Islander/NHL Notables

The News Pictou County: Has an uncredited article on Saturday's second annual Play the Pros event will take place at the John Brother MacDonald Stadium in New Glasgow which was started last year by Jon Sim and Colin White of the Devils. Jon Sim comments, Joey MacDonald will participate.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
What's fun about an article like this is last year's photo has Jon Sim wearing the Islanders 2006-07 jersey before the Reebok edge designed was released, Sim never wore that jersey playing in New York.

I referenced this information a few weeks ago and Bruno Gervais should also be one of the players participating.

I found it very interesting Ross McKeon of Yahoo Sports did an article about teams contracting here in a feature about things he would change around the NHL. Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis in his blog fired back with a strong response here as to why it's not feasible with a few choice words for the Yahoo sports senior writer who in turn responded to Mr Leonsis here and of course started by writing about page views.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Whatever happened to the good old player feature stories?

Is it really about page views for so many of these sites and revenue from their advertisers so they throw anything against the wall hoping it sticks and stirs up angry/passionate reaction? I was kind of offended Ross McKeon started his response to the Caps owner with that. It's just another reason I'm conservative with what I post here and I try and draw my own line between professional and amateur but I have included Mr McKeon's team ranking and work because clearly he is a professional and will be part of our blogs coverage regardless of content.

As for the article Mr Leonsis points out the almost countless reasons contraction is not feasible and it's impossible to argue his reasoning. I could sit here and make a case for the contraction of all thirty teams in this league at one time or another including all three New York area teams.

The team that won the Stanley Cup last year used to give away cars to get people to attend games when the New York Islanders owned this league, the Wings had problems selling out playoff games the last few years and play in one of the oldest building with the least revenue streams with it's management claiming it needed to make the finals to break even in past seasons with Wings president Jimmy Devellano's comments here about the situation in Detroit here during the lockout era.

Absolutely no club in this league is immune to being included in contraction discussion for folks who wish to start them and for me anyone who wants to start one of those discussions should include his/her favorite team first.

Congratulations to former Islander Gord Dineen who was named head coach of the Iowa Chops with the Desmiones Register doing a feature by Lisa Colonno
here.

Canadian Press here has an updated on the situation with forward Alexander Radulov with comments from Bill Daly from the NHL and KHL President Alexander Medvedev.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Good for the NHL turning down any compensation for Alexander Radulov, he signed a contract to play here, he should honor it and play here. If he signed his contract first in Russia first he should play there and honor that deal.

What Rudulov pulled on the Predators here is flat out bush league, you sign a contract you honor it, you don't decide to sign another one and leave for more money.

KHL president Alexander Medvedev says there no mechanism in the KHL rules to force Radulov's return to the NHL, and said the matter might have to be resolved in court is all well and good but if he was really interested in doing things properly he would be just as quick to blast Radulov and suspend him from playing in his league until he completes his obligation to Nashville as he is to threaten NHL players that they could be suspended from international competition. I know it's fashionable to pile on Gary Bettman and Bill Daly here but in this case it's not fair.

Calgary Herald/Several outlets: Bruce Dowbiggin has more on the Todd Bertuzzi-Marc Crawford-Steve Moore lawsuit from the incident years ago with Crawford now telling his side of what happened in court documents.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
I would not want this hanging over my new coach as training camp is about to begin if Crawford was in any serious consideration if I were Garth Snow. Islanders coaching job is hard enough without that to work with as a sidebar. I wonder if it was a factor for Dean Lombardi combined with a losing record as this finally made it's way into the court system the last few months and received more publicity?

Hard to believe this is the same Todd Bertuzzi who was roughed up as an Islander rookie over a decade ago.

Islander News Articles 1/11:

Newsday: Greg Logan's article is on Eric Nystrom who grew up a die-hard Islander fan and lives down the street from Rick DiPietro in the summer and trains with him. Miroslav Satan sat out practice but is expected to play.

