Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

How does one measure Marquee Value?

No doubt by the amount of interest/turnstile action any said performer generates when they appear at a certain venue.  More importantly in terms of the National Hockey League, how can one properly pre-determine which cities have it?  Location, location, location, we always hear.  After all, even ubiqitous Starbucks recently closed some of their underachieving stores.

The city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada has absolutely no marquee value in any of the big cities in the United States of America.  Neither, for that matter, does Berlin, Ontario, known these days as Kitchener-Waterloo.

One could very convincingly argue that Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta also lack any real marquee value in the States.

The cities, that is, not necessarily the hockey teams attached to them.  For most of the 1980’s, Edmonton had plenty of sizzle thanks to that awesome collection of young studs that wore the Oilers’ colours.  Your team could be from Brandon, Manitoba or Wawa, Ontario, but if Wayne Gretzky is your starting centre, people will show up.  The problem is, most team’s don’t boast a player of that calibre, and even if they do, there’s no guarantee that guy will remain with your team over the long-term.

The bottom line is, in the razzle dazzle centre of the world that the U.S. is, it takes a lot of pizzazz in order to be heard above the din of the myriad of entertainment choices available today.

You can recognize a world-class, North American big league city solely by its name.

Los Angeles, Boston, Dallas, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, New York.

All great cities, all with great sporting histories.  Any of them can stand with the London’s and Tokyo’s of the world.  And sometimes, when a certain team is struggling, at least their marquee value will put a few extra folks in the seats for that night’s game.

Both the Canadiens and the Maple Leafs continue to pack ‘em in out in Western Canada, even during very lean years for both franchises.  The New York Rangers have that same cache, as do the Detroit Red Wings, though it’s been a while now since the dark days of the 70’s and early 80’s for the Winged Wheel.  All the Original Six teams have marquee value in the NHL.  It was built up over decades.  It appears to be bullet-proof.

Close your eyes and imagine the big, bright sign outside of Madison Square Garden on a frosty Thursday evening in November.  Tonight, at MSG, the Rangers host the Chicago Blackhawks.  Tonight, at MSG, the Rangers host the Philadelphia Flyers.  Tonight, at MSG, the Rangers host the Florida Panthers.

That last one doesn’t have the same ring, though it would if it came to football, but we’re talking hockey.

And this isn’t a Canadian vs. American affair.  Tonight, at MSG, the Rangers host the Hamilton Raiders, doesn’t sound any better.  If anything, it sounds worse.

There are association’s that go with certain cities, whether completely accurate or not.  Hamilton, as much as I have a real affection for the city, will never be confused for a big league city.  It’s seen as eternally playing second-fiddle to big brother Toronto just up-the-road.  It’ll forever be associated with its blue collar element, the steel mills, and Tim Horton donuts.  It’s a minor league city that is a great spot for a CFL team and an AHL franchise, but not the NHL.  Hamilton is not Big League.

Owing mainly to population, there are only a handful of Canadian cities that could rightfully be described as big-league.

Toronto and Montreal are obvious choices.  Vancouver, Canada’s third-largest city, also qualifies.  These three cities are on-par with the big American cities.  The remaining three Canadian franchises are lower down on that pecking list, even though all three continue to grow, particularily the two Albertan cities.

Ottawa (actually, Ottawa-Gatineau…formerly Ottawa-Hull) is the fourth-largest metropolitan area in Canada, in terms of population, and it’s the nation’s capital, but there’s still a small town (Bytown) stigma about this Eastern Ontario city.  Many were rightfully surprised when the NHL expanded to Ottawa during the early 90’s.  Despite all it’s charms and endless cultural festivals, Ottawa is still a backwater, picked (over Kingston, Ontario), to be Canada’s capital, for that very reason…it was out-of-the-way.  Hidden away from the American Army.  Safe.

Heck, even driving to Ottawa always seems an afterthought.  The superhighway that leads out of Toronto zooms past the turnoff to Ottawa, headed towards Cornwall on it’s way to Montreal.  Blink and you’ll miss the road to Ottawa.

