Sit on the Business End of a Garden C.L.A.W. While Watching The View

From now on, if I post about Terry Frei, the title will be something that I would rather do than read his whole article. I was actually impressed when his article showed up in the RSS feed this morning, because it was very timely. I think what makes me so upset about him is that he's a national writer that only writes about the world around Avalanche hockey. I thought that maybe his article on ESPN.com was taken from The Denver Post, but it's very different (and can be found here.)

I was surprised to see the headline being about Brodeur's return. I knew he came back last night and had a shutout. I thought maybe this had surprised Terry enough to write an article about it. Then it turns out he shut out the Colorado Avalanche. So let's parade out the different parts of this national story that will piss you off, too.

NEWARK, N.J. -- The situation is not without its potential awkwardness, even if this is Martin Brodeur, the man who until Thursday night was only seven career victories short of both eclipsing and making history.

In their 50 games without him available this season, the Devils went 32-17-1. Scott Clemmensen made the most of his emergency recall, transforming his reputation from an organizational-insurance type to at least provisionally proven commodity as he and Kevin Weekes filled in.

If it eventually became arguable that he came back too soon, or that the Devils would have been better off, at least in the short term, if Brodeur were held out a little longer, it could have been at least slightly embarrassing.

Or worse.

So as Brodeur sat in the Devils' locker room following his 24-save shutout and New Jersey's 4-0 win in his return against the now-woebegone Colorado Avalanche, he didn't blanch when we brought up the issue of pulling his weight.

And at this exact moment all hope I had in Terry Frei's article left. It's going to somehow be about Colorado. Maybe Brodeur loves Denver's airport? Maybe he had something embarrasing happen at McNichol Sports Arena? Because it's not going to be an article about how a goalie came back from injury to shut out a team.

In one historical sense, it was a bit weird, at least with those with very long memories. It was slightly remindful of the night 29 years ago, when the Devils' predecessors, the Colorado Rockies, were what amounted to the Washington Generals, when they were the foils in "Miracle on Ice" hero Jim Craig's NHL debut for the Atlanta Flames on a flag-waving night in the old Omni. The Rockies put little pressure on Craig, and the first shot took forever to come, and it came from roughly Augusta.

On Thursday, another Colorado team minimally tested Brodeur, at least for much of the night. Chris Stewart got the Avalanche's first shot from near Weehawken -- OK, it was near the red line -- six minutes into the first period. This wasn't going to go down as the most heroic of Brodeur's three shutouts in his 11 games this season.

How is the fuck are these two situations related? Never in the history of the game of hockey have two games been so similar as these! It took a while for a team to take a shot and it came from far away! HOW IDENTICAL! If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that the Rockies and Flames were playing each other. I am so glad that Terry Frei has the memory of an elephant so that nobody could give a fuck about that game now as much as they didn't give a fuck about it 29 years ago. I know it's a shocker, but you can make goals happen by dumping in the puck. How about a goal from center ice?

All of that led a cynic (us)

Just you.

wonder if he had picked the Avalanche for his return because of the irony tied to his chase of Roy and the likelihood he wasn't going to have anything near the sharpest game of his life to make a triumphant return.

You know, kind of like walking before you run.

With 100% certainty, Martin Brodeur pulled out a pocket schedule and said "I want to come back against the Avalanche because I'm chasing Patrick Roy! He still plays for them, right?"

"It was just a good game for me to come back, as far as in the schedule," he responded. "As far as chasing the record, every day I'm going to have to deal with it. I'm excited about that, and I just want to get back. What's in my mind right now is getting back in top form for the playoffs. Winning it is what we're in the business to do, and hopefully, we'll get it done."

So the answer is no.

Once the record business is taken care of, and most likely it will happen in this stretch run, it will be on to the postseason for the Devils, again hoping to capture more of the spotlight in the area either one or two stops on the New Jersey Transit train -- depending on whether it's an express run -- from Madison Square Garden and Manhattan's Penn Station.

That will be a challenge. The Madison Square Garden Rangers just fired their head coach and sit a comfortable 2 points ahead of not being in the playoffs. I'm not too sure what Manhattan is doing here... the Islanders play about 40 minutes due east of Manhattan. They're also in dead last in the league.

Terry Frei Believes the NHL Runs like Roller Coaster Tycoon (Is That Game Still Popular?)

Yesterday Kix cereal was on sale for one day only, $1.88 a box. I picked up a box and was horrified - Honey Kix. Honey? I'm not a bear. If it's not Nut & Honey - and it isn't because Kellogg's stopped making it - then I don't want it on my cereal. This morning I woke up craving Kix and a shitty article written by Terry Frei.

It was a good morning.

NOTE: If I'm interrupting anything, Terry Frei writes a giant article about how the NHL needs the dictate ticket prices. I make jokes. Terry Frei and I both come out of it looking a little dumber. There, now go back to your FireJay Deathwatch.

Since the last time I wrote about NHL ticket prices, the North American economies have become so battered that if this were happening on the ice, the linesmen would have jumped in long ago.

More topical fighting joke: North American economies are more battered than Ray Emery's Russian trainers.

More than ever, I'm convinced that regardless of how the NHL attempts to spin and manipulate the numbers, the league botched the chance coming out of the lockout, and beyond, to address more aggressively the issue of affordability.

The NHL doesn't have the power to tell teams what to charge for a hockey game. Frankly speaking, I wouldn't want the NHL to dictate to different markets what the should charge for a hockey game. Different markets, different fans, different prices.

And as the crisis continues on both sides of the border, the NHL is going to pay for that lack of foresight, especially in the U.S. markets. It's going to pay for it in virtually all of those markets, both "troubled" and more traditionally supportive.

The NHL really should have seen this economic disaster coming back in the summer of 2005. What a cocksucker.

