Tag: Craig MacTavish

Winnipeg Jets: Nice brain fart by the captain, Andrew Ladd

Notes on a napkin while munching on pizza and watching the Winnipeg Jets and Disney Ducks do their thing in Game 2 of their Stanley Cup tournament series…

Pre-Game: You know you’re getting old when you need to take an afternoon nap just so you can stay up to watch an entire National Hockey League playoff game that commences at 7:30 p.m. Kind of sad, wouldn’t you say?…The Gab Four on Sportsnet—Daren Millard, Damien Cox, P.J. Stock and some dude named Billy Jaffe—are prattling on about the Edmonton Oilers winning the draft lottery and the right to make Connor McDavid their next mistake. My first two thoughts: 1) How can Craig MacTavish screw this one up; 2) Can he decline the No. 1 pick in June?…McDavid really looks excited about the prospects of going to Edmonton, doesn’t he? I’ve seen happier mugs on death row. Can’t blame the kid, though. I mean, who the hell wants to go to Edmonton?…Actually, on second thought, maybe McDavid looks creeped out because he’s sitting in the red chairs with George Stromboloupouloupouloupoulous. There’s definitely something creepy about Boy George…Fashion note: P.J. Stock is wearing the ugliest neck tie I’ve ever seen…It’s official, there is one man on TV more annoying that Glenn Healy. His name is Damien Cox, who doesn’t speak to us as much as he lectures us while staring creepily into the camera. I think Cox thinks he’s profound, whereas in fact he delivers nothing noteworthy and really, really, really creeps me out as he stares creepily into the camera…So far, this is all very creepy…I dislike these two anthem games. Drop the puck already…I don’t know who cuts Corey Perry’s hair, but I’m guessing it’s the equipment manager with the skate sharpener. If the Ducks big winger actually goes to a barber or hair stylist for that hatchet job, he should sue.

First Period: The pizza’s ready. Pepperoni, piles of smoked chicken and extra cheese. Gonna put on a pound or two tonight. No problem. Just go for a long walk along the ocean shore on the morrow…Good to see Mathieu Perreault back in the Jets lineup. The guy looks like Frank Zappa with that wild mane and facial foliage…My, my my. This is big boy hockey. That’s some serious body belting going on. The Ducks can give as good as they get, though…I don’t know about you, but I’m so glad Rogers didn’t assign Bob Cole to handle the play-by-play for this Jets-Ducks joust. Dave Randorf isn’t my idea of Danny Gallivan, but it’s night and day between him and Cole. First of all, he’s got a full head of hair and a full set of teeth, but he also knows the names of the players and can tell us who has the puck. What a concept…Ryan Kesler can play on my team…No scoring. Just a lot of banging for 20 minutes.

Second Period: It’s great that the Jets are doing all this banging, but I think it might be a good idea if they actually tried to play some offence. What happened to that strong possession team we watched all season? Who drew up the game plan for the playoffs? Claude Noel?…I don’t know about you, but the way this thing is unfolding, I’m already thinking we’re headed for overtime. Maybe double OT…Is there something wrong with the color on my TV? Bruce Boudreau’s face is the same shade of orange as the Ducks uniforms. The Ducks rolly-polly coach looks like he got his tan from a spray can…The Ducks are trying to be too fancy. Gary Galley is right—shoot the thing…Hey now! What’s this? Adam Pardy scores to put the Jets up 1-zip. The last time Adam Pardy scored a goal I was still young enough that I didn’t have to take an afternoon nap so I could stay up to watch a 7:30 hockey game. Actually, it was four years ago. Way to go, Adam…The zebras convene for a chin-wag to determine if Lee Stempniak interfered with Ducks goaltender Freddie Andersen. No way, Jose. That was a good goal…I take back what I said about Ryan Kesler. He’s a complete doofus.

Third Period: Arithmetic wasn’t my strongest subject when I was a wee kid in Grade 1, but I could count to six. Apparently two linesmen and two referees cannot count to six, because the Ducks have six skaters on the ice. That’s one too many. No call, though. It’s one thing to ignore some of the nasty stuff and let the boys be boys, but you have to call too many men..I don’t like the tone this game has taken. It occurs to me that it’s just a matter of time before the Ducks get the equalizer…Brain fart! Brain fart! Brain fart! And it’s by none other than Andrew Ladd, the Jets captain. He clips his counterpart with the Ducks, Ryan Getzlaf, near the right ear with his stick and he’s off to the bin for two minutes. Gonna be costly, mark my words…Yup. A Cam Fowler shot goes off Patrick Maroon’s right glove and past Ondrej Pavelec. 1-1. Great leadership with that stupid penalty, Laddy boy…Now it really looks like OT, but something tells me the Ducks aren’t done yet. They’ve really taken it to the Jets this period…WTF? Jakob Silfverberg scores! With just 21 ticks remaining in regulation. Geez, Louise…Jets Nation will be whining about the officiating after this 2-1 loss. This isn’t about the skunk shirts, though. It’s about the Jets’ preoccupation with banging and crashing and not enough attention to generating offence…Prediction: The Ducks are up 2-zip in this best-of-seven series, but I say it returns to Anaheim tied 2-2.

