Keepers of the Cup start to feel the heat

I wanted to voice my opinion that I would like to see the Stanley Cup awarded to the best hockey team this year. I know you realize how important this is to Canadians and it’s a great opportunity to create a historic event.

Thank-you for your time and consideration.

-Jeff

SENT TO ME MARCH 17TH FROM PHILIP PRITCHARD OF THE HOCKEY HALL OF FAME

Dear Jeff

Thanks for your e-mail and interest in the Hockey Hall of Fame. I am attaching an article for you that I hope will
answer some of your questions and concerns.
Again thanks for your note.

Regards

Philip Pritchard
Hockey Hall of Fame

(See attached file: Cuptrustees.doc)

By ERIC DUHATSCHEK

Globe and Mail

Phil Pritchard, vice president of hockey operations and curator of the Hockey Hall Of Fame, received his first 15 minutes of fame some years ago when he starred in a series of well-received commercials on behalf of MasterCard.

In those spots, the white-gloved Pritchard traveled back and forth around the world, sharing a series of hotel rooms and airplanes with the Stanley Cup, the most revered trophy in the world.

If the National Hockey League lockout lasts the entire season, Pritchard could be thrust in the spotlight again. As the most visible custodian of the Stanley Cup, Pritchard is getting all kinds of letters and e-mails from around the world, from people seeking to play for the coveted trophy. Last week, Pritchard passed on more than 50 of those messages to Ian (Scotty) Morrison and Brian O’Neill, the two trustees of the Stanley Cup.

The majority of correspondents want the Stanley Cup awarded, even if the NHL doesn’t declare a champion, on the grounds that the trophy began its life as a challenge cup and thus should revert to its original purpose if the league doesn’t play any games this season.

How are Morrison, the NHL’s former referee in chief, and O’Neill, a former senior vice president in the Clarence Campbell and John Ziegler Jr. eras, handling the requests?

O’Neill said he received five or six calls to his Montreal office about the Stanley Cup, all of which begin with a flawed premise.

“It’s not a challenge cup anymore,” said O’Neill. “The basis upon which it could revert back to a challenge cup is if the league decided to fold. Then they would turn the Stanley Cup back to us. That’s the way it would be done.

“Or, if you stretched a point and said, they’re not the most prominent professional league in the world, but that would be a pretty hard thing to determine.

“The National Hockey League is not extinct. It’s on a sabbatical. To that extent, it’s still the premier league in the world and it’s the one we have an agreement with. We don’t have an agreement with anyone else at the moment.

“There is all kinds of speculation, but they’ve got to get away from this idea that it’s a challenge cup.”

Morrison added this to debate: “What if you’ve got all these guys over in Europe and (IIHF president) Rene Fasel says, ‘hey Scotty, hey Brian, our league in Europe is now the best professional hockey league in the world and we want to play for the Stanley Cup?’

“Right now, I think our response would be no. The Stanley Cup belongs to the National Hockey League and once the NHL resumes play, that’s when it will be presented.”

But what if there is no 2004-05 season?

“The Stanley Cup just stays in the Hall Of Fame and I guess we just skip ahead and leave that panel empty,” answered Morrison. “Hopefully, that won’t happen.”

Some years ago, O’Neill and Bud Estey, the former Stanley Cup trustee, who died in 2001, amended the trustee agreement to take out the clause that said, “‘in the event that the league goes belly-up, the trophy goes back to the International Hockey Hall Of Fame in Kingston.’ We wanted that out.”

Eric Zweig, a hockey historian and managing editor of Total Stanley Cup, says in 1947, the trustees of the Stanley Cup (P.D. Ross and Cooper Smeaton) granted authority to the NHL “to determine and amend … competition for the Stanley Cup.”

The seminal clause in the agreement states however, “This agreement shall remain in force so long as the League continues to be the world’s leading professional hockey league as determined by its playing caliber. In the vent of a dissolution or other termination of the National Hockey League, the Stanley Cup shall revert to the custody of the trustees.”

In the early days, before the NHL gained control of the Stanley Cup, the trustees held a more active role than they do today and generally favored a team’s right to the trophy over that of a league.

According to Zweig, when the Ottawa Silver Seven withdrew from the Canadian Amateur Hockey League during the 1903-04 season, the trustees allowed them to face Stanley Cup challengers on their own. When the 03-04 CAHL champions, the Quebec Bulldogs, asked that they be recognized as Stanley Cup champions, the trustees refused to do so. Instead, they asked the Bulldogs to challenge Ottawa for the Stanley Cup, a match that didn’t take place. The Stanley Cup followed Ottawa to the Federal Amateur Hockey League (in 1904-05) and to the Eastern Canada Amateur Hockey Association in (in 1905-06).