This is neither an expression of moral outrage nor a presumption that anyone should be able to tell NHL teams what to charge. But we repeatedly argue about what NHL teams should do, whether that's making a deal for a rental defenseman at the deadline or opining that a coach should be fired every time his team loses, so consider this among the realm of what I believe to be the right -- and pragmatic -- thing to do.

Maybe I have this article all wrong. It looks like we've hit a real turning point here. It isn't going to be about the NHL telling teams what to charge after all. Perhaps my bowl of Kix is the only salvation from a day of blocking sunlight from the basement windows and trying to make a Doritos-flavored Mountain Dew.

Attack ticket prices.

Do it showily.

Holler it from the rooftops.

Let me put down my Erlenmeyer. This article just went to shit again. Advertise lower ticket prices? Nobody has thought of that before. That Tampa deal is amazing.

Chip away at the NHL's reputation as a league that, because of its inordinate reliance on gate receipts, has to charge considerably more for a comparable seat than NBA franchises, and do something about the image of needing a mortgage broker to get involved in any purchase of season tickets.

Any purchase of season tickets? Let's see if I can get this without a mortgage broker. $20 ticket multiplied by 41 home games in a season multiplied by 2 so that you aren't sitting alone in the stands... FUCK! I was so close. Anybody know a good mortgage broker? Or maybe Passive Voice can lend a hand here with his automated number computing machine he called a "computer".

It's both the right and the smart thing to do in these times.

No. It isn't. The right and smart thing to do is not buy season tickets if you can't afford them. You must know full well that the cost of seats won't include things like parking, food, transportation, and hooker money. If you've gotten this far, though, you aren't looking for right or smart things to do.

Some of the effects of the economic malaise are already being felt and reflected in attendance figures, sponsorships and other areas. Yet otherwise, this is as if Kerry Fraser had his arm in the air. It's going to be a delayed penalty.

Usually when Kerry Fraser has his arm in the air, he is wrong. Nobody likes Kerry Fraser. It's not a good sign when you are a referee and people know your name. Rob Schick. Ed Hochuli. Don Denkinger. Tim Donaghy. Marie Reine Le Gougne. The last one is a stretch, sure. Point made, moving on.

"The first indications for us as to what next year will look like, and if you're looking for indicia as well, keep an eye on playoff ticket sales," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in Montreal this past weekend.

Makes sense, because season tickets could already have been paid for before the season started. Playoff tickets aren't on sale and will be bought in rough economic waters. And let's face it - playoff games aren't very rare.

Maybe. But it goes far beyond the issue of how markets react when their teams make the postseason. It's more about the invoices for next season, for the 41-game schedule that, depending on which conference is involved, might not even include an appearance by Alex Ovechkin or Evgeni Malkin or Jarome Iginla or Pavel Datsyuk. And it's about picking out how many games to go to next season, if individual-game tickets are available.

Wow. Bettman's quote just took a long and confusing trip around Terry Frei. I'm pretty sure that Bettman used the words "first indicators," which to me says that you can use those figures, couple it with data from previous seasons with playoff attendance figures, and adjust ticket prices for the next season. And instead, we've been given a paragraph about next season not having star players, which is devoid of the name Sidney Crosby. And who the hell clamors to see Jerome Iginla anymore?

One size or pricing structure doesn't fit all in a league in which the Maple Leafs could charge twice as much and still sell out; the Rangers don't need to package four tickets, four pizzas and four soft drinks for one price; and not all teams need to put together various mini-plans of 14 or some games to get folks in the seats.

Uh... yeah. Who is proposing this idea? Oh shit. Not you, right?

Ten franchises are officially at 100 percent of capacity or above for home attendance. But they're exceptional, and the storm clouds are many, because even those in the 90-percent-plus realm have an alarming number of empty seats. Even if they're taking some at face value as "sold" seats -- and that's a risky assumption -- the fact is, this season's empty seats (and many more) represent next season's cuts.

10% empty doesn't sound so alarming. I would think that people that needed the money sold their season tickets off already to the friendly neighborhood ticket broker. Those empty seats that Terry sees in Denver is slow walk-up sales because the Avalanche are currently 9th in the conference.

Momentum is cyclical enough when it's based on team performance in a robust or at least "normal" economy. Everything is multiplied, perhaps even exponentially, in this kind of economy, when snowballs turn into avalanches going downhill.

I guess I could agree with this. Why pay money to watch a shitty team lose when you have a TV with basic cable and can watch the game from your basement?

The 42-inch HDTV and televised home games provide more excuses than ever in this age, and that's even before the recent economic shockwaves, including business cutbacks in everything from jobs to corporate ticket purchases to advertising and sponsorships, are factored in.

Well I wasn't really making excuses... it just seems that watching a game in HD is a nice alternative if you already have one. The word advertising belongs nowhere near this thought, as teams don't collect ad revenue, they collect sponsorship revenue.

Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito were coming off a season in which they were 1-2 for the Bruins in league scoring the last time a U.S. president imposed wage and price controls. I'm not necessarily saying Bettman should skip shaving one day, wiggle his jowls, give "V" signs with both hands and imitate Richard Nixon in dealing with NHL ticket prices.

But he should do something.

Like ban Terry Frei from writing about the NHL?

That "something" shouldn't be continuing to act as if what he and others advanced as one of the major rationalizations for the management hard-line position going into the lockout has ceased to be a major issue.

Again, the economy was much different in 2005. And there's a salary cap that can change when league revenues fall. What does any of this have to do with ticket prices?

That "something" shouldn't be repeatedly relying on the by-now-familiar spiel about how what he really said going into the lockout was that the inflationary spiral needed to be arrested -- and then citing statistics to argue that it has been.

Once again, that involves salary. Make your stupid ticket prices point so I can make fun of it.

