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The Portland Winter Hawks announced today that they have not renewed the contract for head coach Mike Williamson.

The new ownership group that took over the team last season, vowing to stick to business and let the hockey guys run hockey, have instead stepped into the thick of it. Director of player personnel Gord Loiselle resigned this spring, and now this.

I’ve not been a big fan of Mike Williamson as coach. He’s been very consistent in middle-of-the-pack finishes and early playoff elimination. His teams have also consistently led the WHL in penalty minutes, a stat that either indicates a lack of discipline or nothing at all, if you believe the Hawks’ broadcasters. His record as head coach is pretty darn close to .500. I thought we could have used a new coach two seasons ago.

That said, I’m a little nervous about owner Jim Goldsmith as director of hockey operations. Longtime G.M. and former owner Ken Hodge has been very loyal to Williamson, and for the good of the team’s future, maybe this had to be done. But hopefully Goldsmith will allow Hodge latitude in choosing the next coach, and maybe we’ll even get to see Hodge return to his old spot behind the bench as interim coach.

Hodge is a legend in the WHL. He was instrumental bringing Canadian major junior hockey to the United States, and it would be a shame if he were pushed out by the new ownership group. He brought this team to Portland over thirty years ago, and was instrumental in all of its successes over the years.

Mike Williamson is a great guy. The few times I personally interacted with him, he was always pleasant, and he obviously has a great love of the game and a great interest in being a teacher. I wish him the best in whatever he chooses to do next.

My beer league team skated to a 6-2 defeat in the semi-final round of the playoffs last night, ending our “spring” season. I’m nursing nothing worse than a bruised arm from a nasty cross check in the first period. The season had to be extended by a week, because of some rescheduled games due to unforeseen scheduling conflicts—like Easter and an annual figure skating event.

The league is run by the rink (not my usual rink), and while the facility is real nice, modern and clean, I don’t care for their attitude, not to mention their scheduling ineptitude. I shan’t return.

So my 7-week off season has begun. See you in September, hockey fans!

I watched the last 18 minutes of the Stanley Cup Final last night, and watched Ottawa sputter to a 6-2 game 5 defeat. All told, I watched probably six total periods of the series. Am I a bad hockey fan? Maybe. But I just couldn’t get behind either of these teams. As in the past two Stanley Finals, I defaulted to rooting for the Canadian team. (Yes, this year was déjà vu all over again, with a southern US team beating a Canadian team.) But unlike years past, the US victors didn’t win me over with veterans like Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour or Tampa Bay’s Dave Andreychuk, or with hot (relative) youngsters like Cam Ward or Brad Richards.

Sure, Anaheim has the Niedermayer brothers, and Teemu Selanne finally gets his name on the cup. But they’ve also got serial head-hunter Chris Pronger.

For me, the whole series comes down to what happened in game four. I was already having a hard time liking Senator’s captain Daniel Alfredsson, when at the end of the second period he whipped a slap shot directly at Ducks’ captain Scott Niedermayer. It was clearly intentional, and completely absurd.

Sadly, the highlight of the series came just after this ugly affair, when intermission report anchor Bill Clement hosted Don Cherry of “Hockey Night in Canada” fame. Cherry took the opportunity to go on an extended rant about how the NHL is making a “big mistake” by reducing fighting in the game, and if they want to save the game they need to bring back the rough stuff. Cement-head co-host Brett Hull piped in with his own troglodyte idea that visors should be eliminated from the game, and that fighting is the most “honorable” part of the game. He said this a few times before changing it to “honest”. Somehow or another, the avuncular Clement managed to keep a reasonably straight face through all of this.

Of course, this all goes back to a discussion on this blog a while back. There’s an assumption (not shared by our neighbors to the north) that the game is in trouble, and something must be done to save it. There’s the “old time hockey” school, led by Don Cherry and his ilk, who maintain that we need more blood to sell the game. Then there’s the Gary Bettman approach of expanding into the southern US, where the ponds don’t freeze and most kids don’t have the opportunity to play the game.

Both approaches are way off the mark, and both are based on the faulty assumption that hockey should have the kind of broad appeal all across the US that basketball and NASCAR have. It never has, and it never will. It will always be a niche sports market, and I don’t see a problem with that. Hockey is best watched live, and it thrives on home-town tradition and local rivalries. Hockey will never be in crisis in Canada or in the Midwest and northeast United States. If it’s in crisis in Nashville or Dallas or St. Louis or Washington D.C., I don’t give a shit.

