Posted on 01/12/2017 12:17:54 PM PST by C19fan
Eery relationship is built on honesty, so the San Diego Chargers should hear this as their moving vans are chugging up the 5 Freeway on their noble mission of greed.
We. Don’t. Want. You.
The news broke Wednesday that Chargers owner Dean Spanos has informed NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell he is moving the team to Los Angeles, which is pretty much dreadful news for Los Angeles.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
LA has the Dodgers and Angels, the Rams and Chargers, the Lakers and Clippers, the Kings and the (anaheim) Ducks, the Galaxy.
Only New York, I think, has more teams.
The Flames went from Atlanta to Calgary, then the Thrashers want from Atlanta to Winnipeg.
The Flames went from Atlanta to Calgary, then the Thrashers want from Atlanta to Winnipeg.
Nate failed on Trump’s election and he fails at sports. Lightning in a bottle one time with Obama predictions. Silver is a media darling, flash in the pan.
From the WIKI:
The 1979 merger of the NHL and WHA was the culmination of several years of negotiations between the National Hockey League (NHL) and the World Hockey Association (WHA) that resulted in four WHA franchises, the Edmonton Oilers, New England Whalers, Quebec Nordiques, and Winnipeg Jets joining the NHL for the 1979–80 season.
Don’t forget that Hartford(New England) is now the Carolina Hurricanes!
ff
I would love to see the NHL do this, but it won’t happen
One of the more complicated issues was the status of the players who were under contract with WHA teams at the time of the merger. As part of the merger agreement, the NHL and WHA agreed to the following:
1. Any WHA players whose rights were held by NHL teams (if they had been previously drafted by both a WHA team and an NHL team and had signed with the WHA team, for example) would be given back to the NHL teams who owned their rights.
2. Notwithstanding this agreement, the four incoming WHA teams were allowed to protect four players (two goalies and two skaters) for themselves.
3. Each of the existing NHL teams protected 15 skaters and 2 goalies. All of the unprotected WHA and NHL players went through an expansion draft to fill the four new WHA-NHL teams.
4. After the expansion draft in June 1979, the NHL then went through its regular entry draft in August.
Wayne Gretzky had never been drafted by an NHL team because he was signed to play for the WHA's Indianapolis Racers (which later became the Edmonton Oilers) as a 17 year-old. The NHL didn't allow players younger than 20 to be drafted. For the 1979 entry draft the NHL reduced the minimum age from 20 to 18 to let NHL teams absorb these WHA players younger than 20. Wayne Gretzky would certainly have been the #1 pick in the draft, but a special arrangement was made for him because he never signed a WHA player contract. Instead, he had a 21-year personal services agreement with Oilers owner Peter Pocklington, and because he didn't want to play for the sad-sack Colorado Rockies (who held the #1 pick in the draft), he refused to cancel the contract. This created a dilemma for the merger, so the NHL teams and the Edmonton Oilers came up with an agreement that would allow the Oilers to keep Gretzky, but in exchange they would agree to be placed in the last spot in the 1979 NHL entry draft order.
The Gretzky contract situation was so unique that it would later present a number of challenges to the Edmonton Oilers, and would lead to series of events that culminated in his trade to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988.
1. The Rams left and came back.
2. The Raiders came from Oakland back in the 1980s for a while, then went back.
3. The Anaheim Ducks were up for sale during the 2005 NHL lockout, and Disney's challenges in finding a buyer at their selling price was a major factor in the NHL's labor issues since then.
4. The Clippers and Chargers are both recent arrivals from San Diego.
5. Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall, who made a name for himself when he acquired Wayne Gretzky in 1988, saw his fortunes collapse in 1993 when he defaulted on a $90 million loan and was forced to sell the Kings in 1994. He was later charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud and served nearly six years in prison as part of a plea deal.
