The "It's Time For a New NHL Thread" thread

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/faiello_mari/status/1541786423145242624?s=21&t=WwAtmkw9P0KL0ydMxv7qSg

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah. They just burned out.

[Hot Pepsi]

Mike Grier has been hired as the Sharks’ GM. First Black person to hold such a position.

I saw him play at BU and once saw him in The Dugout wearing an extremely expensive Patriots leather jacket. That’s all I recall and that two or three very attractive women were talking to him.

He is related to Rosey Grier and Pam Grier.

His brother works for the Dolphins. His dad worked for the Patriots. Maybe he still does, I’m not sure.

[ursus arctos]

His brother is the General Manager of the Dolphins.

His dad was with the Patriots for twenty years (and with Houston for fifteen), but is now a "consultant" to Miami.

[Cal Alamein]

Any hockey card collectors? Very thorough article on Wayne Gretzky's rookie card.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/longfor...r-rookie-card/

I've got the Gretzky rookie card in very good shape - got it in a wax pack bought at a Circle K convenience store in Albuquerque NM. By 1979 I was taking good care of my cards. Mine is of course a Topps, haven't got it graded, but my more avid card collecting buddy says I should take the plunge and send it to get graded. Problem of course is that there is a super long logjam of cards to be graded and I am scared to death to send it through the mail.

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh yeah, that’s right. I knew he was with the Texans for a bit.

I didn’t realize his brother was the GM of the Dolphins.

That May be unprecedented - brothers who are GMs in different sports for teams named for marine megafauna.

[Hot Pepsi]

Any hockey card collectors? Very thorough article on Wayne Gretzky's rookie card.

https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/longfor...r-rookie-card/

I've got the Gretzky rookie card in very good shape - got it in a wax pack bought at a Circle K convenience store in Albuquerque NM. By 1979 I was taking good care of my cards. Mine is of course a Topps, haven't got it graded, but my more avid card collecting buddy says I should take the plunge and send it to get graded. Problem of course is that there is a super long logjam of cards to be graded and I am scared to death to send it through the mail.

That’s fantastic.

I collected cards for a while in the 90s, but they’re not worth anything.

Perhaps there is a place you could make an appointment and drive to. It might not be close, however.

[Cal Alamein]

That’s fantastic.

I collected cards for a while in the 90s, but they’re not worth anything.

Perhaps there is a place you could make an appointment and drive to. It might not be close, however.

Yeah, my buddy says to try to hit 'nearby' card shows in cities like Dallas, Denver, or Phoenix.

[danielmak]

The Hawks have been pretty bad for a while now even if they sniff around the playoff spots. It is amazing to me given the shifts in playoff status that the Penguins have been so good for so long. The Hawks obviously pay a lot of money to Kane and Toews but the Penguins pay a lot of money to Crosby and Malkin (and Latangue??). The front office crew in Pittsburgh have been masters with cap management,

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah, my buddy says to try to hit 'nearby' card shows in cities like Dallas, Denver, or Phoenix.

It would probably be worth it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Bryan Marchment has died suddenly. Only 53. A hard dude. RIP.

[Hot Pepsi]

That is rough.

[Amor de Cosmos]

The Nux have drafted another Elias Pettersson. Hmm. Smacks of trying to pull off a cunning trade switch in the future.

[ursus arctos]

A report that Hockey Canada uses a multimillion-dollar fund, paid for by registration fees from youth players, to pay out alleged sexual assault cases is “absolutely shocking” and “troubling,” a Canadian Member of Parliament who is on the committee investigating the national governing body said Tuesday.

The Globe and Mail reported that Hockey Canada used the fund to pay settlements “without its insurance company, and with minimal outside scrutiny.” Tuesday's report also said the fund was greater than $15 million “in recent years.”

“Absolutely shocking, in terms of what most Canadians would consider the preeminent sports organization in the country to just have a slush fund built on kids' registration fees to pay out sexual assault cases,” said MP Chris Bittle, who serves on the Canadian Heritage committee. “It's troubling also that there was a greater concern to set this up than to truly tackle a culture that would lead to an organization throwing up their hands and saying this fund is needed."

