The NHL is out for 2018.
Good, he says, while donning a flame-retardant suit. Whether professional athletes should be involved in the Olympics (especially hockey players) must rank right up there with abortion as a community dividing discussion.
The NHL is out for 2018.
Good, he says, while donning a flame-retardant suit. Whether professional athletes should be involved in the Olympics (especially hockey players) must rank right up there with abortion as a community dividing discussion.
And Calgary had better get a new Saddledome arena replacement out of the local governments or tout suite or Flames management will move ’em. And it appears to be not a threat but a promise. The NHL and its’ franchises is play’n hardball with fans and taxpayers alike during a super tough economic period when basic services are going undoubtedly going to be facing future reductions in the face of huge debt growth. Whacking a stick at the hands that ultimately support the game of hockey and are pressed to increase their support isn’t going to end well…
The time of supporting million dollar athletes should be terminated. Permanently. It’s ridiculous to spend upwards of two hundred dollars for mediocre seats to watch millionaires skate around, or someone throw a ball 90ft. Priorities are so screwed up these days. Sports used to build character but instead it built characters. More fun to be had if you do it yourself, and invite your friends to come along. A case of beer, good friends, and some activity enrich your life, pro sports makes you poorer.
Flames operators can suck eggs.
They have the sweetest deal operating all the pro sports teams in public facilities.
If that ain’t good enough build your own.
And Calgary had better get a new Saddledome arena replacement out of the local governments or tout suite or Flames management will move ’em.
Why not? If the Oilers can get new facilities simply because the owner wants them, why not Calgary?
I’ve never been in what used to be called the Coliseum or the new what’s-its-name Place. I don’t plan on ever changing that situation. I’m a sports agnostic, which suits me just fine.
why must middle class taxpayers pay for stadiums so that millionaire players can make money for billionaire owners? don’t worry about answering , its just a rhetorical question.
And does anyone remember the days of the ‘amateurs’ when Russia (SSSR) fielded an ‘amateur’ team which just happened to consist of Russian Army troops whose assignment was to perfect their hockey skills. The Kitchener Waterloo-Dutchmen tried a couple of years to compete, but couldn’t; any team whose roster depended upon having players hired by local companies was at a serious disadvantage. The Trail Smoke Eaters did well for many years and won several World Ice Hockey Championships.
The Wikipedia entry mentions that they …”were subsidised by the smelting company”… which doesn’t give the flavour of the times at all. Certainly, the CM&S Company (Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company) did build the Cominco Arena in which they played, but the support was far more subtle. CM&S (later Cominco) for many years ran a really good apprenticeship program, where local boys could – after Grade XII – sign on for training and to get their tradesmen’s certificates. Needless to say, said program was run in conjunction with the local schools, with J Lloyd Crowe High School in Trail featuring a special program for the trades-bound students, ensuring they got the academic credentials to enter the program (and featuring, from a very aware admin person, a lecture at least once a year to the effect of “I realize you don’t understand why you have to take all these courses but they’re a requirement to your getting into the trades program on The Hill, so grit your teeth and pass them. You’ll discover the value later.”).
The result was that – when the Smokies won the World Championship in 1961, a majority of the players were local and had gone through the high school/Cominco trades program. It was the last time a local, home-grown team from Canada would do that. Actually, Rosslanders (seven miles up the mountain from Trail) always maintained Trail won only because they poached the Rossland Warriors’ three top players: “Pinoke” McIntyre, Hal Jones, and Seth Martin. But they were also local: “Pinoke” McIntyre worked for the School Board as a maintenance man; Hal Jones worked at the smelter: and Seth Martin (who later played in the NHL) was a Rossland native and fire fighter (obituaries say as a member of the Cominco fire department; I remember him as the chief of the Rossland force). Indeed, when the 1961 Smokies were honoured by the local school, the majority of the team was given a special “Honour of the Crowe” award as they had graduated from that high school.
Those were the good days, when talented and dedicated amateurs could still win on the world stage. And let’s not forget that all the men on that team had day jobs and families; obviously there was a community rallying around to keep everything going while the men pursued their dreams.
1. It is good that the NHL not kowtow to the corrupt IOC. The IOC should be paying the NHL for their players services not the other way around.
2. The Calgary issue is a pi$$ing match between flames ownership led by Murray Edwards and the cabal that runs the stampede. Simply put they hate each other’s guts. And flames ownership is lowthe to let the location be on the stampede grounds and that revenues from the arena and Parking go even in part to the stampede – even though it is the best – the only – option that makes any sense especially from the taxpayer’s perspective. The development of both the arena and the football stadium and other assets are the lynchpins of a massive plan to make Calgary a global destination for events and conventions. It needs to be built with the Flames as just one of several tenants/users.
