Shocking Admissions 2: A Recurring Post

I watched the Rick Springfield concert on HDNet on Sunday. Not only did I really enjoy it, I was left with a desire to (a) see Rick Springfield live and (b) buy Rick Springfield CDs.

Best Regards

John Brattain: 1965-2009

Baseball Think Factory thread
Memoriam by Maury Brown

Your sexist post of the day

Arnold Thimons, winner of Poker After Dark's Dream Table III contest has already won - he got to see Leeann Tweeden up close in that outfit. WOW!

(Also, Jennifer Tilly.)

Hey there's a tree!

This column contains all the navel gazing you would expect from a newspaper writer, writing about the newspaper industry's imminent collapse. It also contains the most mindnumbingly stupid section I have read in a long time:

Which leads us back to my preferred solution: You. Stop blaming the people who run your local daily, or their bosses at head office, for the loss of your favourite old comic. Trust me, it ain't their fault. They are working like fiends to give you the best newspaper possible, under difficult circumstances.

Then, if you want a healthy daily paper in your town, subscribe. Steel your resolve, pick up your credit card and pony up. Check out Sun Media's e-editions, which are first rate and allow for a small monthly subscription fee.

Boiled down: "Don't blame us for the decisions we made. And pay us to correct our mistakes." I understand that this new fandangled Internet is ruining newspapers, but to tell paying customers to stop complaining and pay you more money to have things fixed (ie "old comics" disappearing from the print edition of the newspaper) is backwards and insane all at once.

Calling Shenanigans

The NHL Trade Deadline was yesterday, with a bit of activity occurring. The most confusing trade of the day occurred when the Toronto Maple Leafs traded Richard Petiot to the Tampa Bay Lightning for Olaf Kolzig, Jamie Heward, Andy Rogers and a fourth round draft pick.

Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal. But Petiot is toiling in the AHL, and is not considered to be an impact prospect. So why is he worth a 4th round pick, let alone the additional players that were included? Money.

The trade moves the Lightning under the salary midpoint, which gives them access to more revenue sharing funds. So the Leafs end up with a fourth round pick in exchange for being an enabler of the Lightning's plan.

Both James Mirtle and Tyler Dellow are on the case, but I think both are missing the key story of the trade.

It's not that Brian Burke has taken on $400,000-$600,000 in extra salary in order to get a fourth round draft pick. This has happened in the NHL before (the Upshall/Carcillo deal, for example. The New Jersey Malakhov deal for another.) The NBA sees these sorts of deals, in an even more obvious manner.

The key is that these deals are normally done because one team is either over the salary cap, or so close to the salary cap that they would not be able to make any other moves. It's a strategic move, where a team has no leverage, but tries to create some flexibility. In this case though, the Lightning are trying to get under the salary midpoint so they can take more money from the league. It's not a strategic move which could lead to an improvement to the team. That's what the league needs to be looking at, not just the practice of moving players to clear cap space.