10 WEEKEND THINGS

Taking shots …

1 – ENROUTE: This week’s column comes to you from the Peach City – Atlanta, GA – where yours truly gets to spend a day between travelling from NHL All Star Festivities in South Florida to the Queen City – Regina, SK – where we’ll be set up for The RP Show for the next several weeks. THINGS ARE FANTASTIC! Thanks for stopping by …

2 – “IT IS WHAT IT IS”: Familiarize yourself with that saying. Please! It’s for your own best interest and Mental Health. The grumbling from hockey fans – mostly in Canada but some in the States – over the format for this week’s NHL All Star Game & Skills Competition has been extremely loud and volatile on social media. But has it been effective? Today we’ll examine the furor over perhaps the most memorable NHL All Star event ever.

3 – THE GOOD: Florida Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk was named MVP of Saturday’s All Star Game/3-on-3 Tournament after registering seven points in his own barn, leading the Atlantic Division to the title. It’s the first time the host division has won in this format since its inception in 2016. … Matthew’s brother Brady of the Ottawa Senators chipped in with 3 points, giving the Tkachuk family 12 on the day. … Did you get to see the ESPN telecast? Analyst Mark Messier strongly pointed towards Matthew’s leadership and character and how it important it is for the Panthers franchise. … The elder Tkachuk is the 10th player in NHL All Star history to be named MVP in his own city. Other guys you’d know? Ray Bourque (Boston, 1996), Mike Richter (New York, 1994), Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh, 1992), Henri Richard (Montreal, 1967), Frank Mahovlich (Toronto, 1963) & Eddie Shack (Toronto 1962). … The local media referred to M. Tkachuk as “The Mayor of All Star Week” for the past several months and he proved them right. … Also, you can’t say no one in the area knew the event was going on. Everyone did.

4 – THE BAD: Look, I’ve been a hockey person my entire life but sitting in the crowd and press box for Friday’s Skills Competition, I had no idea what was going on on the ice. The NHL seems intent to “reinvent” the wheel when it comes to this event and the backlash was severe. Even Anaheim Ducks star Trevor Zegras Tweeted Friday night that the event was boring. … Hopefully the NHL assesses what went down this weekend and makes some changes, but we’ll get into that more in a minute. … Hiccups I saw were confusion over how the events were to be run, the fact the crowd really never had anything to cheer about other than Connor McDavid going 4/4 on targets, and the production of the event lagged. A three-plus hour event on Saturday was just long. … “They” say they want to attract new fans to hockey and that’s why they went to Florida. I had several friends who bought tickets for the whole weekend and although they knew what an All Star Game was, they really weren’t certain what they were in for for the Skills. I’m eager to find out if they came away more confused than ever. We’ll see.

5 – FINAL ANALYSIS: All week long they told me “It’s not about the game. It’s about the marketing”. The good news is they brought hockey people, fans and sponsors together and that’s never a bad thing. It was fun to see everybody, and meet tons of new friends. But this is the way sports has gone folks. Heck, the NFL All Stars are playing dodgeball and flag football this weekend in Las Vegas. If you pine for the old days, don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. … Relate it to the CFL’s Saskatchewan Roughriders. In the 1990s, the Green & White Game in Saskatoon was a fully-padded, heads-knocking, four quarter game. We loved it. Under Roy Shivers and Danny Barrett in the 2000s it became the Green & White Scrimmage. And then under Chris Jones in the 2010s, it became the Green & White Practice where there’s no contact and if you hit the quarterback you’ll be cut on the spot. It is what it is.

Incidentally I don’t ever recall anyone getting seriously injured in an All Star Game or intrasquad clash but when Colorado’s Cale Makar blew a tire and went heavily into the corner boards during Friday’s Fastest Skater event, everyone’s heart was in their throats.

6 – “THEY”: We all gotta get with the program. “They” wanted to eliminate fighting in hockey and they largely did. Almost entirely in junior. But I still go watch. … “They” killed country music which inspired Alan Jackson to write and record Murder On Music Row and George Strait to record Kicked Outta Country. GEORGE FREAKING STRAIT was kicked out of today’s country scene! So I just don’t listen to bubble gum country music on the radio anymore, or what the insiders call Bro Country. I listen to 80s Country on Spotify and am happy as a lark. … “They” aren’t changing so you need to choose. … “They” wanted to institute a salary cap on coaches in the Canadian Football League, and they did. A scout messaged me this week to grumble about it and I said I don’t want to hear it. It is what it is.

Life’s a lot easier when you go with the flow. 

