The Library of America! They do good work. I'm reading their complete Cheever anthology right now.

I'm human grist for the mill of neoliberalism being duped into supporting corporate welfare AND I VOTE!

Get a brain, morans!

Hm, George Fallar and his roving band of dopes are trying to recall Weyers and the aldermen who voted for cancellation. How badly I wanted to never hear of that idiot again.

No wonder Glendale couldn't obtain any paperwork stating Barroway was the majority owner. He never was!

The NHL: It's Span-tastic!

Incidentally, is Olbermann going for some sort of postmodern commentary on televisual oratory with his outfits as of late, or is he unaware and/or uncaring that he looks absurd?

Quebec City's new arena came in $30 million under budget. Unconfirmed reports that they celebrated by spending the remaining $30 million on truckloads of Du Mauriers.

o rly? Sharkies might have to make their uniforms 5% lighter to compensate for their ice being like 10% crappier.

Joyce Clark is intimating that Pearson was or is an employee of the Coyotes, but I'm not ready to trust Joyce Clark.

We're all pretty tired of Glendale and the Coyotes being at odds...we all want closure to this once and for all, whether it's keeping the team there or relocation. But I think your frustration is misguided towards this woman. She clearly didn't expect this groundswell of attention or to be interviewed by SportsNet.

If I remember my names right from two years ago, Pearson was part of the "Glendale First PAC" (or, if you follow the HFBoards threads, BeavisPAC) that went around trying to stop petitioners from fighting the political-corporate combine that pushed all this stuff through in the first place. George Fallar, the angry website guy, was the other one. They're also the ones who coordinate flooding these city council meetings with people who don't live in Glendale so that they get all the time to talk. She's not just some random angry fan; she's been looking for attention for years.

I'll bet you anything these same people raised the funds for the taser stunt, too.

EDIT: I am probably correct, but

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/glendale/2015/06/12/glendale-crowdfunding-tase-glendale-mayor-jerry-weiers/71098768/

An Arizona Coyotes fan is using a crowdfunding website to raise $10,000 so that the woman who dressed down Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers during a special City Council meeting Wednesday can be the one to Tase Weiers at a charity event on Saturday.

Weiers had previously agreed to be Tased for a minimum of $10,000 that will be donated to the 100 Club of Arizona, an organization that helps the families of law enforcement and firefighters who are injured or killed on the job.

Cave Creek resident and Coyotes fan George Fallar has set up an Indiegogo account in the hopes that Ronda Pearson can be the one to Tase Weiers. As of 5 p.m. Thursday, four people had raised about $135.

RELATED: Glendale mayor says please Tase me, bro

MORE: Coyotes fan fires off on Glendale mayor in epic rant

"It's a win-win for everybody," Fallar, 61, said. "The goal is to get $10,000 for a good cause. We're trying to take advantage of a viral situation."

that was a leap

we don’t look to move into ECHL markets, so it’s an ECHL market now

This is like second-rate Gary Bettman talk. You really are the next step down, AHL!