NHL Hockey thread

[Neil]

The first truly sad news coming from the Winnipeg Jets.

Rick Rypien, formerly of the Vancouver Canucks (and the Manitoba Moose), who signed with the Jets as a free agent this summer, found dead in his Alberta home. 

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=373855

Unofficial reports say it was suicide, and that he battled depression last year (and missed most of the season).

there's a mean joke in there that i won't make. My condolences to his family. Suicide is always hard.

Indeed.  His problem was that he just cared to much, which would have made it difficult in Vancouver, where the players don't care about anything.

[viper37]

But the Thrashers were sold / relocated for $170 mil.  So even if you're right (and I think the losses would exceed $200mil over seven years), that's quite a jump in price.

If you want to buy a team to move, then do that.  It's not as if Glendale can keep spending $25 mil per year forever.  They'll have to sell to an out of town buyer sooner or later.

If I take 50 000 000$ today (that's the real price, since Glendale is reportedly financing half of the purchase) and 25M$ per year loss, at 5% discount rate, I get a price of 194,6M$.  Not much higher than the 170M$.  Of course, 5% is arbitrary, I used the same discount rate as Quebec city used in its financial projection for the new arena.  So is the 25M$, since I figure a new owner could reduce that loss.

But it's a good average prediction, with the date we got.

Of course, the best solution would be to buy a team and move it.  By the NHL won't allow it to be that easy.  They'll try as hard as they can to keep the team in place and only once all the possible solutions have exhausted will Bettman allow a move, and he'll be just as happy as he was for Winnipeg.

That said, I'm not necessarly getting my hopes up for the Nordiques come back.  The team may well go elsewhere or suddenly turn a profit in Arizona.

[PRC]

Sad to see.  Rypien always fought way, way above his weight class and he usually came out on top.   

[BuddhaRhubarb]

poor Rypper! very saddened to hear about this.

[Barrister]

Hey Viper - what do you have to say about this?

Buying peace with mighty Quebecor, with our money


By DON MACPHERSON, The Gazette August 18, 2011
 
Even politicians between jobs need to fear the wrath of Pierre Karl Péladeau's Quebecor media empire.

Gilles Duceppe's chances of becoming leader of the Parti Québécois weren't helped when Quebecor's Journal de Montréal this week accused him of selling out to federalism.

"Gilles Duceppe accepts Radio-Canada's money," said a headline on the Journal's front page, reporting that Duceppe would contribute a weekly column to a program on the network.

The next day, the newspaper's star columnist accused Duceppe of taking federal money to serve Radio-Canada as a token on-air sovereignist.

Of course, it would hardly be the first time that the former Bloc Québécois leader had taken money from Ottawa.

But Duceppe's real sin in the eyes of the Journal was joining an enemy on whom Quebecor has declared war, a broadcaster that competes with Quebecor's TVA television network.

(Duceppe announced Wednesday that he won't be on the program because he wouldn't have been allowed to talk about politics.)

Péladeau isn't the first publisher to have his newspapers promote his other interests with what they report (or protect those interests with what they don't report). But his do it more unabashedly than most.

Last June, Premier Jean Charest postponed until fall a vote in the National Assembly on a controversial bill favouring Quebecor's interests in the Quebec City NHLarena project.

The arena, 90 per cent of whose $400-million construction cost is to be paid out of public funds, is to help Quebecor land an NHL franchise to provide programming for its new TVA Sports channel.

The bill would deter court challenges by citizens to a sweetheart deal for Quebecor to run the arena and keep most of the profits.

The Journal de Montréal accused the premier on its cover page of "abandoning Quebec City," with a cartoon showing Charest rolling on the floor laughing.

Then its sister daily in Quebec City commissioned Léger Marketing to do a poll on the arena project. The poll was conducted only in Quebec City and the regions to the north and east, the natural fan base for an NHL team in the city. Other Quebecers, who will also contribute to the province's $200-million share of the arena's construction cost, weren't asked their opinion.

Predictably, the results supported Quebecor's interests. And some Quebecor media reported them in such a way as to mislead the public into believing they reflected provincewide opinion.

Péladeau's dailies and television stations dominate in French Quebec, particularly in Montreal and Quebec City. Politicians fear their influence. And because of that, citizens and taxpayers should be concerned too.

Last year, with the publichealth system already straining to provide services, and over the objections of medical specialists, the Charest government made Quebec the first province to extend full public health insurance coverage to in-vitro fertilization.

This was in response to a lobbying campaign led by Céline Dion and Julie Snyder, a TVA star who also happens to be Péladeau's spouse. And while Péladeau's newspapers have been campaigning against public handouts, they make an exception for corporate welfare for Quebecor.

Since promising an initial $50 million toward the Quebec City arena in the last election, Charest has twice increased the province's commitment, first to 45 per cent of the cost if Ottawa matched it, then to the present, unconditional $200 million. And on the weekend, Charest again promised to pass the arena bill as soon as the Assembly resumes sitting in September.

Charest is bidding to buy not only swing votes in the Quebec City region but also peace with Péladeau's media empire.

And he's doing it with taxpayers' money.


Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/Buying+peace+with+mighty+Quebecor+with+money/5270600/story.html#ixzz1VORL0C7a

[Grey Fox]

That's pretty much accurate. You don't get anything done anymore in Quebec if neither Bell or Quebec helps you.