But I digress. Let’s put a wrap on ’06-’07 by saying anybody who was on the fence about the game of hockey and tuned in to see Alfredsson’s antics at the end of game four’s second period, followed by Cherry’s and Hull’s rants, would find it hard to take the game seriously. Maybe it’s just sour grapes with me, since my favorite, the Sabres, were eliminated in the conference finals. But I think this is a particularly ho-hum year for Lord Stanley’s Cup.

How many months till hockey season starts?

Hockey fans have probably stopped reading this blog in droves of late, as I’ve been more obsessed with gay marriage, Portland politics, classical music and economics than hockey… even during the Stanley Cup Playoffs! (Meanwhile, my blog software tells me I’ve got pending missives on Neoliberalism and Portland Public Schools, What the Bible Tells Us, and Ugly Beauty, my paean to the big ball of contradictions that is Portland.)

But I have been following the playoffs, and I (and Wacky Mommy) were sorely disappointed to see Paul Gaustad and the Buffalo Sabres eliminated by Ottawa. I’m not sure what happed to the Sabres. They were unstoppable early in the season, with four lines able to score and my favorite coach in the NHL. I guess they just peaked early. And the Senators played a great series.

Anyway, once the Sabres were out, I turned my attention to the “West”, where Detroit was giving the favored Anaheim Ducks a run for their money, with the series tied 2-2. Then the Ducks took game five in overtime. Then, last night, they eliminated the Wings 4-3 win. So we’re left with a Canadian team (that’s cool!) and a team that originated as an extension of Disneyland, named after a fictional youth team in a Disney movie. (Disney no longer owns the Ducks — née Mighty Ducks — but still….) No Canadian I’ve talked to cares much for Ottawa (“It’s too cold and too French”), but none of them are rooting against the Senators. I mean, come on… Ducks… Senators… Ducks… Senators…

All I can say is, “Go Canada!” Too bad it wasn’t the Leafs, or even the Habs or Oilers. Or Calgary. Or Vancouver. Whatever, man. I can’t bring myself to say “Go Ducks!” But seriously, folks, it should be a good series. Ottawa has been on fire, and the Ducks had a tough go against Detroit. And no matter who is playing, it’s for the Stanley Cup. Puck drops for game one on US Memorial Day, May 28, 5 p.m. Pacific time.

I’ve added another design to my stable of t-shirts. I’ve also consolidated all my designs under one roof, the Left Coast Hockey League Team Store. The “Shop” link above now leads directly there, as does the link in the sidebar. Thanks to all for your support, and don’t forget: If you buy something and are not satisfied, please call customer service and request a refund. Everything is backed up with a 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

And: Go Wings! (I’ve got to write up a commentary about the playoffs one of these days….)

You may have noticed that I’ve gotten really bad about writing these lists. For a while, it was a good impetus to write every week, but lately I’ve been pretty uninspired. Also, I don’t exactly fit in with the “TT” crowd, and I’m not good about visiting everybody’s blog to leave comments. Most of my online reading is political, and my writing tends that way, too. That’s a whole different ball of wax than most of the TTs, which tend toward the personal. Plus, I haven’t even been able to come up with thirteen things the last couple of times. Lame!

But since I’ve written some pretty snarky things about North Portland and Portland Public Schools lately, I thought I owed one to North Portland. Here goes. (Let’s see if I get to thirteen on this one.)

1. Great transportation. We’re two blocks from light rail transit, just a bit more to I-5. We can be downtown in 10 minutes by freeway or 15 minutes by train.

2. Hockey. The home of the Winter Hawks is in North Portland, just four light rail stops away.

3. Real neighborhoods. The streets are laid out in a grid. There are sidewalks. Parks. Nice old houses. Tree-lined streets.

4. Great views from the bluff.

5. More and more, nice urban amenities like bakeries, restaurants and shopping within walking distance.

6. Socio-economic diversity.

7. My choice of churches on Sunday.

8. The Peninsula Park sunken rose garden.

9. The Peninsula Park Community Center and pool.

10. The Portland Ship Yard on the site of the old Swan Island airport. This is viewable from the bluff, especially from University of Portland. It’s pretty cool to see the big ships in dry dock, and the old, gigantic tankers in fresh water storage before they’re sailed or towed to Asia to be scrapped.

