Cut from the same cloth

There is a piece of cloth....
Juan Antonio Samaranch and Gary Bettman were cut out of it.

So, What Does She Know?

Wondering how I know ?
A history in bidding, and multi-sport games.
Served on the COA Site Selection Committee to choose the site for the 1999 Pan Am Games. COA chose Winnipeg add to the PASO list. Winnipeg won.
Many Canada Games, Pan Am Games and Calgary Olympics.
Spend much time studying and communicating with franchise holders.

City Council's Lack of Vision

Kingston was one of four cities bidding to host the 2011 Memorial Cup.

Not surprisingly, it didn't win.
There are a lot of reasons why it didn't win, some of which are written about in the Whig Standard today.

The winning bid from Mississauga guaranteed $3 milllion. It is highly unlikely that Kingston made a guarantee of this size.

This from the Toronto Star, this morning, by Kevin McGran:
The selection committee — featuring a Toronto-heavy board that includes Blue Jays president Paul Beeston, former NHL executive Frank Bonello, NHL senior vice-president Jim Gregory, and NHL director of central scouting E.J. McGuire — concluded Mississauga could put on the best show.

That, despite the fact the Majors have only 1,000 or so season ticket holders at the 5,501-seat Hershey Centre while teams in the other three cities play to packed arenas.

Mississauga owner Eugene Melnyk reportedly guaranteed a $3-million return for the OHL from the event, $1 million more than Windsor.

“What you hope from this from the Majors’ perspective is you hope there will be carryover,” said OHL commissioner David Branch. “You’re going to introduce (junior hockey) to fans in this area who maybe haven’t witnessed OHL hockey for a long time or ever. They’ll see what a great quality product it is and they’ll come back.”

Branch said his only worry is whether the Hershey Centre is big enough.

“Toronto is a special events city and that alone will put it over the top in terms of it being a complete sellout,” said Branch. “There are no concerns at all. The biggest problem we’re going to have is maybe the arena isn’t big enough. There are so many OHL centres with an hour and a half of the GTA that many will undoubtedly want to come and watch the games.”

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion said the city is willing to spend up to $2 million “in kind” to help promote the event that is expected to generate up to $15 million in economic benefits. Melnyk, who also owns the NHL’s Ottawa Senators, was behind the bid but missed the news conference due to illness.

The ticket campaign begins Tuesday with “Dave Keon” packages beginning at $699 for a Majors season-ticket and tickets to the Memorial Cup. The “Frank Mahovlich” package begins at $899.

The return of the Memorial Cup will end at least one long major championship hockey drought for the Greater Toronto Area that dates back to the 1960s. The Memorial Cup was last played in the GTA in 1966 when the Edmonton Oil Kings beat the Oshawa Generals at Maple Leaf Gardens.
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The loss of the bid comes from several factors, but knowing sports organizations, I am quite sure that it was the guarantee that did it.

Two other factors include the lack of a significant fan base for the Frontenacs and the fact that the team doesn't play very good hockey.

The Whig Standard article cites a very significant factor: city council's lack of vision. The way Ken Wong sees it, council was pretty cheap in its contribution to the event. That is certainly true. With great reluctance they offered sortof "discounted" price ice time and few other throw-ins.

It is these "throw-ins" that an organization will look at; they are the hidden factors that the bid committee can fall back on, add to as the process evolves and make the city look good.

Council's lack of vision is one way to put the factor. My view is that Kingston is so parochial, so stuck on itself, so fixed on navel-gazing. Council cannot look out, it cannot see forward, it thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread.

Not only does council have aa "small town" mentality, the lack of leadership from the mayor holds the city back. The mayor of a community is its chief cheerleader. The mayor gets out there, speaks well of the city, talks about what it can do, what it is where it is going. The current mayor does none of these things. His lack of enthusiam is palpable.

So....why did the city lose the 2011 Memorial Cup? No big buck guarantee, the cheap mentality of council, a mayor who sat in the weeds, once again.