What he did say heading into the lockout was that he believed a "majority" of NHL teams would lower prices if the league achieved an "economic opportunity" with what he had been alluding to for months as "cost-certainty."

But people will still pay to come see the games, so why lower prices? Greed controls ticket prices. Not the NHL.

The adjustments were minimal and certainly not trend-setting.

Sure could use some info on what they were so that I could check up on that. But why go into detail to prove you're right when you can be vague, speak in generalities, and then just hurry off in another direction.

He went through the familiar pitches again last weekend in Montreal, in response to my question about how Colorado had just drawn its smallest crowd ever during its 13 seasons in Denver; I also alluded to the fact that in addition to the slippage of the on-ice product, the "reason" I hear most often is the Avalanche have staggeringly high ticket prices, among the highest in the league. The same seat in a lower-bowl corner that costs $76 for Nuggets games is $100 for Avalanche games, and both teams are owned by Stan Kroenke.

That's because the Nuggets used to suck big burlap bag of dicks. Now they don't. And affluent people in Denver will spend cash on anything as long as it makes others jealous. What impresses me is that the Nuggets can really charge $76 for a ticket and have people buy it.

"Every team sets their own policy," Bettman said. "Every team really has to read its own market in making those judgments. Some teams have increased ticket prices, some teams have reduced ticket prices."

Betmann should have followed that quote up with: "How does it taste to gargle on my balls, Cottonelle? I'm going to call you Cottonelle from now on, Terry, because I just shit all over you." He chose not to, which is probably why eloquence is lost on a blogger like myself.

Conceded.

Good! Well, pack it in. Bettman just took Terry Frei to Economics 101 where you learn about break even points, supply and demand, and opportunity cost. This article ended pretty abruptly though, even for a Frei article...

There's more? But he just conceded that teams react according to the the individual clientele of their fan base.

Teams are separate businesses, although they're perfectly willing to gather under one huge umbrella -- not the kind you can buy for $3 from the street vendors outside the NHL's offices when the downpour begins -- and operate under something other than a completely free-market model (e.g., a salary cap and revenue sharing) when it's convenient.

The argument, as I understand it, is that he wants to eliminate the free market model. By having the NHL dictate ticket prices. That's also not a free market. That's like an anarchist clique at a high school. Frei suspended logic for one sentence there because it was convenient. What a doober.

"Average" ticket prices in many instances are a joke, thanks to many teams' declaring a huge number of lower-bowl tickets to be for "premium" seats and thus exempt from the calculations. That stipulation was designed to toss out luxury boxes and other seats that can lead to misleading numbers, because the "average" is supposed to create apples-to-apples comparisons about affordability for the average fan.

If many teams are doing it, then wouldn't the average be uniform league wide? I'm also missing where this ties into whatever argument he was making before Bettman wordfucked him a few paragraphs ago. The average ticket price is more of a barometer for how much your market is charging for against another. It has nothing to do with affordability for the average fan.

The "average" cited now in many cases would be akin to the U.S. Department of Labor excluding anyone making over $75,000 in the previous tax year in unemployment figures.

What? Just because the article is about dropping ticket prices in tough economic times doesn't excuse these horrific parallels being drawn.

What Bettman should do is make it clear to owners that he believes not only that the league failed to deliver on an implied promise to make this an important issue coming out of the lockout, but also that it makes good business sense -- both in the short and long run -- to react to the changing conditions.

You can't just change ticket prices in the middle of a fucking season. That's not how things work. You'd have to refund all the money that has ALREADY BEEN PAID for tickets, and lose even more money. If ticket prices need to be dropped, then a team will figure that out at the end of the year when they are out millions of dollars. The league should never take any action on individual teams ticket prices for a whole season. What needs to be addressed is how Terry Frei continues to make money writing shit like this. A non-hockey fan could point to this article and say "See? Ticket prices are too high and they aren't dropping. That's why I don't go!" Or maybe "What a horrific piece of journalism. I would rather sit at home and watch Ghost Whisperer in HD than go to a game of hockey, because I might run into the author and he would suck my soul out of my nasal cavities with his horrifically terrible writing style and arguments."

FireTerryFrei.blogspot

Terry Frei Defends Nashville

You know what I like about Terry Frei? Nothing.

In this, his most recent article, he whines about how Nashville is such a great hockey market but they're in danger of losing their franchise. The Predators are a team that I love to hate, and last night made it even easier for me.

NASHVILLE -- The advertising signs are painted onto the sidewalks on Nashville's Broadway, including in the block as you're approaching Jack's Bar-B-Que, several honky-tonks, and the statue of the crooning Elvis outside of the famous Legends Gift Shop.

See? Terry Frei doesn't just stay in Denver. If he hadn't been to Nashville, he wouldn't have known about all of these things.

Nashville defensemen Shea Weber, Dan Hamhuis, and Ryan Suter are pictured, arms crossed and looking appropriately solemn.

And you are told of Predators hockey:

Let's play FireJay's fastest growing quiz sensation - Finish the Tag Line!

(1) Predators Hockey - We Know What It's Like To Wait On Our Sister's Pregnancy Test, Too!
(2) Masturbate in Privacy in our New All Stall Men's Room!
(3) Buy Now, Settle SEC Fraud Charges Later!
(4) Because The Titans Game is Sold Out!

"It Stays With You."

What? It Stays With You? Like bad Chinese food and genital herpes? Or painful losses?

The same sign, in the form of a huge banner, is on the side of the nearby Sommet Center.

The issue, of course, is: "OK … but for how long?"

Right, the hockey team. Here's where we hear the soft SportsCenter piano playing over black and white photos of the players slowly being panned by a camera and spot light. Lay on the guilt trip of this horrible team.

The Predators, now in their 10th NHL season, have been an amazingly resilient operation, playing on -- and remaining surprisingly competitive -- through so much drama, a gifted and hockey-minded songwriter could come up with a CD full of songs about it all.

