As long as I can get approval from Hit Somebody, I'm going on vacation until early July. Behave yourselves. Please. I'll be spending all the ill-gotten gains I've received from running this blog over the last few years on wine, women and song, meaning it'll be water, Barbie and the Bee Gees marathon. No foo foos for me. Then it will be time to come back and start on the football tab.
Comments
Mightbite=walking pharmacy, why is Schebig so familiar with a little blue pill, does elmer fudd have trouble saying the letter R. Slow down BLB I'm not done tanning, October can wait.
Mightbite, that's a horrible thing to do to Meyer's rum!! Drink it straight, on the rocks, or if you must with Coke, but don't dilute and alter it's fine taste and smoothness with all that other garbage. My goodness man, Blackbeard and Calico Jack are probably spinning in their graves.
evansville is in :)
mightbite--Was there ever any doubt?
I never doubted it, I am thankful for our ownership and all they do for us fans
I really hope they have a plan B, should Evansville not get the lease agreement for the new stadium for the '11-'12 season. No way Geary agrees to lose that much money 2 years in a row...
Good for the "IHL" division; but a move that reeks of desperation...
Blake I am really glad you picked this time to go on vacation. Poor Ben Smith has to deal with a horse crap pile of idiocy on the other blog in town.
Snuff-Are you trying to say Blake has better horses? :) :) Maybe better "Piles" I just think nicer people!
Or the idiocy of someone posting part of something to try and back himself up, then looking stupid when the rest of the people over there know more about what he said than he does.
With the addition of Evansville the skepticism of the health and vitality of the IHL-CHL has already begun on the other blog. Granted, the building is sub-standard as things are now. However a new building is being built and I prefer to look at the good things this addition provides.
One is the owner, Ron Geary. It takes money to own a minor league franchise and apparently Geary understands this and is willing to take a "hit" now in order to move into the new building when it is completed.
The second thing I like about this is that Evansville fits perfectly into that geographical niche between the IHL cities and the CHL cities. (Des Moines, Omaha, Indianapolis, Louisville, Kansas City, etc would bridge that "gap" between the two leagues quite nicely also.)
The third is that, while I have no inside information on this, I believe Larry Kinney will show up again as an owner somewhere. Finding willing, capable owners is a real value to any league. Saying that I must admit to how disappointed I am in the rumors of Craig Dektrah (Chicago) looking at the ECHL. He was a fine owner of the Rockford franchise and was well thought of by his players.
Switching topics for a moment I am always surprised at how the Frankes get blamed whenever any "news" comes out. No matter what the story, people always find fault with them. Specifically the story reported by Ben Smith regarding the $700,000 Kinney spent propping up both Flint and Quad City. Didn't we have bloggers on here calling Flint the "Fort Wayne Generals"? Maybe the Frankes helped out also but now we know for a FACT that Larry Kinney was donating. Didn't Brendan Savage report that the Frankes were the real owners?
I'm sure that I don't agree with every decision made by the Franke family. I am real interested in the vet limit, salary cap, and schedule that is being determined at these meetings going on right now. Those decisions will determine whether I go forward as a STH or not. Worth is in the eye of the beholder. I do believe that the Franke's will do what they believe is right for their business. That is their right and everyone should expect and respect those decisions.
It just astounds me that so many people throw their advice at them on how to run their franchise. Holy cow, they are successful. To those who want to tell them how to run their business I would submit to you that you need to advise those owners who ARE NOT successful.
One last thing. Dschebig kind of took a hit from one contributor on the other blog. Dschebig is a good man. He is a person who loves the Komets, the league and the players. I would submit that there are many things Dennis knows that he would not, could not tell us for fear of losing trust. I think we should give him a break.
Couple observations...
Geary is a risk taker. He bought the horse track with the intentions of putting in something before he had the ok to do so, which he never got and the place is now basically a rundown experiment that never went anywhere. Now he has bought the rights to a folded franchise and moving it to Evansville where he will lose a boatload of money year 1 and doesnt have ther lease signed for the new building for year 2... Does his risk pay off this time??? Lets hope!
