Bettman can't bulldoze NHLPA
Steve Simmons asks how a compromise can be reached if no one challenges Goodenow?
By STEVE SIMMONS, TORONTO SUN
We interrupt what remains of this hockey season -- one game and two days to be precise -- to bring you this weekly collection of ...
THIS AND THAT
Gary Bettman is dreaming if he thinks he is going to break the NHL Players' Association. You find free-thinking athletes in other sports. What you have in hockey is fear and pack mentality. When Bob Goodenow speaks, everyone else listens. It's not an association, it's a wealthy dictatorship ... No one challenges Goodenow: That's how lovely men like David Frost get certified as agents and everybody plays hear no evil, see no evil ... Bettman's greatest challenge -- keeping at least three tiers of ownership on the same page. The players are easy and challenge no one. The owners didn't get to their lofty positions by keeping quiet and few of them have similar agendas ... So, there goes Happy Goodenow, trying to make a deal again by selling out rookies. He managed that the last time he pulled the wool over the NHL's eyes and then castigated player agents who didn't take advantage of the bonus structures for their first-year players. To date, though, Goodenow is undefeated in negotiations with the NHL ... New definition of desperate: The Yankees crying for a forfeit against poor Tampa Bay ... It's nice to see more of our tax dollars going to amateur athletes but it would be even nicer if only the deserving received our dough. Like, why bother paying a carded salary to 57-year-old Ian Millar, who finished 24th at the Olympics in equestrian? ... How bad an Olympics was it for Canada? Even our horses sucked.
HEAR AND THERE
Never mind Don Cherry. The best way to increase NHL television ratings in the U.S. would be to show World Series of Poker highlights between periods ... How confident are you if you're a Maple Leaf player about to be locked out and your representative is Bryan McCabe? ... New definition of comedy: Bill Watters on radio trying to defend the Leafs' $10-million waste named Robert Reichel, whom he was party to signing. Next up: Watters defending the no-trade deal he gave Kris King ... And this piece of NFL wisdom comes courtesy of Steelers' backup cornerback Ike Taylor, who upon making the team said: "You only get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so many times."... Carlos Delgado is having a Joe Carter month: All kinds of numbers when it matters least. In fairness to Delgado, this is his ninth and likely last Blue Jays season. He is averaging 36 home runs, 115 RBI a year and never contending ... Brett Hull has been one of about three speak-your-mind hockey voices over the past 20 years and so he slipped this week. He slipped bad. But typically, him not playing for Team USA became a more intriguing story than most of the World Cup blandness.
SCENE AND HEARD
Yeah, Serena Williams got jobbed by some shady line calls but didn't she make 25 unforced errors against Jennifer Capriati before the chair umpire seemingly turned on her? Apparently, the last event that umpire worked was synchronized swimming in Barcelona in 1992 ... Someone should say it: New England's smooth quarterback, Tom Brady, is the closest thing to Joe Montana since Joe Montana ... You'd think after Charlie and Frances, the next hurricane would have appropriately been named Ben, rather than Ivan? ... Attention press box: Kellen Winslow Jr., a veteran of one NFL game as of today, is now making himself available to the media. He is calling himself the Chosen One ... You know there is everything and a bag of chips on the Internet when there is a list of the most overpaid players in the NFL in cyberspace. Seattle defensive lineman Grant Wistrom, sixth on the list, was upset by his placing. "I should have been top-3," he said ... Looking at George Reed, standing on the sidelines in Edmonton on Friday night, he had that Jim Brown look about him. Like if you gave him the ball, he could still knock somebody down ... This is the real problem with the weak Calgary Stampeders: Their best quarterback happens to be their head coach.
AND ANOTHER THING
Nice that Scott Stevens has been cleared by doctors to play again. Now, if only doctors could work on a cure for this Bettman-Goodenow thing ... Little known fact: Tommy Kane, the former football player who plead guilty this week to murdering his wife, played his minor hockey in Montreal with and against Mario Lemieux and at one time was considered a better player ... Here's what became of Brian Glennie: The former Team Canada defenceman just turned 58, is alive and well and living in Bala, Ont., where he occasionally works out at a recreation centre that bears him name ... Any moment now Ernie Whitt will consider making a pitching change ... If you have a heart, you're cheering for the real-life wild thing, Rick Ankiel, to make it all the way back and stick with the St. Louis Cardinals. The pitcher in Bull Durham hit the mascot for comedy. Ankiel did it because he lost his control. ... .. And hey, whatever became of Mauro (Goose) Gozzo?