Nashville has singers! Gaw-haw! It's Music City! Stompin' Tom Connors is the only hockey-minded songwriter that should release a CD.

After managing to make the playoffs last season, despite what essentially was a clearance sale in the 2007 offseason, the Predators are off to a decent start again under coach Barry Trotz, and their 3-2 victory over Colorado on Thursday night got them to 13-10-2.

It's funny how every article Terry writes for ESPN relates to the Avalanche. Not that a lot of mine don't relate to my favorite hockey team, but I'm not paid to be unbiased. This article very easily could have been written without reference to the Avalanche.

Yet, after an official crowd of 12,717 against Colorado, the Predators are averaging 13,716 for their 10 home games, and that's 29th in the 30-team league -- ahead of only the New York Islanders.

Ah, but without the Avalanche, how are we supposed to gauge how poor the attendance figures are? If Nashville can't draw with a team like Colorado in town, how do they draw with somebody like the Red Wings or Sharks in town?

Said Suter, the 23-year-old Madison, Wis., native who is the son of 1980 U.S. Olympian Bob Suter: "Our fans are good fans. They're coming the best they can to support us. It's tough down there because the football team [Tennessee Titans] is doing so good. We're competing with them. We always have our base crowd. Some nights are more than others, but they're loud."

It's always fun to go see the bad team when the good team is very successful. All the really good seats are empty because the rich people that own them are watching the successful team play and win. The stands are filled with people wearing the successful team's jersey and listening to them on the radio or watching them play on the concourse. Cheers erupt at inappropriate times because of the successful team scoring.

I've always been scornful of the hockey media's tendency to make value judgments about consumers' prioritizing, and having double standards -- including the tendency to come up with excuses for falloffs at the box office in traditional markets, yet consider the same fluctuations in the "new" markets to be prima facie cases that they didn't deserve teams in the first place.

I've always been scornful of Terry Frei making no fucking sense. Fans have to prioritize because they can't be in two places at once. I can't think of reading an article where fans are ridiculed for choosing to attend one sporting event over another, regardless of which market they're in. This sounds like Terry wrote about it a few years ago, but recently went to Nashville and fell in love with it, so now he's calling for the heads of those that hate Nashville.

And what often is overlooked is how deflating it can be for ownership to have short pockets and inadvertently lean into the punch that the survival of the team is in question, which creates self-fulfilling prophecies. Why invest emotions and money in an enterprise that has one eye on the door?

How about why invest money in the first place when you're going to lose money? Life must suck so much for these MILLIONAIRES to be asked about their hockey team moving. Nashville's investors knew the situation was dire going in. I'm sure they had a team of advisers telling them not to do it. The question should have been "Why invest money in a failing investment?" I find it very hard to feel bad for any of these people.

But the facts can't be ignored: This is the franchise's 10th season. Hockey 101 should have been off the curriculum long ago, and the fact that many move into Nashville from other "traditional" hockey areas also added to the potential fan base, anyway.

Oh really, Terry? Transplant fans? Don't you hate transplant fans, you fucking hypocrite?

In this economy and these times, it's not shocking that other franchises -- including Colorado, where the 487-game sellout streak is in the nostalgia-drenched past -- are having problems at the gate, too.

There are other teams in the league than Colorado, I assure you. Yuppies would rather spend money on season lift tickets than watch a team not win their division. I wouldn't be surprised if that dog wearing a cape left for a better gig with the Rockies chasing Dinger around on the field.

So, no, the Predators are far from alone, but in so many ways, the savvy management of the franchise has been amazing. General manager David Poile and Trotz have been like golfers trying to putt with the gallery screaming, given all the potential distractions and disadvantages. But instead of throwing a golfer's fit, they just putt out and plow on.

Nashville has an attendance problem. So does Colorado. So Nashville, your team isn't moving anywhere, because with a sample size of two, all teams are having problems. Terry could have pointed to the Red Wings cutting ticket prices as a sign of bad things around the league. Canadian teams are halving ticket prices. Terry would rather stick to Colorado, because that's enough for his argument.

At some point, it's not a matter of a value judgment or placing blame, but an issue of wondering about whether it's going to work. No finger-pointing. No name-calling. No distasteful portraying of NHL patronage, or any sports patronage, as some sort of litmus test for the moral fiber of a market.

It either works or it doesn't.

The local ownership, albeit with Del Biaggio's 27 percent as an asterisk, has given the Predators a chance to prove their viability in Nashville. Or, more accurately, Nashville to prove its viability as a hockey market.

Terry already pointed out that Nashville has had 10 years. It should already have been proven if Nashville can prove they are a hockey market. What he hasn't done is shown us how to keep them in Nashville. That would be a very hard undertaking and would take millions of man hours and - - what's that? It's already been done on Puck Daddy? And every point has evidence? Well son of bitch, then how does Terry Frei still have a job?

The Dreaded Return of Hockey or Terry Frei, Depending on How You See Things

It's tough to believe that in just seven short weeks, preseason hockey will be attracting 4,000 people with nothing better to do to arenas all across North America. So to get back in the swing of things, let's stop off at Terry Frei's latest article to see what's not funny.

If the New York Islanders get around to hiring Ted Nolan's successor by opening night, nine NHL head-coaching jobs will have turned over since the end of last season.

Haha! You see - because they haven't... they haven't filled the position yet! And they might not before the season starts! That would be awfully silly of them! And perhaps the Islanders can all wear different styles of goofy hats! That would be uproarious!

Barring a long-shot choice on Long Island, such as Providence Bruins coach Scott Gordon, three men will be getting their first chance running an NHL bench: Atlanta's John Anderson, Florida's Peter DeBoer, and San Jose's Todd McLellan.

