Snowman On Fire

Firesign Theater once put out a comedy record called “Everything You Know Is Wrong” that paints contemporary culture in frankly bizarre comedic brush strokes. In some ways, that’s how I felt about 11pm last night, seeing Gionta going north, Madden going to the Second City, Clemmer heading south and Big Mike Rupp (oh, how I’ll miss Chico saying that) going to the Big Steel City. But rather than assessing the damage wrought by all of these departures, let’s look at the facts:

The Devils haven’t made it out of the 2nd round of the playoffs in five years. Whatever template was being used to create lines and defensive pairings simply wasn’t working.

When pushed to score goals, and rely less on pure defense and goaltending, the Devils did pretty well in their Brodeur-less stretch last season. Gionta, Madden and Rupp were not exactly the primary contributors to that effort.

The entire concept of a “checking line” is probably moot. The line matching that bounded late playoff rounds this season featured top lines going against each other more than defensive specialization. The goal of the game is to score goals, not win through attrition.

Clearly, Sutter wasn’t getting what he could out of this team, but the team didn’t have all of the raw material to go deep into the playoffs. If the Carolina collapse showed us anything, it’s that in crunch times, Sutter made some bad decisions, or didn’t have the support of his players, or one caused the other, or both. Add in the number of games in which the lines were shuffled somewhat randomly, or in which players were benched for infractions that not even the broadcast teams could discern with all artistic license, and I’m not upset by Sutter’s defection to Calgary.

The Devils are going to be younger, hopefully faster, and full of some new faces in the next season. Only half of what we know - the roster - is wrong, but some media outreach, maybe some good old fashioned marketing, and a few wins will bridge that knowledge gap.

Imagine this scenario: you buy a big house, because the market is hot and you had a good year over the past twelve months. And a year or two later, your income is down, the overall housing market is down, and you’re saddled with those mortgage and tax payments, and start looking for places to scrimp. Sound familiar? I think Bob Gainey is going to be in that position next year. The NHL’s salary cap barely budged this year, but it’s an historical measure — it reflects last year’s financials, not the coming year’s anticipated revenue streams. As Lou has pointed out, and others have weighed in, next year’s NHL salary cap is likely to be lower. I know I’m paying 55% of what I paid the last two seasons for my 09-10 Devils season ticket share. Multiply that across the league, mix thoroughly with an ugly economy, and spin with the spinning of free agency that has made player jersey replicas a bad short-term investment, and cap economics becomes a bin-packing problem of the first order next year.

All that said, I’m eager to see how things play out avec les habitants. They picked up a $7M+ contract on Gomez (5′ 11″), added $6M a year for Cammalleri (5′ 9″) and another $5M for Gionta (5′ 7″), plus equally large deals on Spacek and Gill. That means the starting five skaters will soak up about half of the salary cap, and Montreal will skate one of the shortest and most likely most expensive per linear foot top lines in the NHL. I’m not dinging any of the players; I think they all got good deals or are sticking to deals that allowed them to be traded (viz, Gomez, pay attention, Heatley).

I’m going to miss Brian Gionta - scrappy, well-spoken, creative, and a role model for hard work on and off the ice. I think Gomez might thrive in Montreal, away from what was effectively a “stick it, Lou” move to the Rangers, and Cammalleri showed he changes longitude and latitude well and with outstanding production. But I keep reflecting on the 1997 Marlins - brought together to win a championship, and then scattered by financial and market forces. I hope the free agency bubble floats Montreal in the next season, because Gainey has just taken out a big mortgage on their future.

Gomez to Montreal.

Bye, Scott. I had fleeting hopes that the Devils would bring him back to anchor the first line, but quite honestly, I don’t think he’s a first-line center. So now his “stay in the area” strategy has backfired, badly.

He’s the next Alexei Kovalev.

The regularity and quality of news reports out of Calgary are improving. Twitter searches for Sutter news yield a cornucopia of results and musings, and now ESPN News predicts word could come down today that the Flames exhaust the list of Sutter brothers-as-coaches.

If the Flames are upset about a first-round playoff exit, why hire a coach who helped his team, well, lose in the first-round in one of the most hideous Game 7 disasters on ice?

I’m not going to take credit for calling any shots, but TSN reports that former Devils coach Brent Sutter is talking to the Flames. Well, duh. He’s a head NHL coach who quit his job here to return home. And the Flames fired their own coach just days before that announcement. Kind of makes sense, huh?

Here’s a nice solution to the issue: Lou should release Sutter from his contract so he can coach the Flames. In return, immediately sign Mike Cammalleri as a free agent — Cams was the primary reason that Calgary did as well as they did this year; their late-season swoon was more a function Kippy imitating a sieve than a lack of scoring. Put Cammalleri up on the first line in between Elias and Vrana, and voila - an energized offense, a bunch of young guns, and the new VEC line. In Czech, “vec” means business. And so would the Devils.

Tip of the cage to Jennifer Tatnall, a former Sun Microsystems employee who is now active in women’s hockey. Jennifer has a nice piece on Cammi Granato’s induction to the US Hockey Hall of Fame in Ice Magazine, the only hockey magazine for the women’s game. She’s also involved with Bela Hockey, a “gear for girls” hockey company co-founded by Granato.

The Flames fired Mike Keenan today. Let’s see, do we know any NHL head coaches who live in Alberta and miss home? This is pure speculation, but I’d make a $2 bet that our own Coach Sutter gets a call about donning the other red and black (and yellow).

The more I blog and mention “the book,” the more questions I get about it. So here’s a summary of the book, in outline form, based on current course and speed. This is completely serious, including my sidebar comments about content and tone. Your mileage may vary, the actual contents may appear smaller than described, no bailment is created.

