Hey Dad,

Watching Chelsea-Stoke. Thought I’d drop a note.

Hockey has gone south. As you well know.

Bettman’s business model has been exposed as unsustainable.

Jim Billionaire wants to move The Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton. No-brainer.

He’s buying for $240M a team that may be worth as much as $800M.

Bettman’s board-sanctioned ‘obstinance’ is not only annoying it’s detrimental to the league and the game. And the business.

So be it.

Turns out the Leafs are really behind the ‘distaste’ for the Man. Balsillie. The Billionaire. Made his money in portable phones. More or less. Huge.

It’s now emerging that there are some serious anti-competitive issues involved – on a whole lot of levels.

Bettman’s NHL is toast.

Balsillie should do whatever he can to cement this thing. He should get Gretzky on board. President of hockey ops. There are some fences to be mended there, I gather. Give Moyes an AHL team. Or better, set up a Cirque de Soleil, Phoenix in the arena in Glendale.

The town they’re dealing with is 250,000 strong. A burb in the dessert. Ice Hockey Central.

There are two bidders left. Balsillie. And the NHL. Jim Billionaire’s offer is more than the NHL’s and the NHL’s offer perhaps includes a payout of $39M to Itself – the NHL. That will all become less vague after Redfield T. Baum, the judge, overseeing the auction in bankruptcy court – in Arizona – ordered sides to write up their bids over the weekends and have them handed in by Tuesday.

It may even go to constitutional law. The NHL Constitution. It may be challenged.

Anyway, it’s a mess. But Bettman – if the board has any business sense at all – will be gone at the end of this. IF.

Hockey went South. And it failed.

Ultimately, it’s a geographic battle.

The Coyotes need to move dens. The economic landscape has changed. Hamilton makes ideal business sense, even analysts in the hire of the NHL admit that.

Hockey is local.

Bettman’s tight grip – a grip that choked the game into an offering of pasteurized from corporate monoculture – is loose, as may be his grip on reality is. At times I think Bettman’s ego is the only part of that quick little brain that is engaged.

Yeah, I know, I know. I’ve gone too far.

But seriously, he’s got to go.

And who would I see as Commissioner?

Perhaps Gretzky.

Or pull somebody from Business. I have no idea who that would be. John Tory. Give him something to do. Of course this would be premised on Tory winning some sort of election, even if it is only a majority from some new form of Board. But you see what I mean. Mario Lemieux.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on here.

Talk soon,
B.

Hi Dad,

Here’s a photo of mom sending an email.

She sent me a .jpg before i could get it together to send her one. I suspect she’ll be podcasting soon.

Things here are good. Went to see Bill Clinton speak at the new soccer stadium at the Ex. Nice facility.

I was inspired by Bill’s neo-liberal schtick so much I left the stadium and immediately won a stuffed cow playing whack-a-mole. Beat several young children and cripples along the way. Win-win-win.

more later,
brian

Hi Dad,

Mom’s on email. She’s downplaying her accomplishments. Looking for a bit of praise. You know mom.

Not that she doesn’t deserve it. The praise. She’s really dug into the subject. I’ve walked in on her with the Internet Basics Instruction book in her lap. She’s dozing of course. But she is getting the hang of it. Through the fog that is her day to day existence.

Don’t get me wrong. They’re very nice at the home. I’m just saying: mom is slowing down. Relatively. But she seems to be more engaged. Slow but engaged. How’s that?

Okay, i gotta say the house was a mess. What was it with all the saws and radios? Never used.

I went to the house. Obviously. To clean up and paint.

I’m not sure what it was about the house that seemed so gloomy. Your ashes were in an empty sideboard. Beside that was mom’s organ. The dark brown drapes dominated the windows. The walls were a kind of greasy brown color. It had the air of a funeral parlour about it.

Of course that was you know who that did that. Not mom. Some kind of shrine thing. To Her Dad.

I’m sure you see why I did the big clean, from a practical point of view. The house needs to be sold.

The real estate guy must have thought he could sell it like that.

Anyway…I painted everything white. I brought up the stereo from the basement. Bought the day Kennedy was assassinated. First thing we heard when mom plugged it in was that Kennedy had been shot. Speaking of dead Kennedys, Ted Kennedy is a dead Kennedy.

Funny, I would have thought you’d never have had much use for the Kennedys. But I found an LP of Kennedy’s speeches. JFK. “The Major Political Speeches of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.”

Hm.

Anyway, gotta run.

Later,

Brian