Does Vince Carter deserve a retired jersey?

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BY: ALEX BOGACH

The last thing you want to become is the Miami Heat. I’m not talking about having Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on your team—every NBA fan should want that. But rather, I’m talking about the Heat’s decisions for retired jerseys.

A retired jersey number immortalizes a player for a fanbase forever. It places that player and number into an entirely different stratosphere of adoration. By retiring a jersey, you’re saying that when your kids start coming to see your favourite NBA team, you want them to look up at the rafters and be able to automatically acknowledge that those people revolutionized their team. It’s the Mount Rushmore of any franchise. Your founding fathers. Continue reading →

Steve Yzerman still has a lot to prove in Tampa Bay

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BY: DUSTIN POLLACK

Steve Yzerman’s work in Tampa Bay hasn’t even begun. Sure he was perhaps one of the most highly acclaimed NHL executives in 2010-2011 and rightfully so, he turned a 12th place team in 2009-2010 into one that was just a win away from a birth in the Stanley Cup Final.

But while some general managers walk into a franchise and have to overhaul a roster, the situation Yzerman walked into in Tampa Bay was a GM’s dream in many ways. Continue reading →

What we can all learn from Rip Hamilton

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BY: ALEX BOGACH

We can learn something great from Rip Hamilton about power and control. To break it down quickly, the players get 57 percent of all basketball related income (BRI) and the owners want it somewhere south of 50 percent. The union has offered 53 percent, which the owners currently are not willing to accept.

Say what you want about greed, but it’s a billion dollar industry and making money is all relative. At the end of the day, someone’s going to make this money so it’s not wrong for the players and owners to fight about it. It would be foolish for the players to pull back and cede to the owners to not seem selfish, because then the owners will just make more money. Continue reading →

Players post-concussion performances could provide insight into Crosby’s future

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BY: DUSTIN POLLACK

While the skills of Nathan Horton and Peter Mueller will never be compared to those of Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, it’s worth giving the two forwards a closer look in the early part of the 2011-2012 NHL campaign.As Crosby continues his long post-concussion recovery, Horton and Mueller are returning to NHL action after long absences due to concussions.

And with one of the biggest questions on everyone’s mind with regards to Crosby being, ‘when he returns will he ever be the same player,’ watching how Horton and Mueller perform might lend us some credence to answer hockey’s biggest mystery. Continue reading →

Maple Leafs In Tough to Make Playoffs

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BY: ADAM HALBERSTADT

So, here we are again. Another summer of remodeling is in the books, and with the turn of the calendar page, another October filled with optimism.  If this process seems eerily similar, it is.

In the years since Jeremy Roenick went top-shelf on Ed Belfour, ending the Maple Leafs season in 2004, this has been the course of events covered from April until October. NHL Draft.  Free agency.  Informal workouts.  Training Camp.  Roster Cuts.  Losing month of October, of course even with the hot 4-0 start of last year.

Is this the year that things change?  It’s hard to tell. Continue reading →