In the past few days, ESPN.com has offered up Power Rankings -- the Kings and the Thrashers being at the bottom of their conferences helps explain why their next coaches have formidable tasks ahead of them -- and on the mind-games front, the Top 75 Fantasy Players.

Mind you neither of these are linked in his article so that you can see them, you have to go to ESPN.com's NHL Portal your own self. I can top Terry's laziness by just not nitpicking all of his article, which is exactly my plan, but give it a little effort. There's not an awful lot to do during the hot days of the Denver summer - besides Rockpile tickets or Elitch's - and that doesn't embiggen Mr. Frei to give us links.

Here's the third period, so to speak: Coaching rankings.

On the premise that it would be excessively presumptuous to rank them 1 through 30 -- after all, we're not talking about uniforms -- the rankings are done in groups. They are also purely subjective.

Because the Power Rankings aren't purely subjective?

He follows with exactly what he said, a long and boring list of every coach broken into three boring groups. I'll be taking a tasting from each menu.

The Elite ...
... or the men who get the most out of their rosters, regardless of how good (or otherwise) those rosters are.

Barry Trotz, Nashville
The only coach the Dallas Cowb ... er, the Nashville Predators have ever had has done a remarkable job under changing circumstances. He, along with general manager David Poile and associate coach Brent Petersen, is a testament to the positives of stability. Under less-stable leadership and in less-capable hands, this franchise would be a joke on the ice.

Man, if there's something that I hate more than Terry Frei it's the Predators. But I do not understand what joke he's trying to make with the Dallas Cowboys. Other than fans of both teams are glaring idiots. Just how elite are the Nashville Predators under Barry Trotz? In 738 games, 324 wins, 308 losses, 60 ties (remember ties?) and 46 Overtime Losses. A very elite .500 team.

The Proven ...
... or the guys you know can pull it off until their voices get stale, it's time for a change, or the general manager needs to save his job by making someone a scapegoat.

Andy Murray, St. Louis
If you don't believe he's one of the best coaches in the league after his work in Los Angeles and then with the Blues, just ask him.

Andy Murray isn't egotistical. He may not be the best coach in the league, but he never has said anything along those lines. His work in St. Louis has been stellar if you count half of each season as a whole. The NHL does not, and he could be axed if the Blues miss the playoffs... again.

The jury's still out ...
... or the first-time NHL head coaches who still have to show they can be productive in what passes in this sport for the long run.

Bruce Boudreau, Washington
What a story. Finally gets his chance after years of coaching in the minors and wins the Jack Adams Award. But after the newness wears off, can he prove it was indicative of a difference-making touch?

The Jack Adams Award is "Coach of the Year." Lumping him into the same category as Wayne Gretzky's head coaching abilities? Not such a great idea.

The Suspect ...
... or they'll have to prove some people wrong to be considered (back) among the elite.

Mike Keenan, Calgary. We all know the man is a quirky genius on many levels, and he stayed relatively low-profile last season, so he might have learned some lessons. But given his recent track record and volatility, he's still in this category ... for now.

Mike Keenan has proven what a glaring prick he is. Which should lump him into "The Proven" category. It's also a much easier joke. The difference being that I'm on Blogger getting paid nothing and he's sitting on top of a bed made of money with many beautiful women posting on ESPN.com, which doesn't let you use the work "prick." Advantage: Firejay. Prick prick prick.

Barry Melrose, Tampa Bay
This is in no way, shape or form a knock on our former ESPN colleague.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmullet.

How the heck can we know yet? ...
... or the first-time NHL head coaches.

Todd McLellan, San Jose
McLellan is in a decent situation; the other two aren't.

To call San Jose a decent situation is to call Fire Jay Mariotti is just a sports blog. Clearly, both are more than just that.

And what sort of audience posts comments on ESPN.com? nhldude11 let's Terry Frei have it with this barb: nhldude11: way to go terry frei... you forgot the islanders and the flames idiot.


In the first 12 words of this article, it is established that the Islanders have no head coach. And I had no problem finding the Flames. To be put in the position to defend Terry Frei is hard, but if you're that stupid to log into your account and leave THAT as a comment... just stop watching the sport, please. Arena football needs you, nhldude11.

At what point does a transplant fan get on Terry Frei's nerves?

[Edit! Thanks, Greg Wyshynski! To everybody coming over from Deadspin, I encourage you to poke around the site a lot more. The Greatest Hits are to the left.]

I have made it no secret that I haven't rooted for every home team ever in my life. I'm a Seahawks fan based primarily on my love for the logo as a three-year-old. But I've stuck with them, through Denver and St. Louis. I've rooted for the Cardinals and Blues while living far outside St. Louis (It's a real shame that Interleague baseball never took the Cardinals/Rangers rivalry deeper.) As a second grader, my brother and I cheered a Blues goal in Dallas. We got flipped off. To this day, it's my favorite classless fan story. So as I sat down tonight determined to find something to augment my next YouTube video post, Terry Frei's article caught my eye.

At what point do transplant fans deserve to get grief?

I'm not saying that visiting fans can't be idiots. But it just sounds like a bee got into Mr. Frei's bonnet because somebody made fun of his team and he didn't have a witty one liner to say back, so he wrote an article instead. Observe!

The fans take the Blackhawks jerseys out of drawers or off hangers. The jerseys might have Jeremy Roenick's, Tony Amonte's or Chris Chelios' name and former number on the backs, because those were the most recent good ol' days. Maybe the fans don't like the new style or the price tag of the jerseys, but they know, at some point, they will update to Patrick Kane or Jonathan Toews models.

I own a Rich Pilon jersey. This guy played eight games in the Bluenote before breaking his wrist and never playing in the NHL again. It was the only sensible alternative to Pierre Turgeon. I also find it unnecessary to determine the interest level of the fan by the merchandise that they own. With teams constantly rolling out third jerseys in the previous years, I find it hard to fault any hockey fan for not running out to buy the brand new RBK Edge jersey. But this article hasn't gotten that bad yet.