[viper37]

The in-vitro fertilization bit is mostly true.
The rest... typical Montreal Gazette stuff.  Meh.

The arena
First, the Premier has promised 200M$ for the arena, no matter who builds it, no matter who finances it.
It could be built by Telus, they would give 200M$.  In fact, the 200M$ was announced before Quebecor was selected.
This is a sunk cost.  If that money doesn't go to Quebec city, it will go to Montreal.  Hence the hostility of Montreal's media.  Their city is so badly managed that they can't pay the pension funds of their employees anymore and they asked the entire province to pay for them.
In typical Montreal-centric attitude, they deserve everything, the rest can starve.  All that is missing is some Queen on a balcony to replicate a perfect historical scene.

It's a given that Jean Charest is trying to win votes in Quebec city.  He's been doing that for the last 8 years, trying to win votes by distributing "gifts" and before him the PQ did the same.  duh.  They are politicians in a left leaning province.  It's not like they win votes by balancing the budget or promising reorganization in the public services for better efficiency. re-duh!


Duceppe
If anything happenned, it would be the pressure from English Canada's media who went batshit insane at the tought of the former seperatist leader being hired by the CBC.  Just like they went batshit insane when an Ottawa hospital hired an ex-PQ member as their director.
If anything, Peladeau's pressure would have convinced the CBC they were making a good move.

Duceppe simply decided to quit because he wouldn't be allowed to comment on federal&provincial politics for the next 2 years, due to CBC's rules on the subject.  He would be considered like a former politician turned lobbyist and subjected to the same rules.  He was so eager to get back on tv that he forgot to read his contract.  What a moron.

Contrary to what the Gazette is saying, no one accused Duceppe (well, publicly, no journalis/columnist/editorialist of Quebecor or any other media said anything like that, but reader's comments, especially on blogs are another matter) of selling out to federalism.  He himself said "he wouldn't sell his soul for 300$ a week", once he changed his mind.  Radio-Canada (French CBC) frequently hires soveignists and left leaning public figures on radio&tv.

[Barrister]

You have a funny notion of what a "sunk cost" is Viper.  The $200 mil hasn't been spent yet.

What absolutely offends me about the whole thing, and which you didn't discuss, is the insistence that Quebec needs to pass a law to ensure the business deal can't be challenged in court.  That seems to me to be right out of the Berlusconi model of doing business.

It's also funny that you don't justify spending $200 mil on a new arena by itself - instead you only argue that you deserve it more than Montreal.  The better question is why spend that kind of money at all.

By the way - the entirety of the MTS Centre cost less than $200mil.

[Barrister]

By the way, I very much support the NHL coming back to Quebec City.

It's just that I think Winnipeg has shown the way on how to bring NHL hockey back to mid-size Canadian markets: build a small arena with mostly private funds, develop a track record with ownership of junior or minor league hockey, quietly work behind the scenes with the NHL, and ensure you purchase a team at a reasonable cost so you can turn a profit.

Pelladeau has done the opposite.  He is trying to build a huge arena, with mostly government funds.  He has no history of running a hockey team, and is working very publicly.  I am very afraid this is going to wind up being an enormous gift to Pelladeau, at enormous cost to Quebec taxpayers.

[crazy canuck]

It's just that I think Winnipeg has shown the way on how to bring NHL hockey back to mid-size Canadian markets: build a small arena with mostly private funds, develop a track record with ownership of junior or minor league hockey, quietly work behind the scenes with the NHL, and ensure you purchase a team at a reasonable cost so you can turn a profit.

That is the plan anyway.  We shall see how it turns out.  They have yet to start losing (I mean playing).

[Barrister]

It's just that I think Winnipeg has shown the way on how to bring NHL hockey back to mid-size Canadian markets: build a small arena with mostly private funds, develop a track record with ownership of junior or minor league hockey, quietly work behind the scenes with the NHL, and ensure you purchase a team at a reasonable cost so you can turn a profit.

That is the plan anyway.  We shall see how it turns out.  They have yet to start losing (I mean playing).

Don't you ever get tired of being wrong on this question?

[Valmy]

Well not even you can deny Winnipeg is destined to lose so decisively on November 17th that the continued existance of the franchise might be called into question.

[HVC]

It's just that I think Winnipeg has shown the way on how to bring NHL hockey back to mid-size Canadian markets: build a small arena with mostly private funds, develop a track record with ownership of junior or minor league hockey, quietly work behind the scenes with the NHL, and ensure you purchase a team at a reasonable cost so you can turn a profit.

That is the plan anyway.  We shall see how it turns out.  They have yet to start losing (I mean playing).

Don't you ever get tired of being wrong on this question?

you make it hard to wish anything but ill will on the team

[Barrister]

Well not even you can deny Winnipeg is destined to lose so decisively on November 17th that the continued existance of the franchise might be called into question.

We'll see how well the Caps, used to playing in those southern arenas, like coming to Winnipeg in mid November.   

[Neil]

Well not even you can deny Winnipeg is destined to lose so decisively on November 17th that the continued existance of the franchise might be called into question.

Are you sure?  I mean, if there's a team that knows anything about decisive losses, I would think it would be the Caps.