Will the NHL build on the US interest in Olympic Hockey? No.

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A great salesman can sell ice to an Eskimo. A bad one couldn’t give 20 dollar bills away. Which one is the NHL–the second unfortunately.

The NHL has a perfect opportunity to build on the fan interest in hockey generated by the US vs. Canada gold metal game. It could but it won’t.

The league has the worst record for marketing of any major sport. The NHL marketing guys make those that work for MLB look bright and that isn’t easy. So what will these pinheads do to build on the Olympics? Probably nothing. They will go back to the Verses network and go back to sleep without one thought about what could be done. So what can they do?

First, focus promotion on the individual heroes of the Olympics. The league has some nice young stars but needs to take a lesson from the NBA on how to take advantage of them. They need their stars like Nash and Crosby to become the face of the league. The league needs to get these guys on TV talk shows and that would involve time off which the league did not plan into the schedule.

The coverage of the final game … Read more at FryingPanSports

Saturday Niblets for 6/6/09

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Today is the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. My Dad was the first American on Omaha Red beach 2 hours before the invasion. Today, we salute all those that risked or gave their lives to help free Europe from Hitler.

Best Email of the last 2 weeks: from James on “The Cavs are a 1972 Comet with a Ferrari engine.” too bad Lebron and the Cavs failed to reach the championships… was rooting for them! I just do not know what will happen of the team if Kobe comes in… the dynamics of team will likely change, but if they get past that they’d get a huge chance in grabbing the title next year…

James: The chances of Kobe coming are very slim. But you are exactly correct in that the team is going to have to have a rebuild this off season to become a championship caliber team in time to win a title for LeBron next season. Thanks for your comment.

Updates on previous columns:

Mangenious and his Magical Bus trip

The NFLPA is investigating the Magical Bus trip of 10 hours each way to the football camp outside of Hartford Conn. that Eric Mangini forced … Read more at FryingPanSports

What a Sports weekend!

Boston falls to Orlando: I predicted this when Boston had a 3-2 lead in the series. One reaction I could not resist is that the team is not built around the Big 3—it is built around the Big 2.5. Without Kevin Garnett, the team is way too limited offensively and has a huge hole in the d as well. The team is aging and already in salary cap hell. There isn’t any way out of that for the Celts. They will get old together. If, and it is not a given, KG comes back at or close to 100%, they will be in the playoffs for another year or two. But they will not be able to get to the finals again without finding a mid range exception superstar. Orlando and Cleveland are likely to be playing in the East finals for the next several years as long as they are healthy.

LA handles the upstart Rockets easily in game 7: The Lakers jumped off to a quick start against Houston in game 7 and never looked back. The bad sign for them is that the Rockets forced them to game 7 without their superstar center Yao Ming and his … Read more at FryingPanSports

GMs in the all pro sports should avoid stupid players.

Fryingpan Sports

GMs in the all pro sports should avoid stupid players.

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By Bill Smith

Pacman Jones can’t screw up his career fast enough. Alex Boone hasn’t even been drafted yet and is building his police file. There there is always Plaxico “I love the feeling of cold steel in my pants” Burress. That is a very small sample of dumb, dumber, and dumbest.

Not only do players have to be intelligent enough to learn the plays and execute them successfully, they can’t be stupid enough to get themselves in trouble.

There are several kinds of stupid! We will explore each of them and discuss the problems each brings to a team.

Wonderlick test stupid—Unless we are talking about a thinking position, I don’t care what a player’s Wonderlick was. The positions I am concerned about test scores are in order of importance QB, MLB, (because they call O and D plays), C and FS (because the Center calls blocking assignments and audibles and the Free Safety sets the D backfield). That is pretty much it. When Vince Young QB Tennessee gets a 6 on the test (and he did in his first attempt), that is a HUGE … Read more at FryingPanSports

Niblets from around the net for 4/11/09

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Niblets from around the net for 4/11/09

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By Bill Smith

Updates on previous articles

Niblets for 4/4/09

As I wrote Rick Serritella, of NFLDraftBible.com, reported Southern California LBs Clay Matthews and Brian Cushing tested positive for steroids. I did verify the original report with another source. Cushing and his agent have both denied the report. Thus far, Cushing has not provided any proof of his claim. The official NFL report will be given to teams next week. Most likely it will be leaked.

Kentucky is no longer THE basketball power—GET OVER IT!

New coach John Calipari will have a couple of the best prospects back out of their commitment to Memphis and announce that they will follow Calipari. This still doesn’t change my opinion about the long term future of Ky basketball. Calipari is an outstanding coach and an excellent recruiter. Memphis fortunes will decline and Ky will be better. But long term the ACC will continue to be the center of basketball with the Big East second and the SEC in the dust of those two.

Several NFL QBs are in the frying pan.

The Sporting News had an article Thursday in their emailed sports paper … Read more at FryingPanSports

The NHL takes itself WAY too seriously.

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The NHL takes itself WAY too seriously.

By Bill Smith

Technorati Tags: NHL, All star game, Vs Network, Blue Jackets

The NHL owners passed a rule to be implemented for the first time this season that if you are too injured to play in the mid season all star game, you will be suspended for the first game back in the regular season after that game.

Now, let’s be clear about the NHL. This is the league that brought us flaming puck. The league would be taken a lot more seriously if it actually was popular enough to get a TV contract. When your local team is shown on any channel on Dish network that has a number in the 400’s only when the girls field hockey team is not playing, you have no business getting snippy about your all star game. In central Ohio, we are really jazzed about the NHL. The league tells us in the next decade we will get an NHL team. So far, we have only a minor league team called the Blue Jackets.

When your all star game is on the Vs network, it will be watched by every player’s mother … Read more at FryingPanSports