Then, they head for the arena, joining friends -- even instant friends they've never met before -- who consider the Hawks and such things as Nancy Faust, Big Al's and the train ride in from Evanston to be parts of their heritage.

As they high-five following Blackhawks goals or merely walk down the concourse, they accept not only the good-natured teasing, but also brave the withering looks, the snide comments, and maybe even a spray or two of beer from other fans.

It was always a thrill to see a fellow Blues fan in Denver. I would at least attempt to egg them on to join me in local tradition or chants to no avail. But I have never witnessed anything as asinine as a 'spray or two of beer from other fans.' Who does that?

They're not in Chicago.

They're in any other NHL arena.

What a twist! I didn't suspect that from the teaser or the headline.

Maybe it's Raleigh or Tampa or Denver or Southern California or San Jose or Columbus or Nashville or … virtually anywhere else. They've paid their $74 per seat or put the first claim in on the company tickets for that game the second the schedule came out.

And, of course, the road team in question doesn't have to be (and usually isn't) the Blackhawks.

I had assumed that it was the Blackhawks in every case. Nothing worse than a drunk Blackhawks fan at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show at MSG, slowly chanting the name of the French Poodle until it shits all over the carpet.

It plays out at virtually every NHL game, especially in the U.S., with the Red Wings, Sabres, Rangers, Flyers, Blues … and on and on. I'm not talking about the affluent Rangers fan who still lives in New Rochelle, taking a California junket to San Jose, Los Angeles and Anaheim for games in late January. I'm talking about the fans who have moved to another market, often out of choice, and take great pleasure in flaunting their retained athletic loyalties to advertise that they're citizens only on the driver's licenses.

How is it that rooting for your favorite team means that you hate the city you live in? I lived in Dallas and loved it. But because I didn't change my favorite team when we moved there, I hated it. So the large amounts of immigrants in the country hate America because they love their country's national team instead of Team USA. What a dolt.

Usually, it involves a franchise with deep roots, but not always, because fan affinity simply can come from picking out a team without geography or tradition as major issues. Maybe someone is the great nephew of the Igloo's original Zamboni driver and despite never having been to Pittsburgh, always has rooted for the Penguins.

Again, I'm a passionate Seahawks fan. My reason for picking the team is stupid, and I accept that. But I follow them very closely and I don't see how I'm such a bad person for going to the game in St. Louis every year wearing as many logos as you can without resorting to Zubaz pants. It's not like I go around punching Rams fans in the face.

Hockey fans often are good-natured, tolerant and accepting of it.

But at what point do the fans of the "other" teams have it coming? At what point do they deserve to get grief?

If the answer does not involve alcohol, he's wrong.

Yeah, sometimes -- sometimes, not always -- the relocated fans of the "other" team might deserve it. When they cross the line to obnoxiousness. When they act as if they believe anyone who actually has deep-rooted affection for the area just fell off the turnip truck. When they act as if their new area's history didn't begin until they did the area the favor of moving there. When they come off as fans who might not even have cared as much about (fill in team name) when they lived in (fill in city) until they moved somewhere else and could flaunt their non-native status. And when they aren't smart enough to at least have an inkling that if rooting for the opposing team seems to reflect any of that, rather than simple and genuine affection for a team, they at least should be self-conscious.

That's when they have it coming.

Who the hell was sitting next to Terry Frei? I will say this about Denver sports fans: there are two types of them in the stands. There are informed fans that know their sport and there are fans that are there because somebody gave them the tickets. And it's painful. But as a transplant fan, you laugh at them, you do not erupt into violent outbursts. As a home team fan, you have to respect that somebody came into your building with the other team's jersey knowing what was waiting for them. But I have never - ever - known of a fan to act like this has been laid out. Drunk fans have it coming when they start insulting you, but even then you have to realize they're drunk. Half the fun of a drunk out-of-town fan is watching the ensuing security/usher scuffle when they get kicked out. That's just the way it is.

It's a gauche, lowbrow, unrealistic view, and I should be both more pragmatic and understanding of the All-American phenomenon. Embracing one team of mercenary athletes over another team of mercenary athletes is not the measure of commitment to a community. I know that. And I should know better.

It's still how I feel.

Oh, well you know you're wrong but there's no reason to change your view. Good thing you kept writing. You know, I don't particularly find the slam dunk to be worthy of a SportsCenter Top 10 highlight, Terry, but I keep watching and just wait until the next number. I don't fire up the Blogger to seethe about it.

Those "visiting team" fans deserve it when they're obnoxious transplants whose retained childhood or family-roots sports loyalties are part of a more aggravating bigger-picture attitude.

That attitude can be summed up as a complete lack of sensitivity or concern about how galling it all can be to natives who in their course of everyday life are reminded at every turn that 87 percent of their metro area can seem to be made up of transplants.

87% of any one metro area doesn't care that much about one particular sport. I would be surprised if you can find 87% of any given metro area that speaks the same language. But they sure can root against the home team!

We're a mobile society. I don't live in my native area, either. There's nothing "wrong" with moving somewhere, whether reluctantly for work reasons or even because you patented the greatest invention in the history of the world (the ATM card) and decided that moving into a Bel Air mansion was the way to go, and then retaining sports franchise loyalties.

But …

It's so aggravating to have to put up with folks who act as if the history of the area, especially when it's an area those folks have chosen to move to, didn't begin until they moved there.

Again, this seems as if one person that Terry Frei ran into acted like this. I'll lay it out like this - Tampa Bay came into being in 1987 and ceased to be in 1991. Because I didn't root for the only local team - the Buccaneers. Who thinks like this? Is there any one transplant fan that you know of that could possible think like this?