And the really unfortunate part of this is that no one will tell council and the mayor that they are responsible, that they are holding the city back, that they are creating a negative climate. It's a small town, and citizens fear retribution.

Own The Podium

Interesting reading at Roger Jackson's blog. He is the leader of OTP.

http://ownthepodium.wordpress.com/

XX1 Olympic Winter Games

Here we go!

Headline in the sports section of the Toronto Star this morning: "Feschuk: Snowboard Silver as Skiers, Skaters Fall short."

Come on, Feschuk. Let's drop the negarive stuff. Oh yes, Feschuk didn't write the headline; some poor underpaid, overnight intern did. Well STOP THE NEGATIVE!

XX1 Olympic Winter Games

Great Opening Ceremony.

Why all this talk about not winning a Gold Medal at either of the games we have hosted? It seems to me that all this blathering is just media hype. I haven't heard ONE person mourn that Canada didn't win Gold at either '76 or '88. Just media frenzy.

Not WAYNE GRETZKY

Now that would be one monumental mistake, to have WAYNE GRETZKY light the Olympic cauldron on Friday night.

All Canadians do NOT worship at his feet, do not consider him greater than sliced bread, and consider his departure from Canada to be (at best) very disappointing.

NO Wayne Gretzky to light the flame.

And, while we are at it, no BETTY FOX either. It was her son who demonstrated spirit and determination, not her.

Scotties

The final of the Scott Tournament of Hearts yesterday was a nail-biter. In the end, an extra end too, Jennifer Jones and her mates won. There were several very quesionable calls in the game, particularly by the O'Rourke team. In the final end, they left a Jones rock nearest the pin, and played other shots. Very strange.

There were many questions throughout the week though. The team had great difficulty "getting" the ice. It was strange, though, because Jones hasn't had that difficulty in other competitions.

Several other teams had strange weeks too. Saskatchewan? Ontario? The ice was a prblem for them on occasion too. TSN's commentators remarked on it, gently, when they really should have lambasted the ice makers, and some of the skips for the shots they called. They were too nice.

Olympian Forever

It's time the media stopped referring to Canadians as "former Olympians."

Once an athlete has competed in an Olympic or Olympic Winter Games, he/she is an Olympian. Period. Not a "former Olympian."

In Randy Starkman's column today, a reader refers to Debbi Wilkes who won a figure skating medal in 1964 with Guy Revell as "former Olympian Debbi Wilkes." She will NEVER be a former Olympian. She will be an Olympian "who competed in the 1964 OWG" but never a former Olympian.

Pretty well everyone knows that it is extremely difficult to represent our country in the OLys or OWG, so let's give these athletes their due.

Big media giants like Sun Media, or QMI it is called now (I think) perpetuate this error. If I could find out how to contact DAVID LANGFORD who is the chief sports person for Sun Media, I would give him my opinion on this. But he is harder to locate (e-mail-wise) than chicken's teeth. If you know his email, let me know!

The sports editor at the Kingston Whig Standard tells me that they just print what comes off the wire from their media giant. Well, folks, that just isn't good enough. If he cared about our Olympians, he would edit out the error!

This is Very Generous

Each Olympic Gold Medal Nets $100,000 for Athletes
by Randy Starkman
Toronto Star, February 4, 2010