rooftop riting biz card back sidePatti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Sam Katz buys the Winnipeg Jets and other stories you’ll read (or not) in 2015

Read all about it! Before it happens!

That’s right, kids, we’ve gone crystal ball gazing and we see considerable intrigue and unrest during the next 12 months, not the least of which is the sale of the Winnipeg Jets. Here are some of the stories you’ll be reading (or not) in 2015…

  • EDMONTON— The Edmonton Oilers have won the draft lottery but traded the first overall pick to the Winnipeg Jets in exchange for Evander Kane, Ondrej Pavelec, Dustin Byfuglien and future considerations.

The decision has been heavily criticized, with a headline in the Edmonton Sun screaming: “OILERS PUNK’D OUR DRAFT!”

“We did nothing of the sort!” an angry Oilers general manager Craig MacTavish raged an hour before being fired. “That’s typical trash tabloid journalism! I realize the easy thing to do and the right thing to do would have been to keep the No. 1 pick and use it to take either Connor McDavid or Jack Eichel. But sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing and, for us, doing the wrong thing is the right thing to do. Besides, if anybody can screw up a draft with both McDavid and Eichel in it, it’s Kevin Lowe and myself. We don’t need the headache. We might never use our first-round draft again.”

Kane, meanwhile, was delighted to be leaving Winnipeg.

“Sweet,” he said before dashing off to take care of unpaid parking tickets. “Edmonton is a lot closer to Vegas.”

  • WINNIPEG—The Winnipeg Jets have selected Connor McDavid with the No. 1 pick and presented him with jersey No. 10, with Dale Hawerchuk’s blessing.

“That’s just ducky,” the modest McDavid said during a signing ceremony at Portage and Main. “They wanted to give me No. 9 now that Evander is gone, but I thought that would be disrepectful. The No. 9 is a storied number in Winnipeg Jets history. I’ve got a lot to prove and a long way to go before anyone can call me the next Doug Smail.”

  • WINNIPEG—The future considerations in the big Edmonton Oilers-Winnipeg Jets trade is Chris Thorburn.

“You know how when you’re a young guy and you go out drinking with the boys? And then you wake up the next morning beside some chick you’ve never seen before? And there’s a tattoo of a heart with her name on it on your ass and you say, ‘What the hell have I done?’ ” Jets GM Kevin (The Possum) Cheveldayoff said at a press gathering. “Well, I woke up this morning and realized that Thorbs’s contract was the tattoo on my ass. I mean, three years at $1.2 mill per? What was I thinking? We’ll miss Thorbs in the room…wait…actually we won’t.”

  • LAS VEGAS—The season ticket drive for a proposed team in Las Vegas has stalled at 37 people, but the city has been awarded a National Hockey League franchise, nonetheless. Team officials are ecstatic.

“This gives us three more season ticket subscribers than the Florida Panthers and five more than the Arizona Coyotes,” said a team spokesman. “We can’t wait to start losing $25-to-$30 million a year.”

  • LAS VEGAS—Owners of the Las Vegas franchise have announced that the team name will be Craps. After a name-the-team contest, the most popular suggestions are Black Jacks, Rat Pack, Gamblers, Sinners, Bandits, Slots, Strip, Caesars, Snake Eyes and Craps. The expansion club’s 37 season ticket holders chose Craps.

“It’s only appropriate that the team be called Craps,” a club spokesman explained while working a one-armed bandit at Caesar’s Palace. “First of all, putting a team in Sin City is a real gamble. It’s a roll of the dice, so to speak! Secondly, once the rest of the league offers us their rejects in the expansion draft, what do you think our roster will look like? The absolute shits, that’s what it’ll look like! Craps!”

  • LAS VEGAS—The winner of the Name-the-Vegas Team contest has received a lifetime pass to every Celine Dion show on the Strip until the end of time.

