If a puck drops, and nobody cares, does it make a sound?

I follow baseball, football (pro and college) and NASCAR rather closely. I track basketball just enough to have a conversation about it, and I love March Madness. I watch SportsCenter roughly once a day, and I frequent many sports sites.

In other words, I think I'm a pretty typical red-blooded American sports fan.

Imagine my surprise as I'm watching PTI the other day and they mention the NHL regular season started Saturday. And it started in London. Who knew? (Or, at least, who south of Canada knew?)

The NHL has been struggling for quite a while. Long before the strike that wiped out the 2004-2005 season, the NHL was lagging in US viewers and fans. The fact that the players' union and the owners let themselves get to the point of canceling an entire season is bad enough considering the already thin ice (pun intended) the league was on. Since then Gary Bettman, commissioner of the NHL, has seen his decision making ability degrade from there.

Baseball had a vicious strike during their 1994 season that led to the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in 90 years. Once an agreement was made between the union and management, Bud Selig and others realized they needed to market the heck out of baseball and get as much exposure as possible; you could barely turn on a television without seeing a commercial about MLB or a game.

The NHL didn't learn from baseball's lead. There was very little in the way of marketing when play was restored. And in this millennium, quite possibly the most important factor for any sports league is television exposure. In fact, there was many a puck-head pundit who insisted that HD was the one thing that could save the league. So what did the NHL do after the strike ended? Go to ESPN, and give ESPN the best deal in the world to show NHL games, knowing that exposure is the most critical component to recovering after the strike? Nope - they went to OLN Versus, a network that was famous for the Tour de France and very little after that. Couple that with the fact that they're not in every cable market (we only get them on the most premier package here), and until recently did not offer HD.

Now the NHL is attempting gimmicks to raise ratings and awareness. Having their opening game in London will generate more interest in Europe than here, and shouldn't the US be the country the NHL is interested in? And if you're going to hold a big event to open the season, maybe playing the game during prime time on a national television network is a better plan than an Saturday afternoon game on Versus?

And as further proof the NHL still doesn't get it, they've decided to hold an outdoor game in Buffalo. Great idea. I'd love to see hockey played in the elements. But apparently the cold got to Bettman's brain; they're holding the game on January 1st - the day dedicated to recovering from the night before and watching college football until your butt is numb. If you're already a hockey fan you're going to watch; but the NHL needs to grow beyond current hockey fans.

Hockey fans are about as dedicated as soccer fans. And no matter what the NHL does, a puck-head's allegiance will never waiver. What the NHL doesn't seem to grok is they can't sustain a league on this small subset of the population. They need converts. They need to make it easy for the passing fan to tune in and watch what is a very exciting game.

Unfortunately for the NHL, the only people who don't realize this are employed by the NHL front office.

Friday Five

Again with the questions....

1. Do you follow current events? Why?
   As best as I can. I do it for both cultural literacy and to be a semi-informed voter.
2. Do you believe that the media is biased? Why or why not?
   Yes. But I don't think it's biased collectively in one direction or another. I think certain organizations generally lean one direction, but on the whole it's on a person by person basis. The news is covered by humans, and we all have our opinions. Try as we might, it's very difficult to contain them and be completely objective. Plus, I'm smart enough to know when someone is being biased and filter that out.
3. Where do you get most of your news from?
   The Internet - usually just CNN.com. I used to watch Headline News at night, but they've decided that Glenn Beck and the hideous Nancy Grace are better for ratings than simply running news capsules.
4. Are there any particular news sources that you don't trust?
   Bill O'Reilly
5. Describe one recent issue in the news that has piqued your interest.
   Certainly the story in Jena has caught my eye. Like so many stories, it's not nearly as black and white (literally and figuratively) as certain "leaders" would have us believe.

Is This a Great Game, or What?

People who know me know I very rarely read. (One person in particular who frequents this blog keeps trying to get me to read a book she really enjoyed.) For me to finish a book it really has to capture me, and I really need to connect to it. Nick Hornby's books will pretty much always do that for me, and on occasion others will, but those are few and far between.

Enter Is This a Great Game, or What?