Geary may have a leg up in negotiations with the new arena since he will have 3 years of building hockey in Evansville as long as this coming season is a succesful one. This was brought up by someone on another board and I agree. They also need to sell much higher ticket prices to a fan base that have been paying single A prices for the last 2 years. They need a top notch marketing crew to get that done, IMO. This is where I see the K's organization giving alot of help. Ticket prices will have to double for this upcoming season and possibly triple by season 2 in the new arena (assuming they get it, that is). If they havent started selling this, they need to start ASAP.
The CIHL will be going up against the ECHL and USHL for the new arena lease so they need to have all thier ducks in a row...
Alan--Thank you! I assure you I am a big boy and can take care of myself. I have made mistakes before and will again. I just hope I don't do it on a regular basis. I have had to apoligize more than once. I have also had to eat my own words. They don't always taste good. Opinions are like (well Like) and every body has one. I have learned to be better at respecting those I disagree with even when I flatout know they haven't got a clue as to what they are talking about. Yours are almost always very good. Burgee's drive me goofy. It has to be the little pills and foo foo's. I think his brain gets cooked out in the sun all day. He needs to wear a hat, I think!
Does anyone want to speculate where the players from Flint and Port Huron will go in a dispersal draft? Since Evansville purchased Muskegon they would take part in the draft. I wonder who the Komets will pick up. We went through this last year with Quad City and lost a pretty good netminder. I am just asking!
Let me just say, I am not a fan of the "red-head/pill poping/foo-foo" talk, but man I would rather read that crap any day of the week than the Franke/IHL bashing on the other site. You can't be a fan of the team and players without drinking the kool aid and have no reason in what you say.
How much longer till the games start and we can talk about hockey????
I WANT KRUG FROM musky
You do know that having a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence, don't you? So how about that Ontario/Quebec earthquake this afternoon, eh?
Hoss-Your right but I am not sorry! The season starts October 15th.
I figure camp will start around the 5th. or 6th. Once this "Association" (?) is completed we should start hearing about signings for next season. That will give us food for fodder! Burgee should be cooked (well done) by than!
I'd venture to say this blog has had more than enough fodder as of late. Some can call out others as being negative, but at least they know enough to keep the topics somewhat related to hockey.
It has been awhile folks. Miss you,miss the hockey. Wendy, I was playing the second hole at our club when it struck. Didn't feel a thing but missed the putt. Canadian Kool aid, I think.
Hoss, haven't met you but I like the way you roll.
It's a bad deal waiting for the next shoe to drop.
The way everyone has supported the team, you should look for a little more, but don't expect it.
The Franke family has done a hell of a job walking the tight rope for the last few years.
But it is going to be difficult to pull this together.
How many years have the Komets played?
It may not turn out 100% from the get go, but history tells us.....
There will be good hockey in Fort Wayne.
Ooh....how's this for a negative hockey topic? Chicago trades Big Buf, Eager, and someone else, I forget who now, to the Thrashers for a couple draft picks, all because my "favorite" Blackhawk is costing them too much in salary cap....yep, it's Marian Hossa!! Oh yeah....that's really gonna make me just loooovvveee that guy now....never in a million years. Shouldn't we let him play goalie with no gear? I'm sure Zdeno Chara would not hurt him TOO badly.
Actually, there are about 4 Hawks who make more money than Hossa... Hossa's contract is NOT the problem... It was giving Huet 5.6mil, Campbell 7.2mil, Sopel (who was the other Hawk traded along with prospect Akim Aliu) at 2.3mil.... And they just resigned Toews, Kane, and Kieth to around 6.3mil and 5.5mil.... Hossa is at a paltry 5.2mil...
The Hawks did ok... they got Atlanta's 1st and 2nd round draft picks (24,54 I believe) along with last years #45 pick (Jeremy Morin) and a good 4th line center in Marty Reasoner. They shed alot of Salary and got back top picks to restock the farm.
Zedeno Chara's 7.5 mil contract is handcuffing the Bruins who are actively shopping Marc Savard and his 5mil contract because of it...
Word from a source in Las Vegas says that some IHL owners were seen talking to some NHL players at the awards ceremony, possibly trying to recruit them......
Thankfully the Franke family are smart enough to realize that the few louder than they should be mouths that muk up these blogs bashing them are a simple minded vocal minority.
