Hockey, Baseball and Points In Between

Last night, we (TBL, Mr. TBL, and our buddy PuckHead) headed across the river to watch the Saint Paul Saints take on the Gary (Indiana) South Shore RailCats in Game 2 of Round 1 of the Northern League Playoffs.

(Yes, Virginia, there IS playoff baseball in Minnesota this year!)

En route, we were afforded--and seized!--the chance to meet Wild goaltender Dwayne Roloson, who is just about the nicest guy this side of the international date line. Asked about the new, smaller goalie pads which are being implemented this year, "Roli" displayed a mightily bruised and, it turns out, broken finger which was injured as a result of insufficient coverage by the new-length blockers.

Note to the NHL--we fans wanted the pads to be narrower, not shorter. Leaving goalies' body parts exposed was not supposed to be part of the deal, guys...

We arrived at Midway Stadium halfway through the anthem and proceeded to our sweeeeet front-row seats. We were surprised and pretty much appalled by how empty the stadium was, especially considering how hard it was to get tickets to the last ten or so regular-season games there.

Having such excellent seats inspired me to bring my trusty digicam, so here are a few images from the game.


Saints starting pitcher Mike Meyer


Meyer again. Looks good, doesn't he? But appearances deceive, as Meyer gives up nine runs (seven earned) in four innings of work.


Saints third base coach (and former Twins shortstop) Jackie Hernandez, who rumor has it spends the offseason entirely on horseback.


A straight-ahead shot from our ten-dollar seats, with no zoom employed. And they have real beer there, unlike the Dome. Who could ask for anything more?


Saints second baseman Justin Hall in the field. The Saints fell apart defensively, bobbling to the tune of four errors.


A Saint at the plate. The Saints would smack 13 hits before the end of the evening.


The St. Paul boys put on a mighty rally, but it wasn't quite enough to win the day. The series moves to Gary tied at one game apiece.

So, jazzed up by our hockey encounter, the Saints rally and postgame fireworks, and the coffee we consumed to keep ourselves warm in the unexpectedly cool evening, we headed back across the river to Twinsland. You know the saying that all good things come to an end? Well, this good thing ended when a guy in a big ol' steel-framed car made a left turn directly into our aluminum travel-pod.

We're all okay. Let's just get that out in the open right now.

I have never been so frightened in my (admittedly fortunate) life as I was during that split second between seeing those headlights headed way-too-directly for us and the impact itself. Then there was an instant of mind-numbing relief as I concluded that I was neither bleeding nor indeed experiencing any pain at all, followed immediately by a bolt of hysterical worry for my husband and our friend the driver, succeeded by more relief as both professed to be just fine, thanks. That's a lot of emotion for the span of about five seconds, so it was no real surprise when the nervous shaking set in and we all ended up standing on the corner comparing hand tremors.

The driver of the other car was fine, too. He was even able to drive away after the nice police officers took down our information. The aluminum travel-pod, alas, gave of its own structural integrity to protect ours and had to be left where it sat, slowly leaking fluid(s) unidentifiable by streetlight.

A few phone calls in the bright light of day turned up various minor aches and pains among our party that went unfelt in the adrenaline-soaked haze of the evening's end, but nothing requiring medical attention, thank God/dess. And a twinge here and there is good for the soul, don't you think? We shouldn't be allowed to forget our fortunate escapes too quickly.

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LET'S PLAY HOCKEY!!!!

It's official!

NHL, Players Reach Deal to End Lockout:
NEW YORK - The NHL and the players' association reached an agreement in principle Wednesday on a new labor deal, ending a lockout that wiped out last season.
The sides met for 24 hours starting Tuesday afternoon to hammer out the collective bargaining agreement that will return the NHL to the ice. In February, commissioner Gary Bettman canceled the season, making the NHL the first North American sports league to lose a year because of a labor dispute.
Both sides still need to ratify the deal, which is expected to contain a salary cap. That process is expected to be completed next week, the league and the union said in a joint news release.
It took all night and then some for the final round of negotiations to produce an agreement.
The sides met for 10 straight days in New York, and it became clear Wednesday morning - the 301st day of the lockout - that they weren't going to leave the room without an agreement in hand.
The expected salary cap will likely have a ceiling approaching $40 million and a minimum somewhere between $20 million and $25 million.

Oh, hallelujah. A baseball offseason with more to offer by way of entertainment than a choice between crappy re-runs or throwing the housecat into a snowbank.

Let's play HOCKEY!

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Puckheads

Yet another reason to admire (or relocate to) Canada: hockey as civil disobedience.

Yahoo! News - Vancouver street hockey players protest B.C. government's new highway plans:
VANCOUVER (CP) - About 300 spectators and hockey players of all ages blocked a section of a main Vancouver street on Sunday to protest a proposed highway development.
The street hockey game shut down a part of the city's trendy Commercial Drive for just over an hour on the sunny afternoon.
The puck - actually a green tennis ball - dropped at 1 p.m. with players as young as five battling it out to score a goal in the friendly match.
The hockey group, Cross Pedestrians, refused to let cars through but did clear the way for buses.
'By stepping out on the streets to have a bit of fun, we're empowering ourselves to make the necessary changes,' said organizer David Fields.
He said the group was there to deliver a message to the provincial government.
'We don't want to see Highway One expanded. There are other alternatives available. If they're going to sink a billion dollars into transportation, we'd rather see it put into public transit instead,' he said.
The B.C. Ministry of Transportation has proposed twinning a section of the Trans-Canada Highway between Vancouver and the Fraser Valley community of Abbotsford.
A major concern is the development will cause more cars to be on neighbourhood streets, said player Richard Brooks, 30.
'It's a good opportunity on a beautiful day like today to show people that we should take back our streets, back away from the cars and use streets for what they are meant for, playing hockey," he said.

