F Pat Iannone (Kootenay, Tri-City, Regina, 1999-2003) signed a one-year contract with Val Pusteria (Italy, Serie A). He had 21 goals and 17 assists in 32 games with Pontebba (Italy, Serie A) last season. Iannone also appeared in 20 games with the Italian national team, going pointless in seven games at the World championship and getting one goal and one assist in 13 other national team games.
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Ross Bonander, over at thehockeywriters.com, has written a piece that is an absolute must read for anyone who cares at all about the issue of concussions in hockey.
In this essay right here, Bonander equates the concussion problem faced by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman with the situation in which big tobacco found itself in the 1950s.
“The bell is ringing for Gary Bettman,” Bonander writes. “More and more professional athletes have consented to donate their brains to Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy for post-mortem exam. The evidence will grow. Considering the gravity of this situation — we’re talking about peoples’ lives here — this has the potential to become his lasting legacy, as the man who borrowed big tobacco’s playbook and knowingly put profits ahead of safety.”
This, of course, is all because of a drive to maximize profits. And don’t think for a minute that this chase for profits applies only to the NHL.
Stop and think about the growth of profits in the WHL, where labour costs are minimal. In the NHL, players, under the CBA that expires on Sept. 15, get 57 per cent of hockey-related revenues.
What do you think that figure is in the WHL?
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Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports hits one out of the park right here, as he writes about the time when Graham Spanier, the former Penn State president, actually came down hard on a player and an agent. Of course, Spanier chose not to come down on Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
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Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post conducted the last interview with Penn State football coach Joe Paterno before his death. Now that the Freeh report is out, she writes: “Joe Paterno was a liar, there’s no doubt about that now. He was also a cover-up artist.”
Her column is right here.
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Ryan Pinder, over at the Coaches Conference website (thecoachessite.com) did an interview with Vancouver Giants head coach Don Hay and it has been passed along.
Hay talks more about his coaching past and how he first came to be a coach, a story that just might surprise you.
Feel free to give it a listen.
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