"It's a little far from home," Nystrom said wistfully. "It would be nice to get back and play a game . But this is great. I'm real excited; I know a bunch of guys on the Islanders, and I'd like to get one on Ricky. I'd have all summer for the bragging rights."

Newsday/countless sources: Report on Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals signing a 13-year, $124-million contract extension yesterday with the Washington Capitals that he negotiated without an agent. It still does not eclipse Rick DiPietro's contract in years which is noted in the article.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Is this why we had a lockout? Seems like this is what owners have to pay franchise players to keep them for their career because if Ted Leonsis did not give him this offer someone else would have as soon as they could. I wonder how DiPietro feels about this and Mike Richards contract because more and more it's proving he did leave money on the table if he does play the entire length of the contract.

Ovechkin did not even need an agent to negotiate this deal. No doubt some of the jealously from Toronto and markets that could not sign him will produce criticism for Leonsis. Congratulations to Ovechkin who will no doubt be featured on the NHLPA site for this deal.

Newsday: Neil Best reports in his blog Newsday.com offers more Islanders stuff than ever and then goes into the seniority list at Newsday.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Compared to when Newsday was covering the Islanders when they were winning the Stanley Cup or even in the 2002 playoffs when they were getting close to ten articles in one day's paper?

Islanders now have a Thursday web feature, the Sunday agenda is controlled by the Rangers beat writer which is a disgrace considering John Dellapina and Larry Brooks already do this for the Rangers on Sunday.

It will be interesting to see if the club is happy with a coverage increase or if they want Mike Bossy used to talk about which is not just a fair share but what they deserve from the local paper.

Sorry gang, I come from a time where the Islanders could play a weeknight home game against a Western Conference team and draw the backpage of the Times, Post and Daily News. I'm not expecting that again but my point is the Isles as a franchise should not be satisfied or settle for what crumbs they can get here.

Calgary Herald & Calgary Sun: cover the Flames who could have some words from former Islanders Adrian Aucoin and perhaps Eric Godard.

St Cloud Times: Kevin Allenspach has more on college prospects leaving programs with Kyle Okposo the focus and Don Lucia comments.

"I don't think it's a financial decision," said Lucia, 49, who makes it sound like the players respond to a pied piper whenever an NHL representative starts talking. "From the (pro) teams' perspective, why wouldn't you sign someone when it's cheaper to do so now than it was in the past? They use that adage 'Bring 'em all in and see who survives.' They use the curve that 'You're going to have to spend some time in the AHL anyway, you might as well get started now.' I guess I'm getting to be a dinosaur but, to me, it's 'Get your degree.' How many of these players are really going to make a living for a long time playing hockey?"

National Post: Mark Spector has comments from Mike Sillinger and Bill Guerin on steroid use in professional sports.

"It would make you more powerful. I just don't think it would make you a better hockey player," reasoned New York Islanders forward Mike Sillinger. He has played for a dozen NHL teams in 17 seasons, and claims no knowledge of steroid use by a teammate. "The game's played at a high speed, and you have to be able to think the game. [Steroids] might make you bigger, faster, stronger. But it's not going to make you a better hockey player."

"I don't think anyone can even scratch the surface of where baseball is going," Islanders winger Bill Guerin said. "Everybody was doing them."

Calgary Herald: Jean LeFebvre has Eric Nystrom's comments on what the Islanders meant to him growing up and Dubie's mask with his father's picture on it and how it came about.

"He's following the tradition and the legacy on Long Island that my dad had a big part in building," said Nystrom after meeting with Dubielewicz after Thursday's practice. "He was part of those championship teams. There's a strong tradition there and these guys are filling the tradition."

"I didn't really have much of an idea of what I wanted to do with my mask," said Dubielewicz, who has a painted image of former Isles captain Denis Potvin on the other cheek. "Then a couple of guys came up (with the concept) of getting some of the heritage on there and I thought it was a great idea. Like Eric said, there's a strong tradition on Long Island and obviously his father was a big part of it. I thought it'd be pretty neat to get some of that history on a mask."

