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Visit us at www.hockeyden.net and get details on how YOU could be our winner of a 2010 SIDNEY CROSBY TEAM CANADA OLYMPICS JERSEY!!! Contest runs from now until February 14, 2010, so enter now and often!!! Capture The Passion with HockeyDen.net!!
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What if…: Toronto And Edmonton Had Traded Teams In 1981?
From the “You Couldn’t Make This Story Up” pages (although there are plenty of reasons to question this story’s overall validity, but anyways!), the following news item (I hesitate to call it a story) popped up yesterday and I couldn’t ignore it!
So it seems as though Peter Pocklington, former owner of the Edmonton Oilers, has a book coming out (called “I’d Trade Him Again”) in which he claims he and former Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard had a verbal deal in place to trade their teams! This would have seen the Pocklington owning the Oilers in Toronto and Ballard owning the Leafs in Edmonton. In Pocklington’s own words here’s the meat and potatoes of what went down (credit Canadian Press):
“In a new biography about the one-time Edmonton Oilers owner, "I'd Trade Him Again," Pocklington recalls a deal he almost made where the Leafs and Oilers would have swapped cities.
"Harold phoned me and said, 'Would you consider moving to Toronto with your team and I'll move to Edmonton with mine, and I'll need $50 million," Pocklington told The Canadian Press when reached Sunday at his Palm Desert, Calif., home.
"So I thought about it and said, 'Yes Harold, I'll go for that."'
The scheme called for the entire team to move to Toronto to play in Maple Leaf Gardens while the Leafs, in turn, would have found a home in Edmonton's new arena, which at that time was called the Coliseum.
According to Pocklington, Ballard was in financial straights when he made the proposal in 1981. However, a short time later Ballard backed out of the deal.
"He just said he needed $50 million and I guess I was one of the ways to resolve and solve the problem," said Pocklington. "Within a week or two he called back and said I solved my $50-million problem and we'll continue the way we were."
Now let me just say that while I realize Ballard was a wing nut and the prospect of this having been proposed wouldn’t surprise me IN THEORY, I have trouble buying this having come out of Pocklington’s mouth! At the same time, the prospect of this having occurred is certainly intriguing, likely moreso for Torontonians than Edmontonians (is that a proper term?)! Explore these possibilities:
1) Would Edmonton still be around? I mean a lot of the movement to save the team in the pre-cap years were driven by a lasting nostalgia over the cup years, and that would not have been there!
2) Would the Oilers team have had the same success in Toronto as they did in Edmonton? A lot more in the way of press and extracurricular activities in TO to serve as distractions.
3) Would the league even approve a move like this in the first place?
4) Would Gretzky have been traded? The money potential for a team like the Oilers in Toronto would have been huge! This begs the question: Would Pocklington have run into the same financial difficulties as he did in Edmonton that ultimately forced the trade.
5) Would the US expansion have occurred in a much different manner? Had Gretzky not been traded from hypothetical Toronto, who would have spearheaded the move into the southern US?
6) Would the Toronto Blue Jays have seen the success they did? I know we’re veering off-sport here, but let’s face it: the Jays benefitted directly from the Leafs lack of success in the ‘80s in that the city pinned their hopes for winning on them as opposed to the Leafs as they knew Ballard wasn’t interested in winning. Sure, they still sold out and remained the number one ticket, but the excitement and vibe for winning was behind the Jays. Would that momentum and excitement/support still have been there if the Toronto “Oilers” were winning championships?
I don’t pretend to know how any of this would have turned out, but I’ll be damned if the potential implications for a move like this wouldn’t have been huge and far reaching. While these are a few of the possibilities that I brainstormed, I’m more interested in hearing what you good folk have to say. As usual, let’s hear your thoughts and ideas and have a good little debate about this.
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Here Comes The Pain: Round 2 Fights (Semi-finals)
We’re through a round and it’s time to cut the field of fights in half! It was pretty much consensus picks for who was going through with a single exception! Let’s see how it played out!
Match 1
Downey vs Boulerice
VS
Primeau vs Primeau
RESULT: TIE!!! It was the one punch wonder versus brotherly love and when it came to your votes they were split straight down the middle. What to do except add my vote into the mix…
Winner = Downey vs Boulerice
Match 2
Getzlaf vs Thornton
VS
Domi vs Simon
Result: Domi vs Simon. No contest here. Props to Joe and Ryan for stepping outside their usual roles to spark their teams, but the battle of the titans one it.
Match 3
Clark vs McSorley
VS
Hordichuk vs Angelstad
Result: Clark vs McSorley. Again, no contest! While Hordichuk and Angelstad would win on sheer volume of punches thrown, the emotion and context of the Clark/McSorley scrap won out! A moment burned in the mind of Leafs fans everwhere when it comes to that ’93 run.
Match 4
Ray vs Ewen
VS
Iginla vs Kesler
Result: Ray vs Ewen, far and away. Sugar Rob Ray doing what he did best, and your votes showed your appreciation for the quality of his work!
Now it’s up to you, the reader, to add to the list of finalists by narrowing down the final four fight clips to our final two, with the winner going onto the group of 16 who will scrap it out when the playoffs begin in April 2010! Vote by listing your winner for each matchup in the comments section. Sit back and enjoy!
Remember to visit us at www.hockeyden.net and get details on how YOU could be our winner of a 2010 SIDNEY CROSBY TEAM CANADA OLYMPICS JERSEY!!! Contest runs from now until February 14, 2010, so enter now and often!!! Capture The Passion with HockeyDen.net!!
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