Canadian athletes who strike gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics will be sparking more than just future dreams for younger athletes – they'll be making a financial investment in them.
Sprott Asset Management LP, known for its success with gold stocks, announced this morning in Toronto that in conjunction with The Sprott Foundation they will donate $100,000 for every gold medal won in Vancouver to the Canadian Athletes Now Fund, which raises money to help this country's athletes.
While Canada has never won a gold medal at a home Olympics, it's expected they could win as many as 10 at the upcoming Games.
“One of warmest feelings of all time is to see a Canadian athlete win a medal,” said Eric Sprott, ceo of Sprott Management LP. “It's stunningly exciting. I always realized these athletes winning the medals have worked so hard and there's so much dedication by those around them. I've always thought it was a huge accomplishment and should be rewarded.”
Sprott said it was of much greater benefit overall to spread the money out among athletes than have it go to the winner of the gold medal.
“We don't want to say that the person who wins gold is the only winner,” said Sprott. “There are a lot of athletes involved, not just gold medal athletes.”
Jane Roos, founder of the CAN Fund, said it was Sprott who came up with the idea.
“It celebrates excellence and fits in with our vision to have summer and winter athletles work together to support each other,” said Roos.
To that end, Olympic rowing gold medalist Ben Rutledge attended the launch of the fundraiser.
“I think it's great we've got somebody who is looking ahead to the future, especially knowing we face funding cutbacks going forward,” said Rutledge.
The Sprott Foundation has also made an initial contribution of $210,000 to help the CAN Fund cover funding for 35 athletes they still had on their books. The CAN Fund gives out $6,000 to each athlete to help cover training and living expenses. Roos said that 80 per cent of the athletes on the Winter Olympic team have received funds from their group.
Sprott Asset Management is also encouraging other corporations and the public to add to the total that will be donated for the gold medal tally at a website they have set up, sprottgoldpledge.com

The Fight Is On!

The discussion is hot in the media, and even hotter within the sport community. Virtually NONE of the sport federations want OTP to come under the COC, but for political reasons, they won't quite put it this way.

The fact remains: keep OTP away from the COC.
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COC, OTP fight for control of future athlete funding

By Cam Cole, Vancouver SunFebruary 4, 2010 3:02 AM

(no photo)
Own the Podium president Roger Jackson stands by the mural at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary on Feb. 2. Jackson hopes OTP remains independent after the Vancouver Games.

