Category: Sports

NHL Suspends Flames Goalie 5 Games:

The NHL came down hard Sunday on Calgary, suspending goalie Jamie McLennan for five games and fining coach Jim Playfair $25,000 and the team $100,000 for actions late in Game 5 of the Flames’ first-round series against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.

McLennan was given a match penalty for slashing Detroit’s Johan Franzen in the midsection at 17:01 of the third period, one of four penalties the Flames were assessed for aggressive and illegal use of the stick (slashing or cross-checking) in the closing minutes of the Red Wings’ 5-1 victory.

Hometown columnist Jeff Gordon writes:

Upon further review, former Blues goaltender Jamie “Noodles” McLennan has a nasty temper after all.

During his 18-second stint in Saturday’s Flames-Red Wings game — in relief of Calgary starter Mikka Kiprusoff — Jamie went crazy. Twice McLennan hacked Detroit forward John Franzen in the legs, a la Ron Hextall or Billy Smith.

Then he really flipped out, chopping Franzen in the midsection, leaving him doubled over on the ice. UFR never saw this side of Noodles when he was here.

Au contraire, Mr. Gordon. In a playoff game against San Jose, I saw Jamie McLennan skate 178 feet to have a go with Nikolai Khabibulin. Now that’s joining the gameplay.

In my book, if Jamie McLennan whacks you, you deserved a whacking. Also, not you have been whacked by someone who goes by Jamie. That’s harder to live with.

A new Blues acquisition muses on his first NHL game:

You can’t really remember anything … that’s how big of a memory it is.

Where was he when Scooter Libby was rounding up his defense?

Obviously, I’ve chosen my side: Bears-Packers Rivalry Now Classified As “Civil War”:

In a major decision by NBC, the long-standing rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears will now be referred to as a “Civil War”.

The Oval G flies over my house.

Now appearing on the front page of StLToday.com, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch online presence:

Snow shouldn’t be a problem for College Cup:

It figures to be cold for the NCAA College Cup semifinals at Hermann Stadium, but the field should be clear and the games will be on.

NCAA soccer semifinals at SLU postponed:

The NCAA men’s soccer semifinals scheduled for today have been postponed because of the weather and will be played Saturday morning.

At least the Bears game wasn’t the most lopsided Packers loss this season.

Sportswriters around the country have discovered their disdain for having to prepay merely for the right to pay for something.

Oh, wait, it’s not PSLs; it’s paying for the privilege of negotiating with a player:

The Boston Red Sox can afford to and made the choice to pay $51 million just for the right to negotiate with a Japanese ballplayer. Sickening.

When the sports teams do it to loyal fans, it’s a creative revenue strategy. When agents do it to sports teams, it’s sickening.

I do see the subtle differences that make the moral equation opposite.

As a reminder to those who have recently relocated to the St. Louis area (Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Williams, I mean you), the local baseball team’s name has only two syllables.

St. Louis Cardnals.

Pronounce that I, and people will know you’re from somewhere else riding the bandwagon.

Kenny Rogers pitching to Milton Bradley

Let’s face it, if you’re going to go back in time and need to convince someone you’re a time traveler, leave the 2006 American League Championship Series out of the conversation.

Titans tackle kicks helmetless Cowboy, is ejected, and is probably going to be suspended. But let’s go to the Titans coach Jeff Fisher for perspective:

“It’s ridiculous to get to that point. Two back-to-back penalties like that, there’s no place for it,” Fisher said.

Thank you, sir, for that bit of perspective on flagrantly unsportsmanlike behavior and wanton, senseless violence in sports.

Who would have thought it? Bill McClellan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and I agree on something: the owners of the St. Louis Cardinals played the civic “leaders” like ballpark organs:

Not so with a ballpark. If developers thought a Ballpark Village were a great idea, they would have built a village around the old ballpark. They didn’t. So when the Cardinal owners wanted some financial help for their new stadium, they promised – and put that promise in writing – that they’d also build a Ballpark Village. This would be a big plus for the revitalization of downtown.