Believe it or not, there are some Southern California natives. A few, not many. Some of them are hockey fans who, depending on their ages, grew up on the old Western League Blades or the Triple Crown line or the arrival of The Great One. There are Colorado natives, who not only remember when Wilf Paiement and Barry Beck were the cornerstones of the original Colorado Rockies, but also when Loveland Pass and not the Eisenhower Tunnel was the major way to get to the ski areas or to the Western Slope. There are Bay Area natives whose parents debated who was better, Willie McCovey or Orlando Cepeda, and who went to Sharks games in the Cow Palace. There are Hurricanes fans in the Research Triangle or Lightning fans in the Tampa Bay region who either are natives or decided to sign on and make the emotional attachments to the teams when they arrived.

Got it. So because I'm young AND I don't root for the home team, I'm a fucking moron. Get over yourself. You know who is the rude idiot in this situation? Terry Fucking Frei. I never considered how people got to the ski resorts before the Eisenhower Tunnel was built. So by wearing my Blues jersey to the Pepsi Center, I am pronouncing that Denver and all of the residents of Denver - of which only 13% have a different point of view that I do - can go fuck themselves.

It can seem like there are a lot of transplant fans in your area because instead of buying season tickets to see half a season of games, they get to see two or three games.

How come there are 14.2 million folks who have moved from those, ahem, more traditional hockey markets to Los Angeles or Denver or San Jose or Raleigh or Tampa -- yet there seems to be about 11 (eleven, period) folks who have moved from those "newer" hockey markets to, say, Boston, Detroit or Chicago?

Because who wants to move from Denver to St. Louis? Who wants to leave LA for St. Paul? Who wants to move from Tampa to Detroit? Who would want to live in Detroit period?

Why do folks move someplace, then spend 87 percent of their time bragging about how great the place they left was? If it's that important to them, why not move mountains, so to speak, to move back?

1) The Al-ighty -ollar. A job won't let them. Sorry that the economy moved your job, person from Chicago. Now you have to move to Oakland and root for the Warriors.

2) There are certain things that I miss about every place that I lived (Tennessee excluded). But I certainly don't pine for them during a hockey game.

How come the transplants with retained childhood athletic loyalties don't have any idea about how aggravating they can be? This might be the most significant point of all: They're the most aggravating when their attitudes come with the kicker beliefs that their friends who dare to switch their loyalties to local teams, or have rooted for the local team or teams all along, are saps.

Absolutely, there are fans in Raleigh who root for the Hurricanes -- except for the four times they play the Rangers.

But they're in the minority.

I would say it's more aggravating when a person stays loyal to their own team until the new one finds success, then they switch. But how is that aggravating? Isn't that what a fan is? I have endless loyalty to some of the worst franchises in the history of sport. I would never think of changing these if I were to move.

Again: I will concede there's nothing wrong with -- and it even can add spice to a game -- having good-natured fans of the "opposing" team in the seats, and hearing the teasing go back and forth. To various extents, it's part of the dynamic at every NHL game. Twenty guys wearing the winged wheel, with only Brian Rafalski from Michigan, going against the defending Stanley Cup champions, none of them native Californians, in the Honda Center? That does not set up a test for good Orange County citizenship. This involves selecting one group of mercenaries over another, not moving to one area and refusing to pay taxes or mind the laws because it's not the area named on the birth certificate. This is sports, not life. I know that.

And when did where the player is from enter this? Players also worship the -ollar. They also go through a drafting process that decides where they go unless they are J.D. Drew. If you're a pro, you don't get a choice in where you go unless your childhood team is in the market for what you are.

But: Sometimes they've got it coming.

And sometimes, you realize that you just read something that a man was paid to write. One bad moment in his life has just been poured out in front of all of us, and we had to pay for it in this awful article.

Yeah, transplant fans would be annoying if they were ANYTHING like they are made to act like in this column. But they aren't. I can't imagine that a normal person would ever think that local sports never existed without them there. The best part about mocking the home town is when you know about the past of the franchise and can bring up that the Nashville Predators have a banner celebrating the first time they made the playoffs because they never have won a playoff series. What this whole article boils down to is that one single person made this terrible impression on this writer, and now a giant wave of incorrect stereotypes came flooding down upon the rest of us. This article didn't need to be written, but Terry Frei felt it necessary to tell us why he leads a better life than I do.

I hope he gets moved to Memphis. Enjoy the Grizzlies, assclown.

Dear Terry Frei, I Disagree

I was all set to watch the NHL All-Star game this weekend in the stunning clarity of high definition, but I live in Saint Louis. Instead of going into detail, I will point all interested parties to poster rmj1080p, who sums up everything exactly with post #664 (reply to #661) on AVS Forums.

So I went out scouting for am All-Star column and Terry Frei helped me out. Thanks Terry - I owe you one.

It's funny sometimes, the things you remember.

That's true. I once had a game involving a high school text book and the questionable sexual preferences of the females inside its pages. The turn of the century must have been a bad time to be a guy.

Waiting outside the dressing rooms after the 1998 All-Star Game in Vancouver, a group of us interviewed NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. The '98 contest was the first time the league -- as a tie-in to its players' participation in the upcoming Olympic Winter Games in Japan -- tried the World vs. North America format.

Bettman was more defensive than any of the defensemen in the game. (That wasn't saying much, of course.) He said everyone enjoyed watching North America's 8-7 win, and no matter what format the league used, we'd probably try to find something wrong with it.

At the time, that was true.

I remember watching it for the first time and thinking about how dumb it was. Players from the same team on opposite all star teams? As if hockey wasn't already confusing enough for people that didn't watch it, now the players that they might know about are playing against each other. It's a good thing that ended. But I'm agreeing with Mr. Frei so far and that's not what I'm all about.