VANCOUVER — Before wading into the whole Canadian Olympic Committee/OwnThe Podium/federal funding brouhaha, a nagging memory from the days leading into the 1988 Calgary Olympics:
"The world does not end on Feb. 28," the Mulroney government's sports minister, Otto Jelinek trumpeted to reporters. "Future funding will not be tied to Canada's performance in Calgary. Sports federations need not fear. They can rest assured that the bottom is not going to fall out."
As far as he knew at the time, that was probably true.
But then Canada won zero gold medals in Calgary, only five medals in total, and . . . well, priorities changed in Ottawa. The world did not actually end on Feb. 28, it just felt that way to the next generation or two of elite Canadian amateur athletes.
Which brings us to the Harper government's sports minister, Gary Lunn, and the assurances he has given that Own The Podium's request for $22 million a year in "replacement funding" — to offset the loss of sponsorship money from the Vancouver organizing committee once the Games are over — is in the works, and everyone's in favour of it, and when the federal budget comes out on March 4, it'll be there.
The cheque, in other words, is in the mail.
But we've seen this movie before, and the niggling suspicion is that the report on the future of sports funding — written by the panel that Lunn struck to study it — is languishing in Ottawa due to some nefarious interference. Delayed, the conspiracy theorists say, by successful lobbying from the COC because the report as it sits is about to hand control of the federal dough to OTP.
Under this theory, the COC, headed by outgoing CEO Chris Rudge and incoming president Marcel Aubut, wants the feds to put OTP under COC control.
Meanwhile, OTP, led by CEO Roger Jackson, wants to stay independent because it views the COC as an unwieldy, bureaucratic sinkhole which doles out funds — through Sport Canada — so inefficiently that the athletes are badly served and high-performance objectives are constantly being watered down by internal COC politics.
If your eyes are already spinning in their sockets, you're not alone. Can't we all just get along?
Everyone loves Own The Podium. In its brief life, it has already demonstrated that it knows how to get bang for its buck, how to turn money into Olympic medals, efficiently.
Hurrah for Roger.
If he wants independence to continue doing that, what's the counter-argument?
"I'm wearing two hats here, because I'm also the chair of Own The Podium," said Rudge, the COC chief. "It's not a case of them being in opposition, it's a case of the evolution of a concept."
A concept, he rightly points out, that was born in the mind of the late Mark Lowry, the COC's former executive director of sport, who devised the idea of merit-based, directed funding at least a couple of years before OTP was formed.
"So if there's an issue about whether this could be done under the aegis of the COC, well, there's a precedent for it," Rudge said. "We had a program called the Canadian Sport Review Panel, and it dispersed the high-performance funds, co-ordinated with Sport Canada, and that was then handed over to OTP to do."
He said the COC acknowledges that, whatever the panel decides, funding distribution henceforth has to be done independently of the COC.
As if.
"There's no question OTP has been an absolute home run," Rudge said, "but there are areas where we still have overlaps between what the COC does in athlete preparation and what OTP does. Are there ways those can be harmonized in order to avoid duplication and release more dollars? The panel has given its report back, I've not seen it, but from my perspective — because it's going to say something about where we should go, but it's not going to be able to act on it — I think we're better off not seeing it until after the Games."
If Jackson's spidey senses are tingling, it's only because he's been president of the COC, when it was the COA, three different times, and he knows how it works and doesn't work.
"It's a hugely politicized organization, and it's a membership organization, so you have the member (sports federations) themselves approving distribution of money, and they're the ones into whose pockets these funds would go," said the former gold-medal-winning Olympic rower.
"For us, a far better model for Canadian sport is a properly run agency, totally independent, totally focused on high performance, rather than mixing it up with the politics of the COC, the self-interest of all the representations of federations in the COC, and all of the other program responsibilities of the COC which include Pan-Am Games, winter Games, summer Games, youth Games, and all those Games missions and the other stuff. It's a no-brainer."
You want medals? Focus on medals. Sounds simple.
Rudge agrees, and says there's no reason it has to be a war. The federal government, he points out, has "stepped up to the table" with a total of $47 million in annual funding, in three different initiatives, guaranteed in perpetuity, that wasn't there five years ago, "so I think Minister Lunn deserves some credit for what he's done, and we shouldn't lose sight of that."
It's only a question of who will control that money, and whatever additional funds the government might allocate in the upcoming budget.
"It's not something I would panic over. I think it's a healthy debate. The truth is always somewhere between two opposites. I think that truth will be found," Rudge said, and believes that the government-commissioned panel will find it.
That, surely, would be a first.
Vancouver Sun
ccole@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
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The Biggest Question: What Happens After the Games?

Take a look at RANDY STARKMAN's column
http://thestar.blogs.com/olympics/

There is no doubt that there is much anxiety about future sport funding. Canada has a pattern of putting gobs of $$$ into the one or 2 years before a big competition, expecting miracles (there seldom are any), and then dropping back to an abysmal amount of funding for sport. And the results usually show this short-term thinking.

It has been like this as long as I have been in sport, and longer. Just look at international results starting in the mid-1960s.

Canada's Team at the OWG: Canada Games Grads!!

This is great!!!

(February 2, 2010) Ottawa – Canada Games Alumni represent 44% of the athletes that will compete for Team Canada at the upcoming Olympic Games in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The fact that, in sports on the Canada Games program, close to half of the athletes competing in the Olympic Games have competed at Canada’s multi-sport event indicates how important the Canada Games are in the development of Canada’s next generation of national, international and Olympic champions. This number comes at a time when the success of Canadian athletes is linked to improved development programs as well as increased funding and athlete performances are being monitored closely.

“The Canada Games are proud to act as a key stepping stone for many Canada Games athletes,” says Sue Hylland, President and CEO of the Canada Games Council. “Every two years, we anxiously wait for the Olympic team roster to track the Canada Games alumni percentage in sports that are on the Canada Games program. We wish all of Canada’s Olympic hopefuls well and look forward to marking the Canada Games alumni who medal at these important Games.”

