Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Optimus Prime]

This should cheer you up Putin.

[Optimus Prime]

THN....couldn't agree more.

Big ice a big failure when it comes to creating offense
One of the prevailing opinions of the Olympic tournament in Sochi was that, in terms of the quality of hockey and the level of competition, it was not as intense, entertaining or at as high a caliber as it was in Vancouver four years earlier. In reality, it wasn’t even close.

There were a number of reasons for that. One of them, that the atmosphere in Sochi simply couldn’t live up to Vancouver, was indeed valid. (As much as the PA announcer at the Bolshoy Ice Palace tried. One of his classics was, “Who will win? We will know in the nearest of futures.”) The abject failure of the Russians to get beyond their team dissension and play with any sort of consistency was indeed a factor. And, let’s face it, a Canada-Sweden gold medal game doesn’t exactly engender the same kind of intensity that any permutation of Canada, USA and Russia would.

But, by far, the biggest culprit in dragging the tournament down was the international-sized ice surface. After watching Sochi 2014, it would be impossible for anyone to continue to perpetuate the myth that a larger ice surface would create more offense. The Canadian team, which allowed three goals in the tournament and outchanced its opponents badly, proved beyond any doubt that the extra 3,000 square feet afforded by the big ice is largely wasted space.

“People make a big deal of the big ice,” said Canadian defenseman Jay Bouwmeester. “They think it’s going to be a more offensive game and it’s kind of the opposite because all the extra room is on the outside of the rink.”

Duncan Keith remarked after Canada won the gold medal that much of the reason for its defensive success was that any time they were in trouble, they were able to put the puck into an area of the ice where it was a safe distance from the net. And only when Canada learned to adapt by basically playing within the faceoff dots did it really begin to excel in the tournament. In fact, at one point in the tournament, Corey Perry talked about “shrinking the ice…more like an NHL-size rink.”

This is a concept that time and again has failed to register with those who think there is not enough room out on the ice surface. But has it ever occurred to those who advocate for big ice that perhaps offense comes because of the smaller area in which to work? Hockey is indeed a game of skating and skill and panache, but at its core, it is a game that is played in confined spaces. That’s why puck battles in the NHL are so important. Teams that can use their size to win them are often the ones that are most successful. Watch any successful team in the Western Conference – the three California teams, three of the biggest teams in the league, come to mind – and you’ll see that having less space in which to work doesn’t prevent them from being successful.

Individual players such as Daniel Briere have made very lucrative careers with their ability to accomplish great things in confined spaces. And even in Sochi, if you look at most plays around the net, they looked like rush hour in Tokyo, meaning all that extra ice doesn’t help if everyone simply collapses around the net.

And really, if more space equated to more offense, why does soccer have the biggest playing surface and the biggest scoring areas in sports and sometimes struggles to produce one or two goals a game at the highest level?

And for those of you who think this observation is based on the anecdotal evidence of one Olympic tournament, think again. Because if the history of participation of the best players in the world is any indication, the numbers irrefutably back the theory up.

Sochi represented the fifth Olympic Games in which NHLers have participated. Four of those tournaments have been played on international ice and only one of them – Vancouver in 2010 – was played on the 200-by-85-foot surface. If you take the goals per game in games that involved traditional hockey powers only, you’ll notice an interesting trend. (For the sake of this study, only games involving Canada, USA, Russia, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia were used and goals awarded for winning a shootout were not included.)

In 1988 in Nagano, there were 12 games involving the world’s hockey powers that produced 56 goals for an average of 4.67 per game. In 2002 in Salt Lake, there were 10 games that yielded 46 goals for an average of 4.6 per game. In 2006 in Turin, the 16 games among the seven countries produced 79 goals for a per-game average of 4.94. And the Sochi Games had 12 games and just 52 goals, for just 4.33 goals per game, the lowest the best-on-best format has ever produced.
But in Vancouver, there were 12 games involving those teams that produced 67 goals, or an average of 5.58 per game, meaning Vancouver produced more than 1 ? goals per game among the hockey powers than Sochi did and roughly between a half and one goal per game more than any of the others.

Would making the ice surface bigger make more room, thus resulting in fewer injuries such as concussions? Undoubtedly it would. But in terms of creating scoring chances, excitement and the opportunity to display skill, it would fail on all counts.

[Optimus Prime]

Packfan, where'd you go? Canada wins another gold medal and you become a groundhog.

The good news is that your aged & oft injured Swedes have likely run their course in Detroit. No more outsourcing.

These guys are winners.

[Tony G]

Delusional Rec-League Softball Coach Has 11 Insane Questions For You

http://deadspin.com/insane-rec-league-softball-coach-has-11-annoying-questi-1538216986

[Optimus Prime]

Imagine that.....