At some point in the past 10 years, though, it seems the consensus has become that there's no use grousing about it, because the All-Star Game is a no-contact, no-emotion gimmick -- and it ain't ever going to change.

So because everyone knows what it is, isn't it wasting breath to knock it?

I'd say it is. Of course, that didn't really stop you from knocking it in the previous paragraph.

In a league that (again) is meekly accepting coaching strategies that strangle the entertainment value out of the regular season, most seem to have accepted the All-Star Game's role as a reminder that unfettered skills in a noncompetitive environment is largely boring.

The regular season isn't entertaining because it's too long and getting longer. Too many teams get into the playoffs. Expansion diluted the talent pool. But coaching strategies? He has a point with the neutral zone trap, but there aren't a lot of coaching strategies that reduce entertainment value. Home team wins = entertainment. Add alcohol and puck bunnies into the equation, and you get your $100 worth. Supposedly.

If the television ratings are awful Sunday night, the response should be: Good.

It will. It's Versus. And because Nielsen families aren't watching, the sport is doomed! DOOMED!

Clearly, it's about the culture of the game; there was no more theoretical incentive for the All-Star teams of 30 years ago -- when Gilbert Perreault's overtime goal gave the Wales Conference a 3-2 victory over the Campbell Conference in, appropriately enough, Buffalo.

And maybe there's no way to change it. Perhaps, regardless of the way the rosters are structured, the laissez-faire attitude would dominate.

Perhaps Bettman should suspend the writ of habeas corpus, giving teams a two man advantage for all games. (Thanks, Mr. Buffo!)

But shouldn't the league at least try? I'm not saying any of these suggestions would work, or even that they're all completely serious. The NHL Players' Association would frown upon some of these. But shouldn't the point be that mere acceptance of what the All-Star Game and All-Star weekend are doesn't have to be automatic?

How about one of the proposals below, or a combination thereof:

So just to make sure I have this right - Here's a list. Some of it is really bad, but instead of polish up the good ideas, I'll list them all. Here we go!

Give the winning conference home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup finals.

STOP. RIGHT. THERE. No. Of all the ideas, I can see this one happening and it frightens me. Instead of giving the better team home ice advantage, let's give it to the winner of an exhibition game. Never in a million years should this happen. It took the seriousness of baseball down a notch, so why not poison hockey, too?

His first point, continued:

At best, it would add a tiny emotional edge, even if it's only from the coach behind the bench. A completely contrived way to decide the home ice? So? Even after its disgustingly minor tweak of the scheduling format for next season, the NHL will still have too few interconference games. Therefore using overall records to award home-ice advantage is nearly just as contrived.

Last I had read, next year's schedule might be 84 games long instead of 82, and could have every team play at every arena during the year. It probably won't happen, but stranger things have happened. Like making an all star game count for something.

Revert to the pre-expansion tradition of having the defending Stanley Cup champion play the All-Stars. The champs against the league, whether at a preordained site or the champs' own building. Include a financial mechanism to reward an entire roster for not getting a break, and hope that the champs play with cohesion and spirit out of pride and habit -- and that the All-Stars are coaxed into at least playing with some emotion.

With the way the free agent market is today compared to the "pre-expansion" days, I can't see this idea making the game anything but less interesting than it already is. This is also where the NHLPA would throw a fit. But it isn't a horrible idea.

Don't go back to the North America vs. World format. Instead, make it Canada against the World.

Isn't the rest of the world making fun of Canada anyways? How about a Red Wings vs. the World if we're throwing out dumb gimmick ideas. Or make like the new Survivor: NHL Superfans vs. NHL Superstars. If this happens, remember you read it here first.

Do it by age group. The league tries this in a very minor way with the YoungStars Game, but that's such a low-profile and more contrived "game" than the All-Star Game; and with many of the best "young stars" in the All-Star Game itself, it serves little useful purpose. It does not do what the league often seems so reluctant to do: truly celebrate the star power of the young players who will be in the spotlight for the next decade, or longer. Make it Vets vs. Kids. Upperclassmen vs. Underclassmen. Seniors vs. Sophomores. Whatever you want to call it, even if that means selling the team names to league sponsors for contributions to charity.

A lot of minor leagues already sell their all star team names to corporate sponsors. They just leave out the charity part.

At this point, 17 of the 42 players on this season's All-Star rosters are 30 or older. I'd draw the division artificially low, making it 26 and under, meaning Rick DiPietro would be on the Kids team and Vincent Lecavalier would be on the Vets. Showcase the young talent. Showcase the league's future. And hope this raises the level of competitiveness.

And what is the positive to sticking all the older guys on the same team exactly? Showcase the old talent and the league's past? A good hack to the ribs of some kid who dribbles the puck in the air? All in all, not a bad idea.

Make the weekend even more of a hockey jamboree, regardless of where the game is played. Have the defending Memorial Cup champions play a league game -- one that counts in the standings -- in the All-Star arena Sunday morning, or match the teams with the best records in the Quebec, Ontario and Western Leagues (two of the three on a rotating basis) on a cutoff date in a major junior showcase. Because of NCAA fussiness, having similar U.S. college and National Team Development Program participation probably would be impossible, but what the heck, see if there's a way to make it work.

Canada would love this idea. America would continue not to care.

Try the whole thing outdoors. Maybe not every year, but occasionally.

The NHL could turn the outdoor game into Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on ABC. Take a winning formula, then force it on everyone until it's unpopular, then never speak of it again.

Gulp. Rotate the All-Star site among Toronto, Montreal, New York, Detroit, Boston and Chicago. The Original Six. Yes, fans in the latter two cities have lost much of their passion for the NHL, but this would be more a nod to tradition than a salute of the state of the game in those cities.

Reward two cities that don't care about the sport anymore! Best idea ever!

I have one idea of my own: How about instead of naming a host city, the team of the player that scores the game winning goal gets the game the next year? Who's with me?