“Can I get tickets to see David Copperfield make her disappear instead?” he asked.

  • TORONTO—After more than 30 years preaching from his bully pulpit on Hockey Night in Canada, Don Cherry has been fired following a rant in which he referred to Daniel and Henrik Sedin of the Canucks as “those two tooty-fruities in Vancouver.”

“What are you saying, Don?” asked Ron MacLean. “That the Sedins are gay?”

“You take it any way you want!” barked Cherry. “They’re two tooty-fruities in a tooty-fruity TOWN! Ya been to Vancouver lately? Nobody workin’…everybody smokin’ wacky-tobbacky…everybody kissy-huggin’ trees and little rodents…protestin’…and look what they did ta the joint after the Stanley Cup final in 2011! Almost burnt the joint ta THE GROUND! That was a DISGRACE! People all over the world saw that on TV and everythink…that’s what they think we’re like in Canada! A bunch of pot-smokin’ layabouts who like to play WITH MATCHES!”

Asked for a comment, a visibly shaken HNIC host George Stromboloupoouloulouloupooulous moaned, “The body’s not even cold yet and the scavengers are already plucking at the carcass. (Glenn) Healy wants Grapes’s Coach’s Corner gig and P.J. Stock wants his wardrobe. It’s going to get ugly around here. And I’m not talking about what Damien Cox sees in the mirror.”

  • WINNIPEG—Mega-billionaire David Thomson has sold his shares in the Winnipeg Jets to former mayor Sam Katz, who immediately engaged in a very public spat over the team name with co-owner Mark Chipman.

“I’ve never liked the name Jets,” said Katz, “and if you were to inject Mark with truth serum he’d tell you the very same thing. He only named the team Jets due to extreme pressure from fans. The guy caved. No spine. It was stupid to name the team after the original version of the Jets just because that’s what the majority of the people wanted. Who the hell cares what the fans think? I was mayor of this town for 10 years and I didn’t give a damn what the people wanted. I did what I wanted. And I want a new team name because the original Jets left town in 1996.”

Reminded by news scavengers that he named his baseball team Goldeyes, 30 years after the original Goldeyes disappeared from River City’s sports landscape, Katz remained defiant.

“If there’s one thing I learned a long time ago when I was bringing acts like the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney to town,” he says, “it’s that what you say and what you do don’t have to be mutually agreeable. Just because I say I’ll do something doesn’t mean I’ll do something. That’s simple Politics 101.”

  • WINNIPEG—The Winnipeg Jets have become the first NHL team to place major ads on their uniforms, with a big, bold 7-Eleven Slurpee logo across the front of their jerseys.

“I think it’s a perfect fit for Winnipeg,” said co-owner Sam Katz. “This is the Slurpee capital of not only Canada, but North America and the entire world. As a former mayor of this town, I can confirm that no place sucks like Winnipeg! I also think there’s perfect symmetry, in that our corporate sponsors and Ondrej Pavelec’s save percentage are exactly the same—.711.”

  • WINNIPEG—The Winnipeg Sun has taken over from the Winnipeg Free Press as the “official newspaper of the Winnipeg Jets,” and there’s mixed reaction.

“This is awful news,” said Sun sports columnist Paul Friesen. “Now that we’re in bed with the Jets, do they expect me to become a toady for the hockey team, Thursday? Do I have to write that Kevin Cheveldayoff is a genius, Friday? This is the worst thing that’s happened to me since they asked me to write the annual Night Before Christmas column, Saturday.”

“This is great news,” said Freep sports columnist Gary Lawless. “Now that we’re not in bed with the Jets anymore, I can write mean and nasty stuff just like Friesen’s been doing all these years. Let him be the toady. I can say what I really, really, really think of Kevin Cheveldayoff and his dumb draft-and-develop plan. This is the best thing that’s happened to me since second helpings.”

“What do you think would be tougher to take?” asked Freep beat writer Ed Tait. “Somebody who’s wearing hob-nailed boots kicking you in the nuts, or watching a new Adam Sandler movie? I know that has nothing to do with the Free Press no longer being the official newspaper of the Jets, but I often think about things like hobnail boots and Adam Sandler movies when I watch the Jets play. I’m a happy camper either way.”

rooftop riting biz card back sidePatti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg sports for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of sports knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old and comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she apparently doesn’t know when to quit. Or she can’t quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for her scribblings about the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C., and her induction into the Manitoba Sportswriters & Sportscasters Association Media Roll of Honour.

Hey, Winnipeg Jets fans! Chevy knows hockey, so keep your shirt on!