Former Team Russia coach Bilyaletdinov says KHL needs less foreigners

By Katie Flynn on Mar 08 2014, 09:12AM
Russia is still enraged over its loss to Finland in the quarterfinals at the Olympics in Sochi last month. The players were let down by the decisions made by coaching staff. The loss was a huge disappointment to the host country.

As the chips began to fall and head coach Zinetula Bilyaletdinov was fired from his position with the National Team, speaking out was his next step.

What's the solution to becoming a contender for a medal in Pyeongchang, South Korea? Less foreign players in the KHL, says Bilyaletdinov.

"It's not right to exceed the limit that we have now," he told R-sport. "I worked with the national team, I understand the situation. We need to be thinking in terms of a reduction (in the number of foreign players). We need to let our guys play. The optimal option is three to four foreigners."

Bilyaletdinov filed to be reinstated as head coach and that claim was refused by the Russian Federation on Wednesday, according to R-sport.

Russia is still looking for their first post-Soviet gold medal at the Olympics, and it won't be coming courtesy of Bilyaletdinov

[Tony G]

Carolina Hurricanes prospect Sergey Tolchinsky is, at least for the time being, playing in the Ontario Hockey League for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds. We say "for the time being" because, well, did you see that shot?

[Pasadena Blue]

you got to love alumni like this:

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/03/report_university_of_michigan_4.html#incart_m-rpt-2

[Tony G]

Hockey
Missing OHL player Terry Trafford found dead in Michigan

By Brian Stubits | Hockey writer

March 11, 2014 8:22 pm ET


More NHL: Trades | Scores | Standings | League Leaders | Odds | Power Rankings
The story about missing OHL player Terry Trafford has ended in the worst possible way; the forward for the Saginaw Spirit was found dead on Tuesday.
Trafford was last seen on Monday, March 3 when he was disciplined by the Spirit for a violation of team rules. Nobody knew where he was and soon the search began for Trafford. Police in Michigan released information about the car that Trafford was believed to be driving, asking people to look out for it.
On Tuesday a truck matching the description was found in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Saginaw with a deceased male inside. Later it was confirmed to be the body of Trafford. The Spirit made the awful announcement on Tuesday night.

It is with very heavy hearts that we announce that late this afternoon we were informed by the Michigan State Police that the body of Terry Trafford has been found.
Our deepest condolences are with Terry's family and his friends both in Ontario and Michigan. Terry played on our team and was a member of the Spirit family for the last four years and he will be missed.

What an awful end to this story, that everybody's worst fears were confirmed.
The 20-year-old Trafford had a history of depression according to his girlfriend. She explained to the Toronto Sun that he didn't take the punishment from the Spirit well.

She said he was upset during a March 1 phone call in which Trafford threatened to kill himself.
"He left [March 2] from Toronto, across the border and hung out with a couple guys on the team to say goodbye," she said. The next morning it was "his plan was to go pick up all his things from the rink and then to come to my house. That's the last everyone has heard from him."

Trafford joined the Spirit in 2010 and the Toronto native was playing in his final season as a junior player. He had eight goals and 24 assists in 54 games this season with the Spirit.
(Image via Saginaw Spirit/OHL)

[Optimus Prime]

Swedish Olympian busted doper Backstrom, will receive Silver medal even after being suspended for drug- related activity during the Olympics, I guess crime does pay, albeit Silver.

I'd like the FBI to investigate, his Washington Capitol teammate floater Ovechkin, he plays like he is on crack anyway.....intent to distribute?

LONDON (AP) Swedish hockey star Nicklas Backstrom will receive an Olympic silver medal even though he was suspended from the final in Sochi after a positive drug test.


http://www.thescore.com/nhl/articles...pite-drug-test


# 8, Ovie's effort at back-checking:



No medal in Sochi, a real surprise?

[hack]

LOL, that's a great GIf.

[entropy]

n the most direct challenge yet to the NCAA's longstanding economic model, high-profile sports labor attorney Jeffrey Kessler filed an antitrust claim Monday in a New Jersey federal court on behalf of a group of college basketball and football players, arguing the association has unlawfully capped player compensation at the value of an athletic scholarship.

"The main objective is to strike down permanently the restrictions that prevent athletes in Division I basketball and the top tier of college football from being fairly compensated for the billions of dollars in revenues that they help generate," Kessler told ESPN. "In no other business -- and college sports is big business -- would it ever be suggested that the people who are providing the essential services work for free. Only in big-time college sports is that line drawn."

[+] EnlargeJeffrey Kessler
AP Photo/ Louis LanzanoSports labor attorney Jeffrey Kessler's lawsuit argues that no earnings cap, such as the NCAA's on athlete compensation, is legal in a free market.