Three small market teams, Winnipeg, Quebec City and Hartford, all left their old WHA stomping grounds for greener pastures.  During their time in the NHL, arguably only Quebec City had any sizzle, thanks largely to it’s Old World Charm (C) and it’s red-hot rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens.

Tonight, at MSG, the Rangers host the Winnipeg Jets.

Yawn.

Tonight, at MSG, the Rangers host the Las Vegas Coyotes.

Who’s got tickets?

You tell me which matchup looks better on the marquee.  You tell me which matchup looks better in your local TV guide.

Sure, the true hockey fan pays such stuff little attention, focusing rightfully so on the quality of the team’s involved.  But that fan is already going to tune in, or line up for tickets.  It’s all about getting the casual fan to come back more often, and to get first-time fans into the building, or to click onto that TV channel.

Perception is sadly everything for most people.   Which is why, if the NHL wants to relocate a financially struggling franchise to Southern Ontario, the only viable city to place that team already has a team.

Hogtown.  The self-proclaimed Centre of the Universe.  Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Which already has the Maple Leafs, a obscenely-rich hockey team that is part of a very successful business group, Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment.  And, outside of obscene amounts of rapidly devaluing Canadian dollars, what incentive is there for the Leafs to share their sandbox with anybody?

Yes, the New York area has three teams, and Philadelphia is not all that far away.  Even stranger, the Los Angeles area has two teams.  How did that come to pass, again?   Yet the population centre of Canada has only two teams.

Yes, two teams.  One cannot leave the Buffalo Sabres out of this discussion.  They are at one end of the Golden Horseshoe.  They rely on Canadians to buy tickets, buy food and watch on TV.  The Sabres would be heavily impacted by the addition of another team into the hockey-mad Southern Ontario market.

Which is why I don’t think we’ll be seeing another NHL team in these here parts in the foreseeable future.  Unless…

Unless the amount of money being waved about in order to facilitate a franchise move, or (shudder) another round of expansion, is so mind-boggling high, that it would be next-to-impossible for the league, and the Leafs and Sabres, to walk away from it.

And in this current economic climate, how many corporations have that kind of scratch to throw around?

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Despite a rather large outcry from the “hockey establishment” (and that can mean media, management, players, starry-eyed fans..actually, really any hockey sycophant, and there are many up here north-of-the-border), I think it’s great that the Vancouver Canucks have named All-World goaltender Roberto Luongo as their captain.

About time a team took this step.  What took so long?

Apparently there have been almost a half-dozen goalie captains in league history.  Most of us know that Hall-of-Famer Bill Durnan was captain of the Montreal Canadiens during the 1947-48 season, but lost that distinction when opposing teams complained about length of time it took for Durnan to skate out to the officials, and beef about a myriad of calls.  It seems the netminder was giving his team a TV timeout decades before it’s actual implementation.  Butch Bouchard would wear the C for Montreal the following season.

No doubt those teams had a legitimate point, but in this age of seemingly every player whining to the referee, what harm would there be in allowing a goaltender to wear the C?

As I understood it, the Captain or Alternate Captain was assigned the right to be able to engage with the on-ice officials and register a complaint or an objection.  The funny thing is, I don’t recall seeing a big bold capital letter on the front of the sweater of most of the guys who are crying a river during a stoppage in play.

I have always wished that a referee would turn around and call an unsportmanlike penalty or a delay-of-game penalty on one of these letterless whiners, thus handing the responsibility of officially complaining back to the proper players.

The whole notion of a team captain has always seemed a tad overblown to me, particularily living here in the city of Toronto.  Once Doug Gilmour abandoned the good ship Maple Leaf and engineered his move to New Jersey, management saw fit to anoint Mats Sundin as the next captain.  In a city where hockey fans practically worshipped a talented, yet two-dimensional player like Wendal Clark, one would have thought someone just gave women the right to vote, the manner in which the average hockey fan (male, Anglo-Saxon, middle class) reacted with shock and disgust.