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...And Desperation Sets In

Ah, I miss baseball. More so this year, without the beloved distraction of hockey, but every offseason is far too long. Let's slap a retractable roof on every stadium and play year-round, how about it?

I know, I know. The offseason makes you value the season more. It's difficult to properly appreciate what you never have the opportunity to miss. But perhaps the season could be extended? Just a bit? Start in mid-March instead of early April. Is that too much to ask? We could pay for it with the Yankees' luxury taxes.

Maybe we could round up some of those out-of-work hockey players and put on a few exhibition baseball games for charity. It wouldn't be good baseball, but it would sure be entertaining!

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NHL - Union Busting?

The Rocky Mountain News has an interesting take on the latest developments in the NHL lockout:

"TSN, an all-sports television network in Canada, said it obtained a copy of a confidential eight-page memorandum sent by the NHL to all the teams that states its intention to reject the union offer.
According to TSN, NHL vice president Bill Daly wrote in the memo that the union offer included 'necessary and significant short-term relief' for the league but 'falls well short of providing the fundamental systemic changes that are required to ensure that overall league economics remain in synch on a going-forward basis.'
Daly continued: 'There is virtually nothing in the union's proposal that would prevent the dollars 'saved' from being redirected right back into the player compensation system, such that the league's overall financial losses would approach current levels in only a matter of a couple of years.'
In other words, team owners are too irresponsible to keep a rein on player salaries and must have a mechanism that protects them from themselves. If the NHL is headed for financial ruin, well, just pin the blame on the players.
The union's proposal included a luxury tax that Bettman disdains. Why? Because it doesn't guarantee owners and general managers will behave in a fiscally responsible manner, so a hard salary cap is the only way to keep them in line.
In the NHL's previous proposals - back in the summer, in case you've forgotten - the players were offered 53 percent of revenues (down from the ridiculously high 75 percent they received last season) and a guaranteed average salary of $1.3 million (a $500,000 reduction).
So it was interesting last week, when the sides met for the first time in three months, that the union offered to slash contracts enough to lower the average salary to lower the average salary to $1,368,000.
Union executive director Bob Goodenow said the offer would save the league $528 million over the next three seasons, at least $570 million over a six-year period and allow teams a second chance at showing fiscal sanity.
It's unfortunate the owners don't trust themselves enough for that to happen.
The union proposed a 20 percent tax on team payrolls that exceed $45 million, 50 percent on those above $50 million and 60 percent on those over $60 million with the monies distributed to needy teams.
But after cutting costs by 24 percent, only three teams - New Jersey, Philadelphia and Toronto - would have to pay any tax based on full-season 2004-05 payrolls.
So why not lower the payroll thresholds and increase the tax at rates negotiated by the league and union?
Oh, that would require compromising. Can't have any of that.
Bettman and the owners also want to eliminate salary arbitration and make deeper reductions in entry-level contracts than the 65 percent cuts offered by the players.
Maybe Bettman really does want to cancel the season and declare a labor impasse. That would allow him to impose his own rules, invite players to show up next season and in effect bust the union.
NHL fans should prepare for a long, hard winter."

Is the NHL engaging in union-busting? Is this more about undermining the players' collective power than about fixing the finances of the league?
While I have been firmly behind the owners in their quest to bring some sort of fiscal sanity to the league, after the union's proposal last week I started to wonder if they'd gone too far. The union offer is extraordinarily generous. While in theory a salary cap is the most certain way to bring balance to the enterprise, it has become obvious that the players simply aren't ready for that. And the owners do bear the lion's share of responsibility for allowing salaries to spiral out of control.

The union is offering to take the hit in their own pockets in order to effectively erase the overspending of the last few years. In return, they are asking that the owners take it upon themselves to ensure that salaries remain sane.

That seems fair to me.

It's not the easiest way. At any moment, any owner could come down with a severe case of Steinbrenneritis (and, in fact, George Steinbrenner himself owns an NHL team) and blow league parity all to hell, albeit at the price of a hefty luxury tax. I'm a believer in salary caps, myself. I think the NHL needs one, and I think the MLB needs one. But these things take time and now is obviously not the time for the NHL.

If the owners can show themselves to be responsible stewards of the league, their arguments for a salary cap will hold a lot more water. They will be able to push for it on the grounds of equity, not simply because they trust each other even less than they trust the union.

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Hockey Schtick

So. It's finally starting to set in.

No Wild.
No hockey.
And a long winter coming.

We had baseball, then politics to distract us. But alas, blare of goal horns will not break the silence that follows, and it's a very long time until baseball season begins. Whatever shall I watch while I knit?

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Ex-Wild center Zholtok dies in Latvia

Ex-Wild center Zholtok dies in Latvia:
"NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Former Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators center Sergei Zholtok died Wednesday in his native Latvia of an apparent heart ailment. He was 31.
Zholtok was playing for Riga 2000 this year during the NHL lockout. News reports said he excused himself from a game in Belarus and collapsed and died on the way to the locker room."

Oh, Zholi. We're going to miss you.

For those who don't follow the Wild, this guy was amazing. He wasn't the second coming of Wayne Gretsky, but he was fast and fearless. He helped younger players adjust to the league and improve their games. He took time off from the NHL to play for his native Latvian team in the spring World Championships several times. He and another Latvian player organized an online auction to benefit abused children in Latvia, convincing many other NHL players to donate signed memorabilia to the cause.

Sergei Zholtok: the pride of Riga, Latvia.

Rest in peace.

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