The lawsuit names the NCAA and the five largest conferences (the Southeastern, Big Ten, Pacific-12, Atlantic Coast and Big 12) as defendants and effectively asks for an end to NCAA-style amateurism. The players listed as plaintiffs include Clemson defensive back Martin Jenkins, Rutgers basketball player J.J. Moore, UTEP tight end Kevin Perry and Cal tight end Bill Tyndall, though the claim is a class action and proposes to represent all scholarship players in FBS football and Division I basketball. Jenkins is a junior, while the other three are seniors who recently completed their NCAA eligibility.

The move comes on the heels of a similar, if less aggressive, claim filed earlier this month by a Seattle firm on behalf of former West Virginia running back Shawne Alston. In that suit, which does not include current players, the same defendants that Kessler's group is targeting are asked to pay damages for the difference in the value of an athletic scholarship and the full cost of attendance -- an amount equivalent to several thousand dollars annually.

By contrast, the Kessler suit dispenses with the cost-of-attendance argument and does not ask for damages as a group. It simply states that no cap is legal in a free market and asks the judge to issue an injunction against the NCAA ending the practice. It contends that NCAA member universities are acting as a cartel by fixing the prices paid to athletes, who presumably would receive offers well in excess of tuition, room, board and books if not restricted by NCAA rules.

"We're looking to change the system. That's the main goal," Kessler said. "We want the market for players to emerge."

Antitrust Claim Filed Against NCAA

LawsuitJeffrey Kessler is claiming that the NCAA is fixing the prices paid for athletes. With his lawsuit, he wants a market for players to emerge. PDF

An NCAA spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment. But in other public and legal venues, officials of the governing body have contended that the agreed-upon financial constraint is necessary to preserve its notion of amateurism, which the officials argue is significantly tied to the educational mission of universities and the commercial success of college sports.

Kessler said he disagrees with that contention.

"Do fans care that the coaches on these teams are making millions of dollars?" he said. "Do fans care that these programs [collectively] are generating billions of dollars in revenue? I don't think it will be an issue for fans if some reasonable, fair portion of the revenue goes to the athletes, many of whom never graduate or most of whom never have a pro career but along the way contribute to the revenue pie of college sports."

The suit highlights the willingness of players to challenge the once-feared NCAA. In February, senior quarterback Kain Colter led the launch of a union movement at Northwestern, asking the National Labor Relations Board to declare them employees of the college. While his eligibility has expired, many of his teammates who signed on will return next season. Before the Northwestern move, players at Arizona and other universities joined a suit challenging the NCAA on its licensing of their names and images without compensation.

Yet for the embattled NCAA, the most significant aspect of the new lawsuit may be the entry of Kessler, a litigator with a history of victories against sports leagues reaching to the 1970s. Kessler helped bring free agency to the NFL, winning a key jury verdict for the NFL Players Association in 1992. He remains outside counsel to the NFLPA and the NBA's player union, has taken on Major League Baseball and represented star athletes including Michael Jordan and Tom Brady. For municipal authorities, he forced the Raiders to honor their stadium lease and stay in Oakland.

Kessler also has a former NCAA insider riding shotgun in this effort: Tim Nevius, previously one of the organization's top investigators of rules violations and now co-chair of the college sports practice at their New York-based law firm. As an associate director of enforcement, Nevius worked on some of the NCAA's most high-profile investigations, including that of Ohio State football, whose former coach, Jim Tressel, lost his job after admitting to Nevius he had broken NCAA rules related to his knowledge of the sale of memorabilia by players.

In October, Kessler's group announced its intention to begin pursuing lawsuits on behalf of college players with a focus on compensation related to the $16 billion in television contacts. That move came less than a week after the announcement of a proposed settlement in the Ed O'Bannon antitrust lawsuit -- the one the Arizona players had joined -- in which Electronic Arts and the Collegiate Licensing Company agreed to pay $40 million to be removed from the claim. The settlement left the NCAA as the lone remaining defendant, with NCAA chief legal officer Donald Remy vowing to take its argument to the Supreme Court if necessary.

In the O'Bannon lawsuit, current and former players allege that the NCAA and its member schools sold their images and likenesses to media companies in violation of antitrust laws. The federal judge presiding over the case has ruled that players as a group cannot receive damages for past wrongs but can challenge the NCAA's ban on them receiving a share of video game, media and licensing revenues. A trial is scheduled for June 9, five years after the suit was filed.

On Friday, the judge in the Alston case asked the judge in the O'Bannon case to review whether the two actions should be bundled together, as both address the compensation of players.

The lawsuit Kessler filed is broader in scope. It makes no claim on specific revenues, only that athletes should be treated like other students, who are not subject to educational or financial compensation caps by agreement among universities. High-value students in areas like physics receive whatever the market will bear, in some cases a full scholarship plus cash.

Ramogi Huma, a former UCLA linebacker and central figure in several recent actions against the NCAA, told ESPN's "Outside the Lines" he advised Kessler as the lawsuit was being assembled. Huma is both president of the National College Players Association, a longtime advocacy group, and the College Athletes Players Association, a newly created entity that submitted the union cards to the NLRB on behalf of Northwestern players.