That is not meant to be taken as a shot at Clark.  If anything, he was a throwback to the old-time N.H.L. captain; tough, respected, maybe not the most gifted player on the team, but he led by example.  And he was as friendly with management as he was with the guys in the dressing room

Clark fit all those attributes, and the Leafs’ captain was, more-often-than-not,  one of the few shining lights during a rather dark period for the franchise during the late 1980′s.  The thing is, most teams saw fit to make their best player, their franchise player, the captain.  Following that trend, it was only fitting that Sundin be given the C.

It took years for the fickle fans of Toronto to warm up to the big Swede, and the current cry to have Sundin return for one more year in the blue-and-white would have been unimaginable back in the mid-90′s.

Regardless, what does a captain do, besides vent at the on-ice officials?   Take the draw during ceremonial faceoffs.  That’s a big one.  Represent the team in the community.  That’s a good thing, though one doesn’t have to wear the C in order to contribute.  How about take charge in the dressing room?  No doubt true, but many ex-players will tell you that a successful team has a number of leaders in the room, and they can lead in a number of ways.  Some may use words, some may use intimidation, others talk softly and carry a big composite stick.

So why can’t goaltenders be part of that club?  When one thinks of a stellar goaltender who thought he knew more than anyone else on the ice, the name Patrick Roy leaps-to-mind.  He would have made a great captain, not that the Avalanche were hurting for leaders.  Still, imagine Roy leaving his crease to partake in a mid-ice scrum with the ref.  Folks, we have may missed some must-see TV.

And hey, it’s not like some goalies haven’t already tried to take matters into their own hands.  Remember Curtis Joseph leaving the Toronto net and accidently taking the feet out from under the referee Mick McGeough during a game against the Ottawa Senators?  Cujo wanted to discuss the finer points of crease interference with the ref, and his exuberance to engage in conversation got the better of him, as he went barrelling into McGeough.  For his efforts, Cujo got a misconduct penalty, but was not suspended, as his intention was not to take out the ref…though many over the years probably have harboured that desire.

The hockey world won’t stop spinning because Luongo is the captain of the Vancouver Canucks.  The games will still take place.  The thing is, Captain Luongo doesn’t get the wear to extra C on his sweater, and he won’t get to take any ceremonial faceoffs, which frankly disappoints me.  Nor can he take any extra-long bathroom breaks just because he’s now The Man.

In keeping with naming your best player the team captain, the Vancouver Canucks haven’t so much broken with tradition as they have followed it.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

What makes an arena or a stadium special?  Why do we attach any emotion to them?

They are, after all, just buildings.  A collection of bricks-and-mortar, or more likely these days, reinforced steel and other space-age materials.

They are the places where we congregate for a variety of social activities, be it your workplace, your place-of-worship or the place you go to escape the daily grind.  When it comes to sports arenas, stadiums and ballparks, we ask that they cover all the bases.

First-and-foremost, they must be functional.  The game must be able to be played within its confines.

Second, sports is entertainment, regardless of the best efforts of many of us to turn it into a secular religion, though the worship of a Supreme Being and the worship of a Supreme Team often share many of the same rituals, prejudices and passions.  As sport is yet one choice on the vast palette of entertainment choices, a sports arena/stadium must be able to offer the latest creature comforts, in an effort to lure the family to the ballpark, and then to separate them from their cash.

Third, and in the end most importantly, we ask that this temple of sport transcend the everyday, that it become the vessel into which we pour our hopes and dreams.  We ask that this collection of bricks-and-mortar become the physical embodiment of that we cannot easily define, that we cannot so readily grasp, that fleeting feeling of magic, the shared ethereal experience.

Of these three qualities, the third is the most difficult to capture, and impossible to manufacture, despite the dogged efforts of the in-house entertainment crew to burst your eardrums by piping in loud, unimaginative music choices during every break in play.

There have been a long line of sports stadiums since professional sports took ahold of North American sports fans during the late 1800′s.  Yet only a handful have transcended their sports.