Overall, 80 Canada Games Alumni will compete in Vancouver and many are medal contenders. Renowned alumni competing in Vancouver include five-time Olympic medalist and the athlete named Canada’s flag bearer Clara Hughes (Speed Skating), 2006 Olympic Gold medalist Jennifer Heil (Freestyle) and returning gold medalist Chandra Crawford (Cross-Country Skiing). The Canada Games are well represented in almost all sports at the 2010 Olympic Games.

In some sports the impact of the Canada Games is even more apparent. Of the eight-member Biathlon team competing in 2010, seven athletes are Canada Games Alumni. In Speed Skating, Canada Games Alumni will make up almost 70% of the total team. Some notable Canada Games Hockey alumni who will also be competing in Vancouver include two time Olympic Gold medalist Jennifer Botterill, four-time Olympian Hayley Wickenheiser, three-time Olympic team member Christopher Pronger and Sidney Crosby who will be competing at his first Olympic Games.

In addition to the athletes, many of the Team Canada members who make up the Canadian delegation at the Vancouver Olympics are representing as coaches, managers, technical personnel, mission staff, and organizing committee staff and many can attribute their roots to the Canada Games.

10 DAYS TO GO !!

In this morning's Kingston Whig Standard, there is a small piece about a gentleman who died. The part that the editors put on the front page is that "he was a family man."

When will this nonsense stop? Or should we start including in the obit of women that "she is a family woman"???

Saying that someone is a "family man" does not move him up in the eyes of a reader.

Please, editors/writers stop using this phrase. It is outdated, if nothing else.

Scott Tournament of Hearts

The Scotties started on Saturday. Not quite painful to watch, but not gripping TV.

After the Olympic Trials and some Grand Slam curling, it's hard to come down to ground and watch the very pedestrian brand of curling that provinces like NB and PEI offer up.

Let's hope it gets better toward the end of the draw!!!

A Champion Won't Be There

Ah, how familiar this sounds.

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) has internal "rules" for who can be selected for an Olympic or OWG as well. How well I remember the days when Canadians met the Olympic standard (particularly in athletics) but were not selected to attend the OG.

This illustrates that Canada isn't the only country that has its own rules about who can atttend the OG or OWG.
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January 30, 2010
(from the NY Times)
An Olympic Qualifier, but Not in Israel’s Eyes