I've always been a fan of Tim Kurkjian. He has a very unique voice, and truly loves both his job and baseball. His book is about 300 pages of stories, anecdotes and observations collected over his 25 years of covering the game. While he is certainly biased about baseball being the best sport, and glosses over some of baseball's bigger issues (such as steroids), it's still offers an enjoyable view of this game. His chapter on fear of the ball is required reading for every baseball fan.

Easy read, very engaging. Also perfect reading in the john. Highly recommended.

1-2 - How do we fix this problem?

After watching what has become a consistent story with the Chargers - get up early, lose in the 4th quarter - my first thought was, "Is FireNorvTurner.com available?" (As it turns out, it's owned by a Cybersquatter who happens to own Fire___.com for several coaches.)

In any event, my first thought after watching yet another Chargers meltdown that we need to jettison Norv Turner, and jettison him now while we still have a chance to recover this season. After all, one is taught when troubleshooting a problem to find out what has changed, which will reveal your problem. The coaching staff changed - pretty much the entire staff from the Head Coach to the Water Distribution Manager - and it seems that they would be the problem. Or are they?

Certainly, Norv Turner was not the first choice by the Chargers. After all, his 59-84 career record, and having only 3 more winning seasons* as an NFL head coach than I do, is certainly nothing to boast about on a resume. However, the Chargers management didn't fire Marty Schottenheimer until after our Offensive and Defensive coordinators (and TE coach) were hired away by other teams. They said the reason they kept Marty was because they didn't anticipate losing a lot of their coaching staff. Clearly these people don't pay attention to NFL history, because the NFL has a tradition of teams stealing coaches from other winning teams, and at 14-2 the Chargers were the winningest of teams. How they couldn't see the writing on the wall is beyond me; SportsCenter had story after story about the Chargers coaches being lusted after.

By the time Marty was deservedly shown the door for his inability to win a playoff game, every other team that felt they had a need at head coach had filled their positions leaving behind retreads of retreads. Norv Turner was not, in my [not so humble] opinion not the best option left. One wonders if offering Bill Cowher (who loves teams with a strong running game and a 3-4 defense, which the Chargers have (or had)) enough money would have lured him out of retirement. After all, this was the 14-2 Chargers - a gift for any head coach. But the Chargers hadn't planned on firing their coaching staff, and wanted continuity. Norv Turner did have a connection with this team; he was the Offensive Coordinator in 2001, and allegedly installed the offense that the Chargers ran in the past (I'm not quite certain what offense it is we're seeing now.)

When they fired Marty, little did I think they would make the colossal mistake of hiring Norv Turner. Having said that, there are other factors at work.

Our two losses are to New England and Green Bay. The Patriots, cheaters or not, are still among the best (if not the best) teams in the league. Losing, or getting stomped in our case, doesn't necessarily indicate that we have problems. The Packers have started to turn the corner (and were my pick to win the NFC North), and Lambeau is still a difficult place for visitors to win football games in.

And our problems are fixable.

We need to figure out ways to get LT the ball. I haven't seen the same use of misdirection and pitches that have been successful in the past. Screen passes and passes out to the flat act as long hand-offs, and usually match LT up with an undersized DB.

We need to establish our pass rush again. Our secondary is still week. We were able to disguise this by way of our pass rush. Getting back to sending 5 and 6 after the QB on a regular basis will serve us well.

Norv doesn't necessarily have to go now. Our schedule does ease up a little, with a trip through the entire struggling AFC West coming up, and 2 of the 3 games at home. A 3-0 sweep of our division heading into the bye week puts us in a much better position that we are right now.

However, losing even one (or *shudder* two) of these games that we're supposed to win if we are in fact one of the best teams in the league, will spell the end of our season. The AFC is simply too good for a .500 team to make it into the playoffs, and that is the best we could hope for at that point.

In the NFL, you normally only get a few years before eventually the salary cap and age catches up with you. The Chargers are well positioned for the future, with a very young squad, and players under contract for years to come. But that doesn't magically give us time to rest on our laurels. If Norv can't turn this around, he will have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt he's incapable of leading this team to the promised land. At that point it will be time for him to go.

Immediately after the season.

By the end of December.

And did I mention that Bill Cowher is still unemployed?

