From time to time, you have heard me rail against media pundits for their lack of criticality; original thinking; creativity; and basic non-understanding of what they are writing about.

Well here is another rant. This time against Ross McKeon and his blog post mentioning contraction of six NHL teams including the Washington Capitals. Read it here.

First, the throw away notion of shuttering six major league teams is just mean-spirited. Those six teams employ thousands and thousands of people and support tens of thousands of families. I guess Ross wants us to lay off all those people in the toughest economy ever. And those teams generate dollars for their cities in taxes and they generate dollars to hundreds and hundreds of small businesses as vendor/ suppliers. All of that would go away and the benefit and glow of a major sports team franchise would leave those cities marked as second rate for a long, long time.

Second, those teams in the aggregate are worth to their ownership groups – let us say in round numbers - $ 1.2 to $ 1.5 billion. Wow. Would the owners be compensated? What would happen to their investments? Would we just write that investment off? Why? Our teams are growing revenues, value and payments to players. We are essentially growth stocks.

Third, the cities that had built or supported building arenas for these teams would certainly have a say in the matter. Leases would be violated. Tax payments would be forfeited. Lawsuits would be filed. Buildings would be empty. Tax payers would be furious. Pretty non-pragmatic, huh?

Fourth, fans would suffer. Why would we punish the fan bases of any city with contraction? Why would we stop playing in cities that have started to fall in love with hockey generationally? Why punish kids and families that play youth hockey and come to games and have supported the teams and have fallen in love with all of the stars in these cities?

Fifth, last time I looked, Carolina had recently won a Stanley Cup; Tampa Bay too. When was the last time the San Jose Sharks won a Cup? Nashville is a good team. I believe the Caps will be a good team for a long, long time. These teams add to the competitiveness to the league and they have some of the brightest stars in the game playing for them.

Sixth, so we should just cut 150 players’ jobs? Put them out of work? I am sure the players union would love that notion. The average NHL player makes more than $ 2 million per season so there would be about $250 to $300 million less in payroll to players to be paid. They wouldn’t then pay taxes. They wouldn’t buy houses in their communities. They wouldn’t support local charities, etc. etc.

Seventh, the South is important to media buyers and the national TV contract. Trust me. Advertisers care about these markets even if Ross doesn’t.

Lastly - speaking for my own team - we play in the Nation’s Capital, the sixth biggest media market in the US. We are the fastest growing team in the league. We have the reigning NHL MVP on our team. We are a team that is built to last. We have a great and growing fan base. We will be a perennial playoff team for a long, long time. We intend to win a Stanley Cup. We are part of the fabric of our community. We love our fans and they love us back. We have built a franchise that is worth a quarter of a billion dollars with blood, sweat, tears and a major cash investment. I love this team. I have to defend it for the benefit of my partners, my family and our fan base.

I found this notion of contraction to be a slap in the face to hundreds of thousands of fans and to great ownership groups and to great cities. It is offensive to the NHL as a league and is just wrong-headed.

For the sake of being provocative on a blog, Ross – as a freelance writer - just put a big bulls eye on his back. His analysis was shallow at best. He doesn’t know what he is talking about. As my friends in Brooklyn would say, “Ross – contract this!?”