By MASADA SIEGEL
Israel has its first Olympic qualifier in women’s figure skating — but the country’s Olympic officials will not let her compete at the Vancouver Games.
Tamar Katz, the three-time national champion, met the International Skating Union’s standards for Olympic eligibility. But the Olympic Committee of Israel has a rule that says a skater must place among the top 14 at the European championships to earn a trip to the Olympics, the group’s president said. Katz finished 21st at the recent championships in Tallinn, Estonia.
“This issue is not about resources or gender — it’s purely professional,” Efraim Zinger, the secretary general for the Israeli Olympic Committee, said in a telephone interview. “We set the target about two years ahead of time for our athletes. Those who don’t make it must stay back. Some countries’ main goals are to participate, some send their athletes to win. We are interested in our athletes reaching the top.”
Katz, 20, was born in Dallas and practices at Sport-o-Rama in Monsey, N.Y., under her coach, Peter Burrows. Her skating career started in Rockville, Md., and when the family moved back to Israel, they decided to live in Metulla, near Israel’s only regulation ice rink. She moved back to the United States on her own at 15 so she would have access to better coaches, she said.
“If the Israeli Olympic Committee is concerned I’ll place last in the Olympics, they don’t have to worry — even if I don’t skate my best, I can place in the top 20,” Katz said in a telephone interview. “I am not talking about a medal, because it is not just about medals, it is also about representing your country with honor and respect.”
Katz gained Olympic eligibility by finishing seventh at a competition in Oberdorf, Germany, in September.
In explaining the decision not to send Katz to the Vancouver Games, the president of Israel’s Olympic Committee, Zvi Varshaviak, said: “We have internal rules for our athletes. She needed to be in the top 14 at the European championships. She came in 21st, and it’s not good enough.”
Israel will send three athletes to Vancouver: a team of ice dancers and a skier. The country has never won a medal at the Winter Olympics.
“It’s the first time an Israeli woman had the chance to go to the Olympics,” said Boris Chait, president of Israel’s skating federation. “If I said it was a good call, I would be lying, but the rules don’t allow her to compete. I made a personal plea from Tallinn to the I.O.C. I stated my case and appealed, but they did not see it my way.”
Israel sent its first Winter Olympic team to compete in the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway. Its national Olympic committee has modified its qualification rules over the years. The group has 10 people who decide the requirements for athletes in the Summer and Winter Games.
Apparently, there was not a consensus in the group on how to handle Katz’s situation. Alex Gilady, a member of the Israel Olympic Committee as well as a member of the International Olympic Committee, said he disagreed with the ruling.
“I was trying to help Tamar and wrote a letter asking, why don’t we send her to Vancouver as a future Olympic hopeful, because she is young and talented,” Gilady said. “However, they decided against it.”
Two weeks before the European championships in Estonia, Katz came down with a viral infection. She was off the ice for two weeks but recovered a few days before the competition. On the day of the short program Katz failed to execute her triple-lutz-double-loop combination, which would have been her highest-scoring element.
“Because of it, I missed qualification for the free program by half a point,” she said. “Had I been able to skate in the free program portion of the event, I would have been able to pull up from my current 21st position.”
Burrows, Katz’s coach, objected to the committee’s decision.
“The fact that she competes internationally also means she generates money for the Israeli figure skating organization,” he said. “In all my years of coaching I have never seen anything so ridiculous.”
Varshaviak sees the situation differently: “It’s about winning medals while also making your country proud. We like Tamar Katz, she’s young and we hope to see her compete for Israel in the next Olympics.
For now, Katz is planning to finish the season and compete for Israel in the world championships in March.
“It’s my dream to hear the Hatikva,” she said, referring to hearing Israeli’s national anthem at the Olympic Games.

13 DAYS TO GO !

Canada will be led into the stadium by Clara Hughes, and excellent choice.

Gary mason of the Globe and Mail is floating the idea that Wayne Gretzky will be lighting the Olympic flame on Friday night.

Mason thinks that all Canada will be thrilled with this. No, all Canada won't think this is great!

14 DAYS TO GO !

Today is the day that the Canadian Team will be officially named, and the Opening Ceremony flag bearer. Lots of speculation that it will be CLARA HUGHES, competing as a long track speedskater. She would be an exellent choice, although my choice is HAYLEY WICKENHEISER.

The Toronto Star sure is promoting Hughes to carry the flag!

15 DAYS TO GO

Getting ready to be a couch potato!!

Mike Danton, convicted criminal, played for the St Mary's Huskies hockey team last night. Why do I object? This fellow went to St Mary's after Christmas, to be a student and an athlete. The coach said he'd get a chance. That's ok, but....the rest of the team had to "try out" and earn their place on the team in the fall. This fellow comes in well after the start of the season, and displaces another student on the team. This isn't fair. He should have had to wait till next season, try out for the team, and if he made it, then he'd be on the team. One athlete is now sitting in the stands, Mike Danton having taken his place. This is unacceptable. The CIS should not allow this.

16 DAYS TO GO !!

Patrice Cormier is going to appeal his suspension from Junior hockey. Where did he get that advice? Time for him to emerge from the "hockey cocoon" anhd listen to what people are saying about hockey violence, especially the 'planned' kind, like his hit on Tam was.

Randy Starkman, The Star in Toronto, writes about the human part of athlete lives, and especially about Canada's 2010 Olympians. Check out his columns daily. Good stuff.

Football fans are amazed at how the NFL does OT. Imagine any game that is determined by the toss of a coin. In the NFL the coin toss winner is the only team that gets posession of the ball. Now, it that fair? The tunnel-vision NFL could take a page out of the CFL and do OT the way it does it. Both teams get a chance to score: a field goal or TD. Most points in the OT period (yes, a pre-determined amount of time) gets to win. The NFL OT rules stink.