It is too bad this minority can't put their brains and money where their mouths are and put together a proposal to buy the team and run it the way they feel it should be.
Yeah, I am a bit annoyed...does it show?
Don't like the product or the owners of the product? Don't watch or pay for the product. If the owners are such bad greedy people the last thing I'd be willing to do is spend my hard earned money lining their pockets on what I perceive to be such a bad product.
This blog keeps the bashing crap to a minimum because the person who runs the blog has enough integrity to keep the insanity to a minimum. I think the person running the other blog revels in the controversy and lets the inmates run the asylum.
Poor Ben gets caught up in this every once in awhile. I do feel bad for him.
Whatever way you want to look at it the "simple minded vocal minority" is growing... 2 examples...
1. At my son's little league game I overheard some other father's talking about the Komets and the current situation they are in. They were all talking about how they feel the Komets should be in a "higher" league than the currently are and one said he is frustrated with the "white-washing" that seems to be going on in the media... After talking to them for a bit, I learned one father's business is a corporate sponsor that has a block of seats and his family also has season tickets. One other father used to be a STH and the other goes to about 10-15 games per year with his family...
2. I was at the All-Star game at Parkview Field Tuesday night and overheard 2 different conversations about the K's. One was between a couple younger guys (mid 20's) that said between the high beer prices at the coliseum (funny, since they were in the beer line waiting to pay $6 for a large draft at the baseball game) and seeing the same teams over and over again they were gonna have to find other things to do this winter. The other was overheard by my dad from a couple guys his age who were irritated about all the uncertainty that has surrounded the K's the last few years and just wanted to see them in the ECHL or AHL for stability reasons...
I'm throwing these examples out there because I was surprised that I am hearing this talk more and more in public when before it was always just on message boards or blogs... IMO, the K's need to decide on something and let some roots grow for awhile...
"IMO, the K
I need the "kool-aid" 23 yr season ticket holder.
I think people would jump onboard with the CHL thing if they quit playing around and merged or the individual IHL teams joined the CHL... This 2 year endeavour paints a picture of weakness, IMO... It says to me that we, the IHL, are gonna buddy up to you, the CHL, until we are strong enough to play on our own again. Give the fans stability, not 2 or 3 years experiments...
BTW, the IHL had every opportunity to take care of the Flint situation. Instead, they let a merry-go-round ownership game play out where venders werent getting paid, eviction notices handed out, lease payments not made on time, etc... If you were the company intrusted to repair an arena and make it viable again to sell, would you give a lease to someone affiliated with the IHL after years of mis-management??? I wouldnt, if it were my business...
mightbite--I don't drink the Kool-Aid I bath in it! I bleed orange & black. This will all make sense very soon! I sure hope so.
Who's simple-minded? The people that actually question whats going on, or the people that accept what they are told and fall in line without question?
Or the people who's only comeback is... "Buy the team." How ingenious. First of all, its not for sale. Second, whats the fair market value of a minor league hockey franchise that is in a 5 team league with 2 teams that are going to have less than 1000 fans in the seats on most nights? But wait! They have a loosly worded "working agreement to date and not marry" a bigger league... That changes everything.
There have been some pretty darn good comments posted on here. Some, I agree with and some maybe not so much. Doesn't matter. So far they have been stated in an intelligent, respectful manner. I think that is real important and a huge difference between this blog and the other one.
I feel that part of the frustration we Komet fans are experiencing is the feeling we are just "out there" always having to speculate about what is going on.
The IHL meetings started 6/21 and we still have had no announcements-no information pertaining to vets, roster limits, schedules, salary caps, divisions, the number of regular season games, or the playoff format.
The lack of information provided to the ST holders and passionate fan base leads everyone to just plain wonder what is going on. With so many unknowns still to be determined we face hundreds of scenarios and possibilities.
I think the time has come for the league(s) to clear up some of these questions. I want them to get this right, and I don't necessarily want them to rush to get something done just for the sake of getting it done, but whatever progress has been made or agreements have been negotiated should be announced.
Then, we will be able to comment on facts (either good or bad).
I know what I'd like to hear. I know what I'd like to see. I know I probably won't get everything I'm hoping for.
I know I'd like to get some official information. How about you?