Any die-hard college football fan can rhyme off the names of the temples of football, there are zealots who speak in reverential tones of certain minor league baseball ballparks, many long since gone, and the same thing applies to minor league hockey over the last century.

With all due respect, it is the stadia of the major league teams that have etched their way into the consciousness of a sporting-mad continent.  It’s an economy-of-scale thing; the bigger the canvas, the bigger the bang.

Even the most casual sports fan knows about Wrigley Field or Lambeau Field.  Even the non-sports fan is familiar with Yankee Stadium or Madison Square Garden.

These structures stand head-and-shoulders over their more mundane cousins, the aptly-named “cookie cutter” stadiums.  These buildings of lore may not all be aesthetically wonderful, but they’ve all hosted an impressive resume of big time games and once-in-a-lifetime events.

But that in itself does not mean the humbler arenas/stadiums are shut out of the sepia-tinged memory department.  First-and-foremost is the first category of why we continue to flock to these places.  The action on-the-ice, or on-the-field.  This is truly where magical memories are created.  And that can happen anywhere.  But it helps when the building itself is special.

An arena such as Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto was a wonder when it was very quickly built during the early days of the Great Depression, and the Stanley Cup winning teams that called that barn home added to its legend.  The advent of Canada-wide radio broadcasts, with Foster Hewitt calling the play-by-play, cemented the Gardens special place in hockey lore.

Even when the Toronto Maple Leafs stumbled through some dry years during the 1980′s, there was still an electricity in the air when one took their grey-and-white ticket stub, and pushed their way past the turnstiles.  The aging lady was always kept in great shape, and while the action on the ice didn’t always live up to one’s expectations, the ghosts of the past hung heavy in the air.

Which only underscores the sad condition the Gardens is in today.  The likes of Eugene Melnick wanted to purchase the arena and install his OHL St. Michael’s Majors as the main hockey tenant, which would have worked nicely with the junior hockey tradition that runs through the veins of the place.  The Maple Leafs ownership balked at that idea, no doubt worried that a refurbished MLG would compete with their fancy new Air Canada Centre for lucrative concert dates.

Canadian supermarket giant Loblaws came along next, and planned to turn the building into a combination Superstore and hockey museum, but as of this moment, none of that has come-to-pass.

Many were upset at that prospect, arguing such a fate was worse than death for the hockey shrine.  Many pointed out what became of the Montreal Forum, now a glitzy entertainment/movie complex.   At least they thought to keep a bit of the old Forum around; a statue of the Rocket and supposedly the spot where centre ice was.

Still, many would rather these places just be bulldozed, instead of reduced to mere shadows of their once glory.  But would having a parking lot or some faceless office building built on the grave of our memories be a better shrine?  Should we just pack up the ghosts and get out of Dodge?

At least there’s a nod to the past, a place where fathers can take their sons (or mothers and daughters), and point out where Johnny Superstar scored that big goal or hit that big homerun, and made the world safe for democracy.

With few exceptions, almost every place we inhabit is built upon the past.  This past summer, after a particularily nasty last June rainstorm, there was a mini Lake Ontario between my house and the neighbours.  There’s not much worse than a flooded basement, so with bucket-in-hand, we bailed out what we could before the neighborhood cavalry arrived, all clutching shovels and pitchforks, like some Gothic lynch mob.

As we dug a makeshift drainage ditch, I struck an area next to a basement window that held the remnants of a coal dump.  The house was built circa 1946, one of the new suburbs of Toronto, as servicemen returned from Europe, looking for their piece of post-war prosperity.

Before there was central heating, the house was heated with coal.  I have no idea when that conversion would have taken place, but the modest house I inhabit holds its own ghosts, the majority of which I am unaware of.  This long-abandoned coal dump was a reminder of that past.

As we dug further, someone mentioned that the entire area was once a flood plane for the nearby (now pretty much buried) river, which explains the heavy clay around the house, and the manner in which the entire area is sloped.