So, how bad was it? Well, let’s put it this way: As the end approached, I thought perhaps someone was about to give the Winnipeg Jets the shirt off his back.

That is to say, it was sweater-toss worthy.

I mean, the local hockey heroes delivered a frustrating, now-you-see-us, now-you-don’t performance against a road-weary Calgary Flames outfit that ought to have been running on fumes at the tag-along end of a six-game journey. So, surely the resulting 4-1 beatdown Sunday evening would fuel fury. Passion. And the hurling of a piece of clothing in protest.

But no. We weren’t in Edmonton or Toronto, Dorothy. Nary a piece of linen fluttered to the freeze at the Little Hockey House on the Prairie. By the time everyone stepped out into the darkening River City night, no one had surrendered their Jets jersey.

Not even Chris Thorburn, Anthony Peluso or TJ No Dots. Oh drat.

This tells me one of three things:

  1. Hey, Winnipeg is known as Wholesale City. It’s not that we’re cheap. We’re just looking for a better deal. So when we’re forced to buy something at retail price, like a $200-plus tax Jets jersey, we don’t do it so the Zamboni driver’s kid can find something special under the Christmas tree.
  2. We just can’t decide what do do first—throw away our Jets jerseys or our Bombers jerseys.
  3. Those who occupy the pews at the shinny cathedral at Donald and Hargrave can’t get enough of the True North Kool-Aid and have fully bought into a draft-and-develop strategy that, to date, has been nine parts draft and one part develop.

 

If you fall into category No. 3, I hope this doesn’t come as a news bulletin, but it’s a very risky business that can take a very wrong turn.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m on side with draft-and-develop. To a degree. I just think there’s more to building a year-in, year-out competitive outfit than collecting National Hockey League wannabes and never-will-bes, and I point to theLos Angeles Kings as evidence. The group that won the Stanley Cup tournament last June was a collection of shrewd draft selections, workers acquired in barter and others recruited through free agency.

At the opposite end of the measuring stick, I give you the Edmonton Oilers. Here’s what a pure draft-and-develop plan has delivered (aside from eight years of emptiness):

The Oilers have had18 first-round picks this century. Five of those players are on the Edmonton roster today. Only one, Taylor Hall, is worth a damn.

And have I mentioned the Copper and Blue haven’t qualified for post-season play since 2006?

Little wonder they’re hurling sweaters on the ice at Rexall Place.

It’s easy to say the Oilers have been operated by a collection of managerial misfits like Kevin Lowe, Steve Tambellini and Craig MacTavish. But how can we be convinced that Jets general manager Kevin (The Possum) Cheveldayoff has more shinny smarts?

Based on a history of zero playoff appearances and the early returns this season, he doesn’t. But, hey, it’s early. So keep you shirt on, right?

Well, right now that’s the only difference between what’s going on in Edmonton and Winnipeg: We keep our clothes on.

rooftop riting biz card back sidePatti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg hockey and the Jets for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of hockey knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old, comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she doesn’t know when to quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for literary contributions to the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C.

Bobby Hull: Spousal abuse or not, they’ll still line up for his autograph

I believe I am on the side of the angels when I suggest men should not beat up women or children. Ever. I also believe most level-thinking people would agree.

What, then, are we to make of the legacy of Robert Marvin Hull vis-a-vis hockey in River City?

Ben Hatskin is, of course, the father of professional shinny in Good, Ol’ Hometown and should forever be recognized as such. It was his vision that delivered the World Hockey Association to Winnipeg and, more significant, it was Benny’s pie-in-the-sky dreaming and bulldog tenacity that brought us Hull in 1972.

That was a favorable development then. It remains so today.

Had Hatskin not convinced the game’s glam guy to accept a $2.75 million bribe and defect from the Chicago Blackhawks and the National Hockey League, the Pegtown sporting landscape would be noticably more barren, figuratively and literally. There would have been no Winnipeg Jets/NHL 1.0.There would be no Jets 2.0. This isn’t a “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” thing. We know what came first: Hatskin and the Jets/WHA. Then Bobby Hull. Then the NHL. Then Mark Chipman and the Manitoba Moose. Then the Little Hockey House on the Prairie. Then the Jets/NHL 2.0.

Thus, the three most noteworthy and influential figures in local lore are Ben Hatskin, Bobby Hull and Mark Chipman.