11. My lovely wife.

12. My beautiful children.

13. My happy home.

Edited Friday, 4/20/2007: I can’t believe I forgot the St. Johns Bridge.

It’s playoff time, and it’s wall-to-wall hockey. Our local cable affiliate is carrying some of Shaw Cable’s coverage of the WHL playoffs. Vancouver just beat Seattle in game four, taking their series to 3-1 Vancouver. Now I’m watching the NHL Vancouver, tied with Dallas in the third 4-4. Damn, those NHL guys can skate.

Playoff hockey… is there anything better?

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. No, it’s Thursday eve, and I’m supposed to crank out another Thursday Thirteen (turns out some of you expect these of me). So here are Thirteen Ways my Life is Like Slap Shot (the movie):

1. “She’s not happy….” (Wacky Mommy that is.)
2. She sits in the stands while I play my old farts beer league games and chats with the other hockey wives. “He doesn’t care for the fighting,” she tells them, “he told me.” And “He always says you can just screw so much and drink so much.”
3. She told me the other day “If we got divorced, I wouldn’t have to watch so much hockey.” Did I mention, I never asked her to come see me play. Seriously, watching beer league hockey is like watching paint dry. She told me. And we haven’t been to a WHL game since February, I think. And she’ll never watch hockey on TV, unless it’s game seven of the Stanley Cup Final and I beg.
4. Yesterday at the rink, there was a guy who shows up occasionally. He’s kind of slow, and yesterday he was being especially goofy, celebrating goals and shit (we generally don’t make a big deal of goals at stick time). One of the regulars said he always shows up drunk. I went up against him and hoo boy! did he reek of alcohol. So I’m thinking, if I board him, will he pee himself? Total Nick Brophy moment.
5. If the mill closes (i.e. my software factory)… Fucking Chrysler plant here I come.

Ah, crap, that’s all I’ve got. I’m really getting lousy at this Thursday Thirteen thing. But five’s better ‘n none, eh?

Have a great week, and maybe I’ll post again before next Thursday.

I told Wacky Mommy, if Che had been Canadian, he’d have been out at the rink with the guys, smacking pucks around. She thinks I’m nuts.

So I thought I’d make a t-shirt design with Che as a skater. It would say something like “Left Winger”. But it turns out Cafe Press will have nothing to do with selling images of Che, at least not that one famous one in particular. Back in 2000, Alberto Diaz Gutierrez (a.k.a. Alberto Korda) claimed copyright to the famous image which is based on his original photograph. There’s a lot of convoluted debate about fair use, not to mention the fact that Fidel never signed on to international copyright accords. Nevertheless, Korda successfully claimed copyright in British court, and stopped Smirnoff from using the image in a vodka ad. Which I think is a good thing. (Korda said it never bothered him when people used the image in solidarity with Cuba, just when it was used against Cuba or to sell something. Which I guess is what I wanted to do, so…..)

So since Cafe Press said no, and my research made me feel a little guilty about wanting to sell t-shirts with that (ahem) maybe a tad tasteless image, my wacky shirt idea has transformed into a minor site redesign. Hope you like it, and find the irony in it. In case you don’t, here is my Thursday Thirteen, all about irony.

1. Che probably never played hockey. But he looks good on skates, no?
2. I am a pacifist, and this is an anti-war site. Yet Che Guevara made his name as a warrior.
3. I am a vegetarian, pacifist hockey addict.
4. The longer I live the more I see the pure, unadulterated truth that lies at the heart of every contradiction.
5. I’m a socialist, yet I sell crap on my crappy Web site.
6. I don’t think I’m going to make it
7. to thirteen tonight.
8. And I hope you don’t care
9. if I just go to bed
10. and bid you farewell
11. and
12. Good
13. night.

Finally — it’s official — the Penguins are staying in Pittsburgh (where they belong). After a game of chicken that included Penguins officials visiting Kansas City and Las Vegas to discuss relocation, a deal is expected to be announced this afternoon to build a new arena and keep the Pens in Pittsburgh for 30 years.