As I struggled to dislodge the stubborn clay, it made me think of places such as Nashville.  During the 1971 excavation of the area where their arena now stands, the workers came across a long-lost cave.  There they found a foreleg bone and nine-inch fang of a sabre-toothed tiger, which had been extinct for thousands of years.

It was only natural that when Nashville joined the National Hockey League in the late 1990′s, they took the inspiration for their name from that find, a great example of acknowledging your past.

I once read that each of us walk with seven ghosts at our heels; for every person alive on Earth today, there are seven souls from the past.  I’ve never had those numbers verified, but the point is haunting nonetheless.  The past matters.

In sports, the past throws a huge shadow over everything.  It’s unimaginable for any sports fans not to become immersed in the history of whatever game they follow.  The past informs the present, which directs the future.

The constant dance of different corporate names for arenas strikes me as short-sighted.  Yes, a number of teams need that sizeable cash infusion, but they’ve mortgaged off some of their days of future passed for mere cash.  Filthy lucre that won’t last.

Do the Buffalo Bisons play at Pilot Field, or at NorthAmerica Park, or at Dunn Tire Park?  The Montreal Canadiens skate at the Molson Centre.  That I’m sure of.   Though I think they changed the name.  Yeah, that rings a Bell.

So what exactly makes an arena/stadium special?  In the end, it’s your personal memories.

Maybe your father took you there for your first game.  Maybe it’s when the Curse of (insert Curse here) whatever was lifted, when your team finally vanquished the enemy.  Maybe it’s all the championship banners hanging from the rafters, or all the near misses that made you love your team even more.  Maybe it’s the way the building feels before a game, as you feed off the electricity of the crowd, or maybe it’s the way the building sounds after a game, as the echoes of the just-completed game continue to bounce around the place.

I’ve always thought the New Year should begin the day after Labour Day.  It’s when we put aside the illusion that life is leisurely, and we return to school or work..and the weather begins its slow, inevitable march towards winter, at least in this part of the continent.

Each autumn I can feel the clock tick a little louder; another step towards the grave.  The closing of Yankee Stadium is yet another small step in that direction.  Just another part of my past that now is gone.

Add it to the roll call of other great buildings.  Maple Leaf Gardens, the Detroit Olympia, Chicago Stadium, Boston Garden, the Montreal Forum.  And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.  No doubt you have your own arenas/stadiums to add to that list.

For me, it’s Clarke Stadium in Edmonton, the Montreal Expos, the Calgary Cannons, the St. Catharines Stompers, and Ottawa Rough Riders.  The Hartford Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, and Quebec Nordiques.  The Atlanta Flames at the Omni.  The Winnipeg Arena, though I never saw a game there, but once peered in through the windows and caught a glimpse of the seats.  10 cent chocolate bars at the corner store, milk in glass bottles, Saturday morning cartoons, and playing outside without sunscreen.

The past is a great place to visit, but a lousy place to live.  For someone, the Air Canada Centre, or the new Yankee Stadium will be their shrine, their holy place.  And that’s how it should be.

- Mick Kern

Mick Kern appears courtesy of Live From Wayne Gretzky’s

With all due respect to a blog posted by Toronto Reporter Howard Berger, Wayne Gretzky is not going to the Toronto Maple Leafs, regardless what the source says. Wayne today said this to me: ” I have always been a big fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and wish them luck in the future. Right now my focus is on the Phoenix Coyotes and developing our young team.”

Wayne “couldn’t be any happier” in the desert coaching the up and coming Phoenix Coyotes, and he has put his heart and soul into the franchise that he has ownership in as the Managing Partner and Head Coach.

For the 1st time in a long time, the Coyotes are on the right path, in terms of having a game plan, drafting exceptionally well, developing terrific young talent, and telling the fans the plan and sticking to it.

Wayne has the great ability and patience as a head coach to develop young players and can’t wait to get started with the likes of incoming rookies such as Kyle Turris, Kevin Porter, Brett McLean to go along with Peter Mueller, Martin Hanzal and Daniel Winnik.

I will have more to come.