Not only does New York have more teams, but they have more STABLE teams, too. Most of the uncertainty about New York teams over the last 35 years has involved the locations where these teams would play in the NYC region. The Islanders and Devils of the NHL are the only two teams that have had legitimate options for relocation to other cities. This is ironic because they have won a combined seven Stanley Cups between them since 1979.
When the Quebec Nordiques moved, I joked that that they should have changed the name to the Colorado Nordics.
North American sports leagues would rather have 30+ teams and a mediocre, expensive product to sell than 16 teams and a strong core of fans.
I would also eliminate the home-ice advantage for the teams with the better records after the first round. Since the teams will play unbalanced schedules with more games within their own divisions, there's no certainty that the #1 team in one division is actually more deserving of home-ice advantage than the #1 team (or even the #2 team) in another division.
Quebec City and Ottawa have very similar challenges for a major sports market. They are primarily government-oriented cities, so they don't have the corporate presence to support a franchise through sponsorships and high employee incomes.
I think Quebec is a less viable market because of that province's tax situation compared to other cities. Most players from outside Quebec don't want to play there.
If Ottawa isn't a viable market, then St. Louis gets moved up the list.
I believe one of the reasons the Giants were 2-0 against the New England Patriots in recent Super Bowls with Coughlin as their head coach is that Coughlin and Bill Belichick were assistant coaches together on those Giants. As a result, Coughlin was never intimidated by Belichick's teams no matter how talented they were.
There is probably a lot of truth to your last statement
I’d suggest a six-team playoff foremat, with the conference champs getting a bye first round, while the winner of the other division gets home ice against whichever of the two second-place division teams has the stronger record.
Too many teams unnecessarily make the playoffs in most sports, and hockey has long been among the worst offenders. I remember an SI pre-season article from decades ago, when there were just 21 teams, that contained a line to the effect of “and here are the five teams we think will not make the playoffs which, in hockey, is like not aking the telephone book.”
I agree about having far too many teams in the playoffs. If the NHL wants to generate extra revenue after the regular season, they might be better off with something I've suggested in the past:
1. Adopt a 50+ game regular season schedule, followed by the shortened eight-team playoffs (or six teams, as you suggested).
2. Cut a deal with the major national ice hockey federations to have the Stanley Cup playoffs end in time for all NHL players to play for their national teams in the annual World Championship tournament. The broadcasting revenue for that tournament will be much higher if the games are shown in major North American networks and don't have to compete with the Stanley Cup playoffs.
That sounds like a good idea. The shorter the season, the more it makes sense for a higher percentage of the teams to make the playoff. Of course the key to making it work is the “cut a deal” portion as in the end those making the decisions are largely concerned with money.
LA is predatory.
They have eight teams in the four major sports, if you count the Ducks as an LA tam (and Anaheim is as much part of the LA metro area as New Jersey is part of the New York metro area.) Of those eight, only three — the Angels, Kings, and Ducks, are “LA” teams. The rest were taken from sonewhere.
The Dodgers were taken from Brooklyn in one of the great injustices in sports.
The Rams were born in Cleveland, moved to LA, left for St. Louis, and came back to LA.
The Chargers were LA-born, but spent just one year there before moving to San Diego for 56 years.
The Lakers came from Minneapolis (where they featured one of the all-time great basketball players, George Mikan, who served as commissioner of the ABA for a while.)
The Clippers, like the Chargers, were taken from San Diego, where they had relocated from Buffalo (they were originally the Buffalo Braves.)
It wouldn’t surprise me if LA is on the hunt for more teams to poach.
The Padres are it, and as the guys on MLB Network’s “Hot Stove” noted, the Padres are rebuilding and perhaps should not be. As the only team left in San Diego, this is the time to own the town.
The Padres almost left in the winter of ‘73—’74. There was a deal pretty much in place to move them to DC, but Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers’ owner who had sponsored the admission of San Diego in the first place, stepped in and recruited Ray Kroc to buy the club and keep it in San Diego.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.