One of the three is recognized as a man who hits women. So, with the knowledge that Hull whacked his wife, Joanne, on the head with the steel heel of her own shoe and bloodied her, and because she was granted a divorce on the grounds of physical cruelty, mental cruelty and adultery, do we erase his accomplishments while he wore No. 9 in Jets linen? No. We cannot.

Hull still signed that $1 million WHA contract and agreed to accept an additional $1.75 million to coach and play for the Jets, a development which forever shifted the salary structure in not just hockey, but all major professional sports in North America. He still scored all those goals. He still made magic with Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson. He still brought the first two of three WHA titles to Pegtown.

These realities are stored in memories. For some, they cannot be jarred loose.

I have made no secret of my dislike for Bobby Hull. I am repulsed by his behaviour. He is a cad of high rank. Yet I can separate the man from the hockey player. Just as I can so many other athletes who have led lives of imperfection and are guilty of being human beings.

I mean, retreat to Babe Ruth’s days. The great Bambino bounced from brothel to bar to brothel to bar. Yet he continued to swat home runs at a then-unparalleled pace. The game went on.

Ty Cobb was a nasty bit of business given to fits of anger and fisticuffs. He whacked a hotel elevator operator for being “uppity.” He slashed a security guard with a knife. He choked a woman. He thumped a disabled fan. He fought on the streets. Yet he continued to collect base knocks and steal sacks. The game went on.

Move ahead to the 1950s. In May of ’57, a group of New York Yankees gathered to celebrate Billy Martin’s 29th birthday at the Copacabana at 10 East 60th St. in Gotham. Martin, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Hank Bauer, Whitey Ford and Johnny Kucks engaged in a brawl with a bunch of bowlers that included Edwin Jones, who was decked by Bauer. The party-boy Yankees were required to appear before a grand jury. Yet they continued to put on their pinstripes and won the American League pennant, before bowing to the Milwaukee Braves in the World Series. The game went on.

You want a bad ass? Try former heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston.

After doing a two-year stretch in the brig for armed robbery and assaulting a police officer, ex-con Liston fought for a group linked to St. Louis underworld bad boy John Vitale. His contract was later taken over by mobsters Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo. Liston took the title from Floyd Patterson with a first-round knockout at Comiskey Park in Chicago on Sept. 25, 1962, and it was of little significance that the heavyweight champion of the world was a convicted felon run by the Mafia, who really “whacked” people. The game went on.

Muhammad Ali, long admired worldwide, was a serial philanderer who arrived in the Phillipines for the final fight in his Joe Frazier trilogy with his mistress in tow and his wife at home. He refused induction into the U.S. military, was convicted of draft evasion, drummed out of boxing, then returned three and a half years later to eventually regain his heavyweight crown. The game went on.

Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich of the Yankees held separate press conferences on March 4, 1973, to announce they had swapped wives, children, pets and homes. Combined, they won nine games while wearing N.Y. pinstripes that year. The game went on.

In January of 1984, Craig MacTavish of the Boston Bruins got behind the wheel of his car. He was impaired. He killed a 26-year-old woman and was convicted of vehicular homicide. After spending a year behind bars, he renewed his NHL career with the Edmonton Oilers, and today is the team general manager. The game went on.

This is a tip-of-the-iceberg sampling of athlete misconduct from times that are often romanticized as kinder, more gentle, innocent. Yet the music never died.

If people were truly affronted and truly cared about the egregious trespasses of professional athletes, they would protest by refusing to purchase game tickets. They wouldn’t watch on TV or online. But they don’t protest, do they? The National Football League flourishes regardless how many players’ names surface on police blotters or on a court docket. Fist-fighter Floyd Mayweather Jr. continues to earn $30 million paydays regardless how many women he beats up. Convicted rapist Mike Tyson continues to earn a living simply for being Mike Tyson.

And so it is with Bobby Hull. He will be judged both as a hockey player and as a man, and I believe it’s safe to say that he will grade significantly higher for his achievements on a frozen sheet of water than for what he did behind the closed doors of his home.

That’s why they’ll line up for Hull’s signature the next time he surfaces in River City for an autograph session…and the queue will include women.

rooftop riting biz card back sidePatti Dawn Swansson has been writing about Winnipeg hockey and the Jets for more than 40 years, longer than any living being. Do not, however, assume that to mean she harbors a wealth of hockey knowledge or that she’s a jock journalist of award-winning loft. It simply means she is old, comfortable at a keyboard (although arthritic fingers sometimes make typing a bit of a chore) and she doesn’t know when to quit.
She is most proud of her Q Award, presented to her in 2012 for literary contributions to the LGBT community in Victoria, B.C.