We are moving on up, now we are 23rd in the NHL in "Paid" admission, the category that truly matters above many big named teams. We are also now ranked 15th in the NHL in terms of "giveaways". We only give away about 1,000 tickets per game, compared to a league leader who gives away more than 2,800 per game. To get to 15th in the NHL in paid attendance, we only need to average about 900 additional paid admissions per game so we are quickly closing in on reaching one of our big goals. We are up almost 18% – year over year – in paid admissions so this is good news. We are a Top 3 growth team in this category in the NHL.

…And see how soft our fans can be, be my guest!

Competition is good. Having two #1 goaltenders is good. Having depth is good. Being focused on winning and making the playoffs is good. We respect Olie. His agent represents him and he should say whatever is on his mind but all that is on my mind right now is making the playoffs and winning. Nothing can and should take us off of that goal. Nothing.

We took a risk but we did need a center to replace Michael Nylander, who we took a risk on as we acquired him via free agency. Is there anyone that doesn’t believe that?

 We needed some additional veteran grit at the wing position. Enter Matt Cooke. We haven

Here is a fun piece on the Kicking It screening hosted by our friends at Venture Philanthropy Partners. Not mentioned here is that Executive Producers Russ Ramsey and Doug Smith are also VPP investors as well.

Every trade deadline move comes with risk. Welcome to the NHL.

Check this out.

I recently received an email from a fan who was very disgruntled about our trades; the team’s play; our general manager; our sell off of players; our firing of Ron Wilson, etc. etc. The email went on and on but it reminded me in cadence and tenor of complaints I have received before but from a different email address. When I responded with my hunch, the writer of the email said,

Good to see new media writers trying to enhance old media websites. Here is a good piece by Eric of Off Wing Opinion fame.

No, Mayor Fenty didn’t attend the Sundance Film Festival as my guest and he didn’t come to see “Nanking”.