Now comes the word that yes, the Cardinal owners could live up to that promise, but the Village would be a lowercase sort of place: ballpark village. Doomed to failure. Who wants to live in ballpark village? On the other hand, the city could have something spectacular – three times the size of the original plan – but the taxpayers are going to have to help out again. Maybe $100 million or so worth of help.

Perhaps these crony capitalists are serving a function for the greater good.

Media Views: A cut in free-TV games seems to be in the Cards:

As the baseball season winds down, the clock also could be ticking on KPLR’s run of televising Cardinals games. It remains to be seen where the over-the-air games in the Cards’ local television package end up next season — or even if there will be a free-TV portion to the deal. The current agreement places 41 games on Channel 11.

FSN Midwest, the cable-satellite TV outlet that carries the bulk of the team’s local television package (110 games this season), has been negotiating with the club for months to increase its number of games as part of a new deal that would begin next year. (The club’s arrangement with KPLR allows for either side to opt out of after this season.)

This is a high stakes game not only for the team and TV outlets, but for a significant number of fans. Only about 80 percent of homes in the market subscribe to services that carry FSN Midwest, which is one of the lowest percentages of cable-satellite TV penetration in the country. That means that one in five homes in the area — about 244,000 total ­– could face a significant reduction in the number of telecasts available over free TV, as the club would be taking money over those fans’ interests and the fact more people watch on KPLR than FSN. That would parallel the team’s switch of flagship radio stations, from KMOX (1120 AM) to KTRS (550 AM).

Let’s not forget the Cardinals made the public build them a stadium with fewer seats in it, so they’ve got to dissuade the casual fans somehow. By making the games unavailable for free on television or the radio, they’re on their way.

You know, current sports owners remind me more and more of quick-turn real estate rehabbers. They buy a team, slap some wallpaper agreements raising revenue in the short term, and sell it for exorbitant profit after only a short time. The next investor group picks it up, does the same, and hopes to make their short term profits before the infrastructure–in this case, the fan base–crumbles entirely.

The St. Louis Cardinals want the taxpayers to throw more good money after bad–for the Cardinals owners to catch, of course:

As the new Busch Stadium continues to attract sellout crowds, the crater next door that was once the old stadium continues to do what it has done since the season’s first pitch: gather dust.

Team officials have promised that the site one day will be Ballpark Village, a bustling collection of shops, restaurants and condominiums that will transform downtown St. Louis. To get a tax break from the city, Cardinals executives three years ago committed to spending at least $60 million to develop two of Ballpark Village’s planned six blocks.

Now they are back, pushing for a $650 million project on all six blocks. But with that renewed ambition, comes an outstretched hand – more public financing. A look at similar projects shows that the taxpayers’ burden could well exceed $100 million.

I would be almost be happy if this proved to be an expensive lesson to governments who would spend their constituents’ money to pamper sports teams. However, like all other boondoggles before it, I expect this will ultimately only prove to be expensive.

Cardinals ticket sales are down, and they’ve got a million theories why, but none of the ones enumerated in the story match my expectation.

Here are two things that have alienated some of the out-of-town fan base:

A publicly funded stadium. Remember the signs that said “We’ll build a stadium when the Cardinals build highways”? The people who put them in their yards and on their farms do.

The Cardinals bought KTRS and moved their broadcasts to the underpowered AM station and a “network” that leaves the radio coverage spotty in St. Louis, much less within driving range of a weekend in St. Louis.

No, certainly the dive in tourism traffic comes from gas prices and the rumor that every game is a sell-out. Good luck with continuing delusions.

Egads, for a second time in a row, the National Hockey League Stanley Cup is awarded to a team in the Southeastern United States (Tampa Bay then, North Carolina now) over a Canadian team (Calgary then, Edmonton now). It’s an affront to the sport that places that don’t care about it triumph over teams in places where kids actually play pick-up games of it.

Rankles me almost to the point that I’d run away and join the hockey, which is the nearest thing Canada has to a military these days. But like other chickenwingers, I’m just going to complain about it and not do anything. Because I cannot skate backwards.