Almost a hundred years later, what if the owners of AK Bars Kazan, the team that boasts 11 NHL players, including three prominent members of the defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning (Vince Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Nikolai Khabibulin), wanted to challenge for the Stanley Cup? Even if Kazan signed the rest of the Lighting players to contracts and went on a barnstorming tour of Europe, they couldn’t do so, if the trustees followed the historical precedent.

In the 1910-11 season, as the National Hockey Association and its players were involved in a salary cap dispute, the players considered forming their own new league. Some players from the Montreal Wanderers petitioned for the Stanley Cup, but were refused by trustee William Foran, on the grounds that the trophy belonged to the club, not to the players.

Thus, if the Stanley Cup were to revert to its original role as a challenge trophy, history suggests that the only man who could petition for its custody, according to Zweig, would be Lightning owner Bill Davidson.

For that to happen, Davidson would first have to break ranks with his fellow NHL owners and the Lightning players would have to agree to go back to work for him en masse. Still, in the unlikely event that that scenario unfolded, then the trustees would have to at least consider letting Davidson have access to the trophy – and in that way, the Stanley Cup would return to its original roots.

It’s not going to happen, but it’s fun to think about – as all of Pritchard’s e-mail traffic would imply.

AWOL in America

What is life like for new recruits in the climate of the Iraq War? This article gives a good portrait of those who jump ship and why they do it.

Particularly facinating to me, is the statistics on firing rates. Apparently in World War II only 15 to 20 percent of the combat infantry were willing to fire their weapons this number has steadily increased over the years.

By the Korean War, the firing rate had gone up to 55 percent; in the Vietnam war, it was around 90 to 95 percent. How did the military achieve this? As Grossman writes, “Since World War II, a new era has quietly dawned in modern warfare: an era of psychological warfare — psychological warfare conducted not upon the enemy, but upon one’s own troops. … The triad of methods used to achieve this remarkable increase in killing are desensitization, conditioning, and denial defense mechanisms.”

I have never been put in a situation like the ones a new soldier has to face, but I would hope that if I did have to go to war, it would be a war I could believe in.

Star Wars Episode III Trailer

If you missed the OC on Thursday night because you were in a MoCap lab or out eating pre-birthday sushi, then you probably missed the new Star Wars Episode III trailer. Luckily for you, Jason Kottke has the link.

I have to admit it does ‘look’ pretty cool.

When you are done there, you can also check out this neat Legend of Zelda trailer.

Quick Trip to Banff

On Wednesday night I drove to Calgary and then just for kicks we headed out to Banff to see King Muskafa play at the Rose and Crown Pub. We had a pretty good time, especially because we got to meet the band before they went on and with a band as much fun as they are, a good time is just bound to happen.

Image of King Muskafa
One of the more vocal patrons became very obnoxious when he started asking if the singer would expose herself for his viewing pleasure. I didn’t see the bouncers remove him, but as we left shortly after we saw him talking to his friends outside; this is what he said, “You just don’t piss people off. That’s what I learned.”

They are playing at the Rose and Crown all week so if you’re in Banff today I recommend going and checking them out – it was well worth the trip.

Hacking Google Print

Kuro5shin writes about some software he came up with that exploits Google’s book browsing service.

Many people are curious about the inner workings of Google, but they are mostly interested in keeping it a secret. So, any information we can glean comes from “black box” analysis. Recently, I wrote a short article that explains how I wrote some simple code that can instantly create PDFs of entire books from Google Print.

Read Hacking Google Print.

Drawn

I found a new blog about drawing, illustration, and art called Drawn! that looks pretty sweet. It’s still new, but so far the posts include (among others) links to Vintage magazine art, a collection of Batman logos from the past, and even some 3D animation from Blur. I love it; I’m adding the link to my sidebar.

Drawn! is a collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw. Visit us daily for a dose of links and creative inspiration.

Free Stanley

There is a movement in Canada to make sure there are Stanley Cup playoffs this hockey season.

From the Freestanley.com web site:

We love the Stanley Cup playoffs and we love the Cup. We believe it is the best trophy in all of sport, and it should not be denied to the best hockey team is playing this season. If there is no NHL season the Stanley Cup should then be awarded to the best hockey team in Canada, which was Lord Stanley’s original intent for the Cup.

Free Stanley is asking fans to contact the Trustees and demand a challenge for the Stanley Cup. Email the Trusees at: info@hhof.com or send a letter by regular mail to:
Ian “Scotty” Morrison and Brian O’Neill
Stanley Cup Trustees
Hockey Hall of Fame
BCE Place
30 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5E 1X8