"The players couldn't have secured better representation than Jeff Kessler," Huma said. "The NCPA endorsed this lawsuit in large part because Jeff is the lawyer and he's focusing on injunctive relief."

Huma was involved in a lawsuit several years ago that began to chip away at the NCAA's unquestioned control over player compensation. White v. NCAA asked a federal court to allow schools to cover the cost of attendance and scored a major victory when the judge certified the players as a class, raising the prospect of trebled damages if they prevailed at trial.

Lawyers settled the case, to the regret of Huma, who felt more progress could have been made if legal fees had not piled up. The NCAA agreed to make more funds available to athletes to cover miscellaneous expenses but did not commit to allowing cost of attendance, much less changing its compensation model.

Since then, NCAA president Mark Emmert and major-conference commissioners have expressed a desire to push the value of scholarships up to the cost of attendance but so far have been rebuffed by colleges with lesser resources. Emmert has said that any payment beyond that amount is not a move his constituents would ever support, and he has expressed his commitment to preserving a ban on outside athletics-related income as well.

Kessler said he is confident the courts will strip the NCAA of its ability to retain those controls, given the media revenues flowing into college sports. In 2010, CBS and Turner Sports agreed to a 14-year contract to televise the men's NCAA tournament worth $11 billion, a 41 percent bump. ESPN paid $5.64 billion over 12 years to create the College Football Playoff, which will be introduced with the 2014 season.

"I can't say enough about the courageous players standing up for the rights of current and future college athletes," Huma said. "America is a capitalist nation with laws to protect the free market. We've fought wars and lost soldiers to defend our economic system. The NCAA's cap on players' compensation is both un-American and illegal."

It's hard to predict how college sports might be affected if players are granted the equivalent of free agency, Kessler said. But he warned against assuming the worst and expressed confidence that if his players win their challenge, college sports will emerge in a better place.

"This will end up saving college sports," he said. "It will end up with fair treatment for athletes and a more sustainable, attractive product and system that everyone can get behind, just like in football, basketball, baseball and hockey at the pro level. The owners in the 1970s said free agency and competition for players would destroy those sports. All you have to do is look at those sports today -- just the opposite has happened."

[Ghengis Jon]

Athletes ARE being paid. To blather on about how the 'poor' athletes aren't being 'compensated' for their labor is Goebbels-esque bullshit.

Want to cure the problem? Change the tax laws, and make collegiate sports a subsection under tax-exempt regualtion. If any program within an Athletic Department collects more than 10% of its total expendatures directly tied to that sport, then the entire University loses its tax-exempt status and is fully taxed at the INDIVIDUAL (not corporate) rate. And eff TV. Let the games be broadcast on PBS. If ESPN wants to bradcast a game, let them buy it from PBS. Thats less gov't money that would need to be allocated for public broadcasting.

[WM Wolverine]

True cost of attendance is a must first step, there are costs to go to school that aren't covered under the current scholarships. After that, I struggle to come up with good solutions that don't pass Title IX. Basketball and football bring in enormous amounts of revenue while the remainder of the universities varsity sports are major liabilities to every athletic department.

[Jeff Buchanan]

..... not sure about this but I don't think public or private Universities are for profit entities and therefore businesses nor would student's be considered employees of those businesses.

I'm sure the guy filing this action knows how this might work better than I but I think there are going to be considerable technical obstacles getting this case into a courtroom or before a judge to rule on the meat of the suit based on it's grounds as I understand them.

I think the NCAA, though, is in a very untenable situation. So are the universities/athletic departments that make money on CFB and CBB. The sorts of discussions going on now with regard to reimbursing cost of attendance and so forth are reflective of knowledge that everyone knows the status quo is untenable.

But I don't think there are going to be any earth shattering outcomes here. It is going to be incremental and glacial unless there is a sustainable finding by the courts that college players must be compensated in ways that are far different than they are now.

[iam416]

Yeah, this is pure publicity case. I haven't done much antitrust work, but I recall the "rule of reason" being a defense. That is, if you have a price-fixing arrangement or something, it's presumed to be a violation BUT if you have a good reason for it -- one that isn't anti-competitive -- it's a defense.

Setting aside the numerous other hurdles, if I were the Universities, I'd argue that we don't pay football players because if we did, we'd have to pay ALL student-athletes under Title IX. Your notion that college sports is a "free market" is hookum. It's regulated heavily by Federal Government. If you win, you'll kill off thousands of scholarships for student-athletes and we have a strong interest in retaining those opportunities.

Of course, I'd also throw the NBA and NFL under the bus. That's the real restraint of trade when they say you can't work for us until you're 19 or 21 or whatever. And, of course, Clarett challenged that rule and got punked.

It's a bullshit case.