7 – THE FUTURE: This is all here to stay.  “They” assuredly are hearing and seeing the backlash from fans, (some) media and former players but what do we expect them to do? Scrap their ideas, raise their hands and say, “Sorry! We screwed up! You’re right.” That neeeeeeevvver happens. Especially in sports. There may be some tweaks for next year’s event in Toronto but I don’t expect wholesale changes at all. The players are never going to try 100% in the 3-on-3 anymore. … Also, bad publicity remains better than none. At least people are talking about #NHLAllStar across the continent. This heat is something the NLL, CFL, CEBL or other leagues would kill for. However, it’s doubtful the NHL sees it that way.

8A – RATINGS: A huge deal was made out of the Sports Business Journal’s report this week that NHL TV ratings are down 20% on ESPN and TNT from last year at this time. Trouble is, I just simply don’t believe it. As someone who’s been around the ratings game for 30+ years with plenty of dealings with national television and radio, I know how inaccurate and unscientific ratings are. But to be clear — I also know how important they are. Last week I reported in this space that The RP Show ratings have doubled, and in some cases quadrupled, on Game+ TV since January of 2022. We have it printed in black and white from Anthem Sports (Game+’s parent company). So in that case, I’d say THAT’S GREAT! We’ll see where it goes from here but definitely we’re going in the right direction. … However I have a very tough time believing the NHL is barely outdrawing the CFL in the USA on ESPN. Colour me shocked.

8B – EMILY KAPLAN: I went to the NHL Alumni versus Florida Panthers Alumni hockey game Wednesday night in Coral Springs, FL with the express intention of one thing; meeting NHL On ESPN reporter Emily Kaplan. And I did. The New Jersey product was the celebrity coach for the Panthers team. While she’s perennially smiling and giving off a librarian vibe, make no mistake; Emily’s a bulldog. It was a treat to watch her in action and it’s clear why she quickly made it to the top of the heap in America. ESPN had her pencilled in as an NFL reporter and analyst on Around The Horn but she put her foot down and said she wanted to cover the NHL because that’s where her true passion is.

I get it. Thanks Emily!

9 – CFL: It’s a big day in the Canadian Football League. The fairly newly-named “Negotiating Window” opens today whereby rival teams can talk to pending free agents. On the QB market, that includes some pretty big names like Trevor Harris and Cody Fajardo. … Ottawa snatched Nick Arbuckle off the market Sunday morning so things have started to move fast already. … There’s plenty of speculation around where Trevor Harris will land; the 2-time Grey Cup champion and All Star whose contract with Montreal is up in a week. I’ve seen the reports where Harris is fed up with the Montreal ownership mess but in my dealings with players over the years, they don’t really care about ownership squabbles. They want to go to the team that’ll pay them the most, and appreciate them the most. In short, I can’t see him signing anywhere but Montreal. … Other than that, the buzz has been pretty quiet in my circles. The football guys have been hunkered down over the past several weeks, preparing their offers. … One thing that fans should know however – but likely won’t absorb – is that the CFL isn’t different from any other league in this way: the salary cap weighs into these contract situations more than anything else, and more than ever before. Including age and talent. So when you see moves that don’t make sense (like Sam Steel leaving Anaheim for Minnesota in the NHL), this is why.

10 – RANDOM THOUGHTS: For budget reasons, I had to pick between Super Bowl XLVII and the NHL All Star Week. I think I made the right choice! This week was a front row seat, in-the-trenches, kind of experience. What a great time to enjoy your first one! … On Tuesday evening I’ll be in Regina delivering a keynote address to a multinational company at their AGM on the topic of Mental Health. To have me speak to your corporation, contact EMJ Marketing. … A fun survey at USA Today of the best Super Bowls of all time ranked SB 51 as the best ever, when Tom Brady’s New England Patriots posted a 25-point comeback to beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 in overtime! (We don’t mention that game here in Atlanta). The worst was SB XLVIII where Seattle dismantled Denver 43-8 in 2013. Jon Ryan would disagree. … There’s an extremely annoying trend of American kids wearing their hockey jerseys backwards in order to display the name and number of whose jersey it is. Apparently the trend hasn’t made it to Canada yet. Good. … Get off my lawn! … Lebron James is 37 points away from being the NBA’s all-time points leader. He’s expected to do it in L.A. this week against either the Thunder on Tuesday or the Bucks on Thursday. … I watch the NBA for Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley. Period. … TNT does it right. … Why do so many airline pilots try to sound like the deejay at the roller rink or strip club when they get on the mic? … Have you SEEN the new Chicken Pot Pie available now at KFC? … There are way more cowboys in Florida than you’d think. It’s #2 in the USA for beef production behind – you guessed it – Texas. … AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEK?

Y’er welcome,
RP
@rodpedersen