Chapter 1: The Jeff Halpern Story. In short, why I started keeping a journal and thinking about a book, based on the true-life story of Jeff Halpern, Jewish NHL player who also attended Princeton. I hit 4 pages and stopped. But some of that content is in here. [done, but weak]

Chapter 2: Number 8. The real story of the whole snowman riff, my fascination with the number 8, Willie Stargell, and youth sports. [done]

Chapter 3: A Great Miracle Happened There. The 1980 Lake Placid Olympics “Miracle on Ice” story, as told by a high school senior who was forced to spell “Czechoslovakia” once a week and cheered when the Czechs got pounded by the Americans. Numerous Hanukah references included. [done]

Chapter 4: Hobey’s Rink. Playing hockey in the shadow of Hobey Baker, Patty Kazmaier, Laura Halldorson, and Coach Bruce whose last name I now forget. How ignorance of tradition isn’t fatal, especially if it forms a story of its own.

Chapter 5: An Expensive Afternoon. What happens when your wife tells you to entertain the kids for the day, and you end up at an ice skating rink, with Devils season tickets and a Stanley Cup picture in the mix. A near-death experience involving Bubba yelling at Philadelphia fans creates dramatic tension.

Chapter 6: Today I Am An Adult. Why I started playing hockey again even though all of my equipment was encrusted with mold. Skating with a bunch of Jewish guys on a team named the Saints, and why that was less humourous than the picture of an asthmatic stallion on our jerseys.

Chapter 7: Travel Hockey. My indoctrination to the life of a travel hockey parent. Literally having the snot frozen out of me, but thinking it was OK. My first ever hockey tournament, and why silver cups are important.

Chapter 8: The Hagiography of Saint Patrik. The life and times of our favorite Devil, Patrik Elias, and how Lord Stanley’s Cup ended up in New Jersey one more time.

Chapter 9: The Physics of Hockey. Yeah, really, physics like melting points and inelastic collsions. But also what holds teams together, and why I’m thrilled to come home at 1:00 AM with rink stink and bruises.

Chapter 10: A Two-Way Game. Our first lesson in the school of hard hockey knocks, involving a nickname and scoring on your own goalie.

Chapter 11: Beer League. Playing on Friday nights, Sunday nights and in between with men of my own age but far better skill. What happens in the locker room, and why Cheap Trick sucks.

Chapter 12: Love Covers Pain. We go to Lake Placid but there’s no Miracle on Ice. It happens on the car ride home. [done]

Chapter 13: Welcome to Management. My life in the scorekeeper’s box where time is malleable at the press of a button. How to prevent locker room disasters with 10 year olds: the facts of life, Santa Claus, and who brings the bad donuts.

Chapter 14: A Poem In The Cards. The life and times of my entire pasteboard empire, from sticking baseball cards in the spoke of my bike to discovering that I was tied to an NBA player’s son through a Topps card given to me by my grandfather. Inspired by Cory Doctorow’s short story Craphound. [done]

Chapter 15: Silver Anniversary. 25 years after the Miracle on Ice, another form of silver enters our house courtesy of the NJ state hockey playoffs.

Chapter 16: Snapping My Twig. Jewish men, their sports equipment, our Russian heritage, and why Scott Niedermeyer’s stick changed my life.

Chapter 17: A Great Miracle Happened Here. Yes, it’s a dreidel joke. It involves Lake Placid again. [done]

Chapter 18: Finding Pops. Return of the son of the snowman, in a different form. What the book should have been about from the very beginning. [done]

So the book has a beginning, middle and end. It could qualify as a novella, if there was continuity and context provided. I consider this my meta-writing exercise for the day, if i write about writing maybe I’ll be stimulated to write my 500 word allowance. But for now, the day job is calling.

Three years ago, Bubba and his teammates had some fun with Garrett Beckwith attending their practices, working with the goalies and generally playing the role of “hip high school kid” to a team of middle-schoolers. At the time, I speculated that Beckwith was bound for bigger and better things, most likely west or north of New Jersey. And then things went quiet for a while.

Tonight I received an update from Coach Barry, a/k/a Garrett’s Dad: Garrett was the top-ranked goalie in the Kootenay International Junior League this year, with a scary 1.84 GAA in 20 games, and now Trail Smoke Eaters of the KIJHL. It’s great to see a local hockey player continue on at the next level.

Stupid but serendipitous sidebar: The Trail Smoke Eaters are based in the hamlet of Princeton, British Columbia. The NJ Devils Youth club now has goalie graduates in a pair of Princetons.

1. Denial. That didn’t happen, it was the strangest game I’ve ever seen, and it must have been a dream.

2. Anger. I am so pissed off that the Devils blew two leads and lost in the last minute that I cannot speak.

3. Bargaining. John Madden, Colin White, and Niclas Havelid. Follows Anger and Denial closely, usually involves promises of renewed loyalty, wins, Stanley Cups, custom jerseys, nicknames and other mildly nonsensical things we promise ourselves to make sure we have something to look forward to — or at least some reason to throw the remote at the television starting October 5th.

4. Bandwagon-Jumping. If the Devils are out, we can cheer for Ovechkin. And the Bruins. And hate the Red Wings, and most of the Western Conference.

5. Renewal. Next year’s season tickets are due this month, as if that wasn’t insult on top of mental injury.

I watched the first two periods of the Canucks-Blackhawks game last night, in high-def, with the sound off and the lights down; not a romantic evening but a slow re-entry into the world of hockey. And I’m thinking of Chico Resch, who loves to sprinkle Hebrew and Yiddish lexicon over his telecasts. Here’s a new one for you, Chico: sitting shiva.