Albany Business Review: Reports a new business venture for Bob Nystrom as well.

Edmonton Sun: Derek Van Diest reports Robin Figren will be staying with the Oil Kings for the rest of the season with gm Bob Green's comments.

"I definitely wanted to stay," Figren said. "I really enjoy it here and I think things are going really well for me. I think we have a good group of guys and I didn't want to go anywhere else."

"There were future considerations that we could have gotten for Robin in terms of younger players or draft picks," Green said. "But I've been at the draft long enough to know that it can be a crap shoot. There's no guarantee that when you get draft picks for good players that they're going to turn into good players.

"It would have been nice to do that, but by the same token, Robin is a great person to have around. In dressing room the younger players really respect him and he's a good leader."

Not sold on hockey ratings in NY

Ted's Take: Caps owner Ted Leonsis has a hockey blog and reprints the local ratings which Sports Business Daily and the Islanders website reported here yesterday.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Good blog by the Caps owner, worth checking out.

Here is the link to the full sports business daily article which may or may not work for everyone here which include the versus ratings Mr Leonsis and the Islanders did not provide which is understandable given the update is Caps or Islander centric.

Through 22 games, the NHL on Versus is averaging a 0.3 HH rating, up from a 0.2 HH rating through the same number of games last season. Versus is also seeing gains in viewers (up 24%), as well as with men 18-34 (up 1%), 18-49 (up 27%), and 25-54 (up 43%). The most-viewed game this far this season has been the Flyers-Penguins matchup on December 11, which earned a 0.5 national HH rating and 445,096 viewers. That game was also the net's most-watched NHL regular-season telecast ever.

The following presents ratings for NHL games on Versus through 22 games, with comparisons to the same point last season (THE DAILY).

NHL RATINGS ON VERSUS
YR GMS HH RATING HHs VIEWERS M18-34 M18-49 M25-54
'07 22 0.3 186,029 254,558 43,022 100,270 101,988
'06 22 0.2 155,432 204,697 42,464 79,103 71,541

RSN RATINGS FOR NHL TEAMS IN U.S.
TEAM NET GMS HH RATING % +/-
Islanders FSNY 22 0.25 176.0%
Devils FSNY 22 0.36 138.0%
Blues FSN Midwest 16 2.43 125.0%
Rangers MSG 23 1.08 124.0%
Wild FSN North 17 2.62 114.8%
Red Wings FSN Detroit 27 4.64 56.8%
Flyers CSN Philadelphia n/a 2.30 28.0%
Penguins FSN Pittsburgh 28 5.08 21.8%
Capitals CSN Mid-Atlantic n/a 0.50 12.0%
Sharks FSN Bay Area n/a 0.90 6.0%
Ducks FSN Prime Ticket 18 0.27 -3.6%
Blue Jackets FSN Ohio 29 1.04 -9.6%
Kings FSN West 24 0.31 -11.4%
Panthers FSN Florida 24 0.17 -22.7%
Lightning Sun Sports 25 0.66 -25.8%
Stars FSN Southwest 14 0.41 -34.9%
Blackhawks CSN Chicago n/a 0.60 -45.0%
Thrashers SportSouth 20 0.18 -45.5%
Coyotes FSN Arizona 16 0.23 -52.1%

Ratings for the Hurricanes, Predators, Sabres, Bruins and Avalanche were not available.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Call me cynical but until I know the New York numbers are provided by Nielsen to these publications and not Barry Watkins in the P.R department at Msg like the earlier update I'm not sold on these numbers. Msg no doubt was embarassed by poor local hockey ratings for the Rangers and the teams they own broadcast rights too (not the Sabres) so this all seems like another p.r spin campaign by the garden to their sources in the media business.

I also want the FSN-2 numbers which is where many Islander and Devil games appear.

The other markets numbers do seem in line.

New York Times.com: Richard Sandomir's update back in October of 1998 as far as I am concerned best represents what Msg owning the Islanders television right's until 2030 means.