Just a few items that stand out to me as we close the year 2008.
1. It was a bad year for professional hockey in the south. The Nashville Predators are hanging on by a thread due to their ownership debacle, and the ECHL lost four southern teams in one calendar year: Beaumont, TX; Columbia, SC; Pensacola, FL and Augusta, GA. The outlook for 2009 is not promising either.
2. It seemed like a good year for women with a serious presidential candidate, and a vice presidential candidate. But this weekend I was told by Judy the Show Pros supervisor at Gwinnett Arena -- in regards to ongoing problems with her people wrongly denying female reporters access to the visitor's locker room -- that "if [the problem] only happens once a year I can live with that." I'd like to see her try to tell that to a black man regarding eating at the counter or riding the bus. I'm sure that would go over well with him, and the ACLU for that matter.
3. We're almost through an entire calendar year of Bob Hartley being unemployed. Losing out on numerous NHL jobs and a KHL job, he's now rumored for a job in the DEL (German league), with the Hamburg Freezers. Only rumored, mind you. He's made a lot of enemies over the years. Someone in the Q told a colleague of mine that Hartley was one of the most hated men in hockey.
4. Movie of the year in my book: Slumdog Millionaire. It's set in India, but I think the less you know about the plot the better, as it is revealed in an interesting way in the movie. It's by director Danny Boyle, which should be all you need to know. That's Danny Boyle, not Dan Boyle of course.
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4 comments:
Boyle's last two movies, "Sunshine" and "Millions" were great, too.
When saying, "if it only happens once a year I can live with that," was the supervisor referring to only one problem a year or a female reporter trying to get to the locker room just once in a year? What is the teams' issue with having a female reporter in the room?
She was referring to one problem a year being OK. Which of course it isn't. I fixed the post to be more clear.
The teams, the league, the players, coaches, etc have no issue with female reporters. It is only poorly-trained, part-time hourly security people who do.
On the issue of loosing hockey teams in the south this year, The SPHL also lost a team or two and some of their fans are overly optimistic about picking up some of the ECHL defunct teams,however, in this economy, I don't see it. Have you heard anything?
ECHL teams tend to fold rather than move, so I agree with you that it is unlikely. And if the city can't support a SPHL team, how are they going to support an ECHL one?
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