The Present in Plain Text

And the Salary Deflation Begins

Apparently Sandis Ozolinch didn't get the NHLPA memo about trying to keep his salary near the level of his old contract. With the changes to both the Ducks front office and the NHL's rulebook, Ozolinch looks to be a much more valuable player tomorrow than he was yesterday.

So, if that's the case why is TSN reporting that he signed for nearly half of what he would have made under his old contract of $5.5 million? If he signed a 2 year deal at $2.8 to $3.0 million that's still more than a full million less than what his old contract was worth after the 24% rollback.

This is the beginning of setting the prices in the marketplace (obviously). If Ozolinch is only worth $2.8 million in today's NHL then there's no way that Scott Neidermeyer is worth the $7.8 million he's reportedly asking for.

Frankly, I think this is a solid move by Brian Burke, especially in light of this report that Vancouver is dangling Mattias Ohlund as part of a package to land the #2 spot in tomorrow's draft.

Now, the Ducks' blueline is very interesting: Carney, Ozolinch, Vishnevsky, Salei, Skoula and possibly Ohlund. Very solid, very mobile. Good puck sense and great passing.

They'll be entertaining... and dangerous. Of course, they'll be on the books for over $25 million with 11 players signed.

Ta,

Possible NHL Realignment

First off. You people have no idea how excited I am that the NHL has re-opened for business. As much as I enjoyed spending most of this past winter playing World of Warcraft and bitching about Tom Palmer it could not replace the sheer joy and excitement that an honest-to-God NHL season brings to my life.

I've spent too much time over the past couple of weeks trolling around on HFBoards.com discussing, conjecturing, re-acquainting, commiserating, pontificating, and just plain bloviating on what's going to happen this upcoming season. And, it has been good. Any misgivings I have about the myriad changes that are coming (and there are a few) are quickly overrun by the realization that I get to watch, on average, every night, 6 hours of the best athletes in the world flying up and down a sheet of ice trying to put a 4 inch diameter disc of frozen rubber into a 6 foot by 4 foot opening....on skates!

Ahhh... the psychosis of your average hockey fan is a sight for sore eyes... or, at least, someone else's eyes.

The link above is to an article in the Chicago Tribune that there has been serious discussion about he NHL returning to a 4 division format, shrinking down from the current 6. This year will mark the return of the 'unbalanced' schedule, which I am overjoyed with. The Rivalry(tm) is, in my mind, a major part of how fans become emotionally involved (read: spend more money on) their team of choice. I'm not only a Buffalo Sabres fan, I also absolutely despise the Toronto Maple Leafs. So, there is little more that I look forward to during the year than a good ol' row between the AGH (Angry Goat Heads) and the Queefs. I mean, even Eric Boulton, the mini-Ray, has his face used as a punching bag with a little more oomph when it's Tie Domi who's doing the punching.

This year's schedule will see the Sabres and the Leafs face off 8 times this year as opposed to 6. And, that also means 25% more Boston (feh!), Montreal (boo!!), and Ottawa (ow... my goalie's got a sunburn from the lamp being lit!). And much less of those in the Western Conference. Oh well. If I want to watch the San Jose Sharks play (and I frequently do), I'll make a cup of coffee and catch them and their great TV crew Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda on the Center Ice Package. The same goes for Edmonton, Vancouver and Whoever's Playing Dallas....

The move back to the old Patrick, Norris, Smythe and Adams divisions and intra-divisional playoffs would be almost too good to be true. 8 Regular season games plus a potential playoff series. Very nice. No better way to get a good hate going than to see a team upwards of 15 times a year.

If they do this, I am formally submitting here, my desired re-alignment (which might annoy some):

Wales Conference
Patrick Division:
New York Isles
New York Rangers
New Jersey Devils
Montreal Canadians
Philadelphia Flyers
Washington Capitals
Pittsburgh Penguins
Boston Bruins

Adams Division:
Detroit Red Wings
Chicago Blackhawks
Columbus Blue Jackets
Toronto Maple Leafs
Minnesota Wild
Ottawa Senators
Buffalo Sabres

Campbell Conference
Norris Division:
St. Louis Blues
Dallas Stars
Carolina Hurricanes
Atlanta Thrashers
Nashville Predators
Florida Panthers
Tampa Bay Lightning

Smythe Division:
Vancouver Canucks
Calgary Flames
Edmonton Oilers
San Jose Sharks
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
Los Angeles Kings
Phoenix Coyotes
Colorado Avalanche

The idea here is to emphasize geographical rivalries as much as possible. Unfortunately, there is no good way to equalize travel costs, that I can see, without severely screwing things up. Some divisions are going to be more widespread (the Smythe and Norris) than others.

I did play with the idea of moving Edmonton or Calgary into the Great Lakes (Adams) division, but then that made the southwestern U.S. division untenable, by having Phoenix and either Columbus or Nashville in the same division.

I think these divisions would be an absolute hoot.

The Schedule should be something like this:

42 games vs. your division (meeting each team a minimum of 6 times)
24 games vs. the other division in your conference (meeting each team a minimum of 3 times)
14 games vs. the other conference (limited to one division, 7 teams, twice)

With an odd-number of teams in each conference, the scheudle could not be regular, there will be some imbalance.