[Hot Pepsi]

Don't many big companies sometimes pay out settlements for this and that out of pocket?

Obviously, keeping this a secret from its stakeholders, including maybe the board, isn't ok.


It occurs to me that hockey might be in a better position to deal with these kinds of things than some other big sports because Hockey Canada and USA Hockey are subject to some public scrutiny and oversight and also have some influence on how the game operates at the lower levels. Football, for example, has at least as big of a problem with violence committed by players but there is no equivalent body that has much influence on the grassroots of the game. There is a USA Football, but it doesn't seem to matter much.

[ursus arctos]

Firms self-insure, but they are generally expected to disclose that (and may be required to do so by accounting rules), but this seems to be more nefarious, a genuine slush fund that they kept for settlements they wanted to keep secret while insuring other risks.

For a publicly-funded organisation, it stinks to high heaven.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Cathal Kelly is on point as usual:

[Hot Pepsi]

Right, it’s the lack of disclosure that’s the problem.

The reference to “not involving insurance” seems like a minor or non-issue.

Perhaps we’ll see a USA Gymnastics situation here where the organization gets blown up and replaced by another organization with the same name or similar.

[ursus arctos]

No, not involving insurance is important,

One of the things that an entity agrees to when it purchases liability insurance is that the insurance company has the right to assume the defence of any lawsuit in return for funding the settlement or judgement (usually up to a stated policy limit). The insurance company is only interested in minimising its payout, not in "reputational damage" to the insured entity or its executives.

So if a plaintiff is only willing to settle a matter at a given figure without a NDA, the insurer is fine with that. But if the entity is trying to cover things up, they will prefer to pay millions more for the NDA. That was the control that Hockey Canada were trying to hold on to by establishing the slush fund.

I do wonder if this will eventually lead to a complete reconstruction for HC, as was the case with USA Gymnastics.

[Hot Pepsi]

But why does the insurance company care if it’s not their money?

I think USA Gymnastics might be a model for how this will go. But their problems were so widespread that they had to declare bankruptcy. It’s not clear that HC is about to face a flood of
lawsuits like that.

The organization may need major reform even aside from these issues. It isn’t supporting the game or developing players as well as it probably ought to.

[ursus arctos]

It is their money.

Just as they are the one who pays your doctor or hospital.

[Hot Pepsi]

I thought the whole point of this story was that HC was paying claims out of a special fund, not insurance.

In the medical insurance situation, my insurance company only pays for my health care if I file a claim.* If I just paid cash out of a magical slush fund I had, the insurance company wouldn’t know anything about it.

* A better example would be my vet insurance. I actually have to send them a copy of the vet bill and fill out a claim form and then they send a check. Without that, they have no idea that we went to the vet.

With medical insurance, the doctor/hospital actually does all the paperwork.

[ursus arctos]

We are talking past each other.

I was explaining why HC would choose to avoid insurance, even if that would be cheaper for them.

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh, I see. I get that it now.

I thought you meant they were ripping off their insurer some how.

I guess they are ripping off their sponsors and members (who pay $23.80 annually, apparently).

[Hot Pepsi]

What do our legal experts have to say about this?

https://theathletic.com/3468455/2022/08/02/mel-pearson-michigan/

https://mgoblog.com/content/pearson-report

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Among the items WilmerHale advised U-M to address after completing probe into Mel Pearson and his program?<br><br>“Pervasive fears among both student athletes and staff members of retaliation by (Pearson) for raising issues. “ <a href="https://t.co/jQgVZEkOFo">https://t.co/jQgVZEkOFo</a></p>&mdash; Katie Strang (@KatieJStrang) <a href="https://twitter.com/KatieJStrang/status/1554802573282086914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 3, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>[URL="https://theathletic.com/3468455/2022/08/02/mel-pearson-michigan/"][/URL]