Friday Five

Before I get into the normal nonsense, I wanted to mention a great little show Karin and I went to with a few co-workers last night. Jonathan Coulton happened to play a cool little bar in Houston called the Mucky Duck, with the opening band being Paul and Storm. Jonathan sings a great little song named Code Monkey, which of course I love. All three are very talented, incredibly funny, and admitted geeks. We laughed, we cried, we sang along, we clapped in rhythm (well, as best as a room full of white geeks can have rhythm.) A great time was certainly had by all.

(Short PSA - go see live entertainment. Comedians and bands are meant to be seen live, not just listened to on an iPod.)

With that, here's my 5 things.... I struggled a little bit coming up with something, so after a quick search on the internets I found a list of 5 questions at Five on Friday. I didn't choose the most recent one (wasn't overly interesting to me), but I did grab this one:

1. Have you ever been pulled over? How many times?
   Let's see if I can remember them all:
   Wrong way on a one way - verbal warning
   Speeding in Minnesota twice - one ticket, one warning
   Speeding in Vermont - ticket
   Rolling stop - ticket
   Pulled over once in Vermont by the Border Patrol (I'll tell that story later)
2. What are you most likely to be pulled over for? (Speeding? Reckless driving? Expired tags/inspection? Bad signal/headlight?)
   Right now - expired tags. Still need to get my car registered in the state of Texas.
3. You're driving along on your merry way when you see a police car. What is your first thought?
   Double check speed, and hope he doesn't pull me over for expired tags.
4. When you see a cop car, do you hit your brakes or keep your foot on the gas?
   Ease foot off the gas.
5. What's your personal speed limit? How do you determine what it is for any given road?
   Like my father taught me - always keep someone passing you.

Proof positive I have the greatest wife

Karin and cooking don't always get along. On occasion she'll try a recipe that doesn't turn out quite the way she would like. One of our jokes is the Karin Special is sloppy joes with canned green beans (which I will admit I love).

Today, Karin decided to take on Pan Fried Catfish with Lemon and Garlic, normally a dish a bit beyond her. (Mind you, catfish, and fried catfish in particular, is one of my favorite things.)

Not to be deterred, Karin did it up in fine fashion; would only have been better if Emeril himself came over and made it.

To top it off, she made a special trip to Spec's to pick up Turbodog, which is a great beer by Abita, a Louisiana brewery, and a perfect match for anything southern.

(Now, she did do the dirty rice she served the catfish with from a box, but it hardly seems fair to hold that against her.) ;-)

NFL Thoughts

Here's what was bouncing around in my mind on Sunday (while I wasn't curled up in the fetal position asking the bad Patriots to stop scoring)

• I know I touched on it last week, but that Peyton Manning commercial where we're supposed to be seeing the inside of his mind just confounds me. If that really is what's going through his mind, he's dropping LSD before each game.
• I got a kick out of Patriots fans booing Shawne Merriman. I guess some cheating is ok (illegal spying) and some isn't (illegal substances).
• It drives me crazy that we're calling this spying incident by the Patriots "Spygate". I understand how events work their way into our lexicon ("drinking the Kool-aid comes to mind), but the name of the hotel was Watergate - "gate" wasn't simply added to the end of another name. Are we really that un-imaginative  that every scandal now must have the word "gate" attached to it?
• Oh look - a commercial for Bionic Woman. I guess that answers my question about imagination.
• It was great listening to Phil Simms talk about the fact the rules don't state "the ground can't cause a fumble." I'd love to see that phrase go away.
• The Patriots needed someone to beat up on. Unfortunately, that was the Chargers this week. The Chargers schedule gets easier from here, but if the offense doesn't improve quickly it's going to be a long, long season.
• A big part of the reason women's sports isn't overly successful in America is because the people who run the organizations are a tad, um, misguided. The WNBA Game 5 of their finals was on Sunday. On Sunday against Week 2 of the NFL, the first race of NASCAR's Chase for the Cup, and the final match of golf's FedEx cup. Did they honestly think anyone who wasn't already a diehard WNBA fan was going to tune in? How about a little foresight into scheduling next year.
• How fast is Devin Hester? I know Madden gave him a 100 on speed - they may need to up that to 102 next season.
• People have to stop talking about plays that happened but were negated by penalty. Pundits are praising Hester for a 95 yard runback during the Chiefs game that was negated due to holding. If there wasn't holding on the play, how do we know Devin would have made it 10 yards, let alone 95?