With divisional playoffs in the first and 2nd round. Then re-seeding based on regular season record for the semi-finals and the SC Finals.

Yeah... that's old time hockey.

Ta,

Finally!!! It's Over....

For those of you in the audience who are hockey fans, today will no longer be remembered as Harrison Ford's 63rd birthday (I'm nearly ashamed to admit that I didn't have to check IMDB's gossip page for this info) but The Day The Lockout Died. [cue music]

In the end, the owners got exactly what they wanted and the players capitulated, exactly as I figured this would play out. Not only will there be a hard cap in place, it will be directly tied to a percentage of revenues. The talking points of the final agreement haven't changed much from the NHL's proposal of Feb. 9th, only the numbers. The players will receive 54% of league revenues in compensation for their efforts with profit sharing and an enhanced pension system.

The bone that the players negotiated for themselves is a lowering of the age for gaining Unrestricted Free Agency. The age will drop by one year from 31 to 27 over the first four years of the 6-year deal. I will pat myself on the back again as I said that the final deal would include dropping the UFA age to 28... okay... I was off by a year. Moreover, the even bigger change to the UFA rules is that a player only needs 7 years of service or have reached the requisite age. This means that for guys like Ilya Kovalchuk and Rick Nash they'll be UFA's at 25 or 26.

As one astute poster over at HFBoards.com mentioned a while ago, the increase in UFA's means that average salaries will drop. The same number of dollars will be chasing a greater number of goods. While I love the insights many fans bring to the game itself, such smart economic analysis is truly a rarity over there. So, while individual players will reap the benefits of a lower UFA age, the owners, GM's and ultimately, THE FANS will reap the even greater benefits of seasoned NHL talent at more reasonable prices.

Now that this is done, the fun part will be the off-season and it will be interesting to see what Darth Regier will do as GM of my beloved Buffalo Sabres in terms as he's gotten the exact result he positioned the Sabres to take maximal advantage of before all of this started.

That, and we, along with the Ranjerks, Blue Jackets and Penguins have the best chance at kid phenom Sidney Crosby in the Lottery Draft the format of which was just announced by Bob McKensie of TSN.

Woot! Crosby centering Vanek and Satan.... not quite the French Connection, but it'll have to do.

Ta,

The Free Radicals

Morning all. At the behest (or more accurately, suggestion) of Daniel Franke, we along with Jason Murad have started a group blog called The Free Radicals. The site is literally brand new and I have not yet posted. This came together rather quickly as all three of us have come to the conclusion that we are incapable of populating a blog individually but as a group should be able to create enough good content to keep things lively.

I will cross-post much of my drivel here as well as there, but there will be differences.

Now if I can just remember to put an article together for FMNN.... and Lew Rockwell... and, and, and, and, and, and...

Moreover, I hope one day to be able to live up to the "Free" in the blog's title. I've certainly got the "radical" part down cold.

Ta,

Florida ... Land of the Nearly Tax Free Farmer

The E-E has a great little piece on the Unintended Consequences of tax examptions at the link above. Great stuff that. Makes me wish I was a developer...

But, in fact, the Agricultural Property Tax Exemption is an outstanding thing to take advantage of if you can. It's part of the reason why Capt. C. Vain and myself moved out to rural Columbia County. My property Taxes in Gainesville on 1100sq. ft. house and 1/3 of an acre were $569 in 2002, on $20400 in assessed value.

My taxes, after homestead exemption, this year were a staggering $1068 on 18.42 acres. Next year's taxes will be over $1400 once the house is added in. That's with the land being assessed at $3000/acre. After the agricultural exemption kicks in (assessed value drops to a flat $165/acre), my taxes will be approximately $350 annually. All I have to do is run 2 horses or 10 goats per 10 acres.

Seeing as the land is in bad need of a ground-level cleansing, the goats should perform double duty by saving me $1100 a year in taxes and seriously reducing the fire risk to my all-wood house. Now, if things get to the point where the area begins to build up considerably, and my land becomes massively valued on the open market... well, then I'll be in the same position that the guys in Miami are in that the E-E mentioned in his post. Yeah... that'd suck.

But, failing that fantasy scenario coming to fruition, once that nasty old mortgage is paid off, my living expenses drop considerably. All of this is part of the plan to ride out any nasty shocks to the monetary system with as little personal damage as possible. To do what I've done, you need 10 acres minimum.

Ta,

Voting with your Wallet

Since mentioning in an e-mail on the LPF Ex. Committee list that I was a fan of Borda Count as the preferred alternative voting method, I've been in discussion with Tom Smith of the Florida Patriot Party on this issue.

This started a row on the list because there is a contingent (and a very vocal one) that is strongly in favor of Approval Voting, and want the LPF to change to the use and advocacy of this method. Now, while Approval Voting is far superior to Plurality Voting in just about every way, it does, to me, fall prey to the same unrealistic enforced duality of Plurality Voting. Borda Count is a ranked voting system, which is functionally different than a binary one.

The following is an excerpt from an e-mail I just shot off to the LPF EC on this subject: