Nobody asked me but . . .

From Daily News of Monday, July 16:

With apologies to the late, great Jimmy Cannon, nobody asked me, but . . .
l As October turns to November, the Canadian Curling Association may very
well award the 2009 Olympic trials to Edmonton.
But good on Kamloops for delivering a wakeup call to the self-described City
of Champions and curling capital of the universe.
And you can bet that there are a lot of communities the size of Kamloops,
and even some slightly larger, keeping a close eye on this process.
With organizations like the CCA and Hockey Canada having discovered that
there is money — and lots of it — to be made by holding major events in
buildings like Rexall Place in Edmonton and GM Place in Vancouver, smaller
communities and their smaller facilities have been left out in the cold.
We saw that here when Vancouver, Kamloops and Kelowna co-hosted the 2007
world junior hockey championship. Team Canada played all of its games in
Vancouver; Kamloops and Kelowna got the leftovers.
In the rush to land the Olympic curling trials, you can bet that Edmonton is
pushing the size of Rexall Place (16,839 seats) and its recent curling
history, what with it having drawn 708,842 fans to the 1999 and 2005 Briers
and the 2007 Worlds.
If this isn’t just about the money, Kamloops has lots going for it, too.
For starters, its facility, the 6,400-seat Interior Savings Centre, is a lot
closer in size to the 4,000-seat temporary venue in which the curlers will
compete during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
As well, the 2010 Winter Games will be held in Vancouver/Whistler which, the
last time we looked, was still in the great province of British Columbia,
which also is home to Kamloops.
How better, then, for Kamloops to be part of the 2010 Games than to play
host to the curling trials?
And let’s not forget that should the event be held in Kamloops, revenue
projections show the CCA walking away with $1 million, a figure that was big
enough to make the folks in Edmonton choke on their breakfast of champions,
if only for a few minutes.
That alone made the Kamloops bid worthwhile.
a Like moths drawn to a flame that once singed them, Tom Gaglardi and the
gang at River City Hockey will try — again — to purchase the WHL’s Kamloops
Blazers for $6 million.
Gaglardi heads up RCH, which was rebuffed in an attempt to buy the franchise
for $6 million just one year ago. Also involved are ex-Blazers Shane Doan,
Jarome Iginla, Mark Recchi and Darryl Sydor. (A goaltender and one more
defenceman and RCH would have a pretty good power play. Or, on second
thought, perhaps this is a power play.)
Gaglardi’s group is expected to make an offer to purchase sometime this
week.
The next few weeks will be interesting as Gaglardi and the Blazers’ board of
directors jockey for position.
Gaglardi has spent the last year gathering supporters and purchasing shares
in order to gain admission to meetings and ensure access to the members who
own the franchise.
The board of directors has spent time analyzing what happened last summer,
going over the B.C. Society Act with a fine-toothed comb, examining its
options and getting legal opinions. One thing is evident and that is that
Gaglardi and the ex-Blazers want very much to own this team.
Perhaps it would be prudent, then, for the board of directors (a) to hire an
appraiser and find out exactly how much this franchise is worth, or (b) to
invite bids and find out its value in that fashion.
An official with one WHL team told The Daily News on Sunday that on the open
market the Blazers would be worth “lots” and there would be “lots” of
interest.
“Factor in cash flows, scarcity, and egos, and it could easily be north of
($6 million),” the official said.
Do we hear $10 million?
a Don’t look now but it’s the dawn of a new era in Major League Baseball.
The Seattle Mariners have agreed to pay the king of the slap-hitters
something like US$90 million over the next five seasons.
Yes, Ichiro Suzuki, whom Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle
referred to the other day as “the cleverest man with a stick since Minnesota
Fats,” is a rich man.
Outside of Seattle, baseball’s owners and general managers are cringing
because all the singles hitters are going to be lining up and wanting more
dough. And the game’s young sluggers — hello, there, Miguel Cabrera — are
going to want even more than that.
Hey, Ichiro, who is being paid $12.5 million this season, is a terrific
player — arguably, in fact, the game’s most exciting player. But so was
Ralph Garr at one time, and Mickey Rivers. And they weren’t $90-million men.
In a game where it long has been said that chicks dig the long ball, is
Ichiro, who will be 34 in October, a $90-million man? Is he an
$18-million-a-season guy?
Of course, Ichiro is worth that and more if you reference it against the NBA
where the Portland Trail Blazers just paid guard Steve Francis $30 million
to go away. Francis was acquired from the New York Knicks in a deal that
allowed them to dump bad news bear Zach Randolph. The Trail Blazers had no
intention of keeping Francis, who had two seasons and $34 million left on
his contract. So Portland simply bought him out. Francis now is an
unrestricted free agent and you just know that another team is going to
enrich him even more.
By those terms, Ichiro is a steal at $90 million.