April 21st, 2011 
Bruce McGee I know you are all tired of hearing me talking about being sick. Good news on that front, I am pretty sure I died last night. I am now one of Audiomaster G’s favorite people. In other words a zombie, that is the only explanation I have for my continued animation. Even better news I don’t think I can get any uglier even as a zombie. So my love life should stay them about the same. I am not even sure what I am talking about any more lets move on.
So yesterday Bud Selig woke up from a high level nap to realize things weren’t right in L.A. The Dodgers are going down faster than the titanic. Mostly in part due to the owners Frank “assbag” McCourt and his ex-wife Jamie “harpy” McCourt. So commissioner Selig took full control of the teams day to day operations. The bad news is the powers that be are about a year to late. If you think the current co-owners are going to go away quietly your sadly mistaken. I fully expect both of these arrogant morons to make this drag out as long as possible. I am also pretty sure this chaos is going to deep six the Dodgers season. As a fan of the S.F. Giants, that makes me smile. I do feel sorry for the players and the fans of the team. Well the fans not trying to murder people in the parking lot that is. As usual Selig has closed the gate long after the horse is gone.
Detroit just ruined the Phoenix Coyotes season and that may be it for hockey in Phoenix. Right now the city in the lead to get them is Winnipeg Manitoba. While I have no issue with the team moving, I don’t buy the long term viability of the team in Winnipeg. Even after our very own Al Creed spent some time in chat giving me good reasons why it might. Basically what I am saying is the league just wants to give Canada a team back and I really wish they would admit to that. Hell I told Al if the reason to move Phoenix is to find a more lucrative market lets look at Sweden. I hear they like hockey a little bit. I am sure Gary Bettman and his brain trust know what they are doing.
The 1.5 update came was released for minecraft a couple days back. It added achievements and stats to the mix. That is a very cool addition, although some of the achievements are a little on the silly side. Since minecraft is a game that never takes itself to seriously I see no issue with that. The update also added weather affects. I have been through one rain storm and that adds an interesting element the player has to consider. When it rains the sun isn’t visible, this means the mobs don’t die. So you need to treat it a little more like running around at night. So far though I have only dealt with one weather event. I am not sure what controls the weather functions, but I was expecting them a little more frequently. I will see what happens as I play some more.
I played a little more Gears of War 3 beta. So far all that’s available is two maps and the team death match game type. On the art side of things It is vastly improved over Gears 2. That is to be expected and good to see. The game play is a little to similar to the last one for me. As PatMan says “first one to get the big guns gets to whore the other team.” I had fun,but I am never comfortable playing with randoms anymore. I will wait until the becomes open to all and try some more rounds with the rest of the Wonderpod crew. Well maybe just Pat, but having at least one buddy would be nice. I am still not sold on this game by a long shot, but I did enjoy my time with the beta thus far. I would like to hear more about the single player, but I doubt that’s going to happen.
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Phoenix has had about 15 years, and has never turned a profit. Sorry to say that for the (few) fans they have, but that's the truth. Winnipeg, Quebec City, Hamilton, Halifax and so on could easily support a profitable club, but since the Coyotes were originally stolen from Winnipeg in the name of making money, they are clearly the ideal place to re-relocate.
I agree that Sweden has a market for hockey (they have a league afterall), as is much of Europe including Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Finland, Switzerland, and so forth. The NHL has been eying the market for a long time (20 years or so now?), and this is in part why we've been seeing regular season games to start the year overseas. I can't see logistically having a regular season between European and North American based teams, but I could see a league with the NHL banner existing over there. If the two leagues could be competitive with each other on quality and skill level,
I could see some kind of "worlds" tournament related to the playoffs in some capacity. Whether the champions of both meet to determine the ultimate winner, or some kind of round robin tournament is setup in place of the finals between the two teams that make their respective finals.
I like the idea of a world's tournament or champion versus champion type thing. Oh and just so were all clear I never said Phoenix was a good market, because it's not. Second this isn't an American versus Canadian thing on my part either.
I Just look at it from a business perspective, I am speculating that the Winnipeg market will do no better long term than they did in Phoenix. Again as I said in the article if this is giving back a team that was "stolen" on the part of the NHL then Bettman needs to man up and say that. Again I know he won't.
While I am on the subject, I think contraction is actually the better answer. Get rid of Phoenix, Atlanta and Florida, Again I am sure I am the only one crazy enough to mention the word contraction outside of maybe NBA commissioner David Stern. I will admit I have no sentiment in any of this and I would even say this about the Red Wings if they were in the same position as one of the three teams mentioned.
No worries man, you can probably read a little disdain in my writing, but it certainly isn't directed at you or the US in general. Just the numbers, like you mention, the market. Phoenix was lucky to get 4,000 people into their arena on any given night over the last couple of years. While when Winnipeg lost their team, and for a very long time, they were generally pulling in an almost capacity crowd around 15,000 or so. That's a stark difference. Canadians are quite guilty of being stereotypically rabid fans for hockey. We are the cliche. Look no further than the city of Edmonton, home of the absolute worst team in the league two years in a row. And yet they sell out almost every single game. There's not a lot to do in Winnipeg, they'll be fine there…. man we should talk about this for the end of playoffs PUCK YOU! I think it would be a great topic, regardless if we agree or not (or the other folks). It will be interesting (and dangerous?) to get Joe and Al to rant about the first round between Buffalo and Philadelphia…. regardless of the outcome.