And the Flames are going nowhere. Calgary is one of the most lucrative hockey markets IN THE WORLD.
Go Leafs GO!
I could care less about the Olympics. Canada should send a team of beer league players as an insult to the IOC. It wouldn’t be fair to the beer leaguers though.
Edmonton rewarded the Oilers with a new rink. The fact that they missed the playoffs 11 straight years and are one of the worst run teams in the league didn’t figure into the decision. No problem, you deserve a new rink.
Calgary is in a tighter spot. The city finances aren’t great. The ndp will be reluctant to fork over any dough. Let them eat cake.
“When do you know when it’s spring? When the Leafs are out.”
Two of my Grandpa’s brothers played for the Regina Pats back in the 1950’s. One of them signed to the Montreal Canadians, that summer on the farm he broke his knee. Bye bye hockey career.
I agree. If pro-sports millionaire players can’t support their teams and make them financially successful, why should anyone else, least of all the taxpayers.
Private enterprise can sponsor amateur sports, just not pay players salaries. True amateur sports are the only games worth watching.
The Olympics are like the UN of sports, totally corrupt and self serving.
why must middle class taxpayers pay for stadiums so that millionaire players can make money for billionaire owners?
Situations like this are nothing new. That’s why the Dodgers left Brooklyn and the Giants left New York. The owners tried blackmailing the respective cities for, as I recall, new stadiums or they would take their teams elsewhere.
I see no reason why the entertainment industry should be treated differently from any other. They shouldn’t be subsidized by tax payers other that be pro hockey or opera or symphony or “performance art” or whatever. If people want to see it they’ll pay for it at the market rate. If they’re not willing to pay the asking price, the price will drop or the industry will lower its prices or move.
Likewise child labour laws. They should apply to entertainment the same as any other industry. Limited work hours (including travel) especially during the school year. The vast, vast majority of youngsters will never make careers in entertainment and should not be preyed upon to sustain the delusion.
I agree with the anti pro athlete sports sentiments in here . Being from calgary I think it’s repulsive that nenshi and his ninjas are trying to slip tax dollars into this venture. And if they do then calgary residents should get free beer at the games. Screw the athletes they make money and a lot of it so does the owners.
“And from there, the owners dug in there heels and never moved”. That’s where I stopped reading because I can’t tolerate an uneducated boob being funded by my tax dollars.
The Olympics were, and still should be, a competition for amateurs. From what I have seen, the upper echelon of Junior A players are far more entertaining to watch anyway. After all, they want to break into the big league and make the big coin.
The Olympics are where Elite athletes compete watched by the Elites all done at the expense of tax payers. End it.
End tax payer paid for entertainment altogether.
Pay for your own damn entertainment! Don’t use my taxes to fund your entertainment.
BREAD and CIRCUSES.
TEA. Taxed Enough Already!
Who cares?
The Olympics is a total sham. It exists only to further the ideology of a one-world government free from capitalism and self-interest/self-determination … yet uses THE most self-centered athletes who perform in their own self-interest. The Olympics has been hijacked by leftist political LOSERS. Who keep nominating LOSER host countries/cities … who FAIL to do anything but STEAL $ Billions in the process. Good for the NHL … why disrupt their FOR-PROFIT honest and legitimate sport.
Why are seasons ticket to hockey games a business expense that can be written off against taxes?
If you want to ‘entertain’ your clients you can buy a Scrabble board.
Sod off! Go SENS go
back in the dark ages, Olympic athletes being ‘amateur’, they couldn’t even hold a friggin JOB of ANY kind.
naturally, the russkies, adept at ‘fluid’ interpretations, plopped their people in the military where they spent their time perfecting their specialty. the west naturally, went along with all of it.
p.s. feel free to google Olympics that leave an enormous debt behind. the earliest one I can recollect happened right here in Canuckistan. part of the problem was the mafia iron grip on the construction industry.
then there was the rotten-to-the-deep-core corruption and graft of IOC chairman jaun antonio samaranch. the more things change the more they stays the same.
personally, I would be delighted if the cdn Olympic committee all resigned and refused any $ form the Ottawa mandarins, instead channeling ALL the money into high school sports programs and sca-REW and Olympic ‘ideals’. the whole organization is only a testing grounds for performance enhancing drugs anyway.
NBA nor NHL players should have ever been allowed at the Olympics.
The Olympics has been all-pro since 1936.
Clap…..clap……clap.
At least someone gets it on SDA.
heh.. ‘as he puts on his flame retardant suit’ – you make me laugh Lance.. I was like: ‘who is going to put on a flame retardant suit?’