Scooter Chronicles

Bobby Clarke’s Back With The Flyers
OK, Mr. Ed Snider, Flyers’ owner, is making a fool of himself. At least he has Mr. Wang, the idiot owner of the New York Islanders, to still make him look smart. The Flyers re-hired Bobby Clarke as Senior Vice President of the team. This is the guy that just resigned six weeks ago as the General Manager because of burn-out! (Though there is speculation that he was asked to resign, essentially being fired, because the Flyers are going downhill and he made quite a few bonehead deals, or lack of making deals he should have as of late.) What is Snider and the rest of management thinking?! Or is it that they aren’t thinking and using nostalgia and emotion?

Sure, Clarke will have less to do, and will be more involved in player development which won’t take the on-the-edge-of-your-seat-around-the-clock attention that a GM needs. And sure, he is a good hockey mind to have around the office. But is just seems backwards. The Flyers have a habit of trading away players and then trading to bring them back. Or firing coaches, then hiring them less then a year later as an assistant or a scout. Clarke even had two tours of duty as the team’s GM, and now is back in the front office again. Fortunately for Snider the Flyers have had many good years and haven’t been one of the league’s doormats or their player-coach-management carousel would be the laughingstock hockey.

No News Is Good News
Scott Burnside mentioned in his latest COLUMN that the NHL made a bold statement by standing pat at the General Managers meetings in Palm Beach recently. First of all, the only problem plaguing the league is scheduling. Many teams are upset that their fans don’t get to see all the stars. As it stands right now, a vast majority of the games are playing against division opponents, leaving very few games against teams in the other divisions within the conference, let alone teams in the other conference. But the league is sticking with their three-year plan on the schedule, though they probably will change after that.

The thing about this, as stated by Damien Cox in an earlier ARTICLE, if this is all the NHL has to deal with right now, then the league is in good shape, less then two years after canceling an entire season.

Let’s hope these are the only problems the NHL has to deal with for years to come.

Penguins Are Staying in Pittsburgh … For Now
New Penguins owners keeps stating that he will honor the contract between the team and the Isle of Capri Casino. For those that need a refresher, the IoCC said if it won the bid to build a slot casino in the Steeltown, it would pony up $325 million to build the city a brand new arena for the Penguins. The outgoing ownership group led by Mario Lemieux signed a contract with the IoCC basically stating that they were on board with that, and would stay if the arena is built. Hopefully for the hockey world this deal gets done. If not, my non-expert opinion believes that they Penguins new home would probably be in Hamilton, Ontario or Kansas City.