Ted's Take

The Blogging Site of Ted Leonsis

Archive for December 10th, 2009

Celebrate Hockey - Pond Hockey!

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Here it is, a great documentary film about hockey the way it is meant to be played - outdoors on a pond.

You will so enjoy this film. Watch it. Drink a hot cocoa and think and act like a kid.

This is a wonderful film. Get ready for the Winter Classic game on New Year’s Day. Watch this film and share it.

Here is an open invite to all hockey bloggers. Snag this film, embed it and show it to your friends.

Enjoy courtesy of SnagFilms.com. Watch by clicking here.

Aol Stock Symbol

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

And here you go; aol is being publicly traded again under the symbol of aol. It opened at $23.67. It feels good to type that symbol into my portfolio tracker again.

The company has no excuses now. It is independent of Time Warner. It can do the right things the right way. It can be totally and maniacally focused on doing what is best for its consumers and partners and employees. I wish it well. I think it has a shot to be reestablished as a major company and brand in the digital world. It has a good strategy. It has terrific people. It has cash flow. It now needs to execute with a “no excuses” mantra: Go - Go fast - Grow fast. Revel in the focus and being able to manage to Main Street and not to Time Warner Center. There are now hundreds of millions of consumers using your services and tens of thousands of advertisers that use the platform. Focus on them. Use that stock currency to acquire great and innovative new web companies to become even more relevant and add even more innovative and driven management. Show everyone what you are made of now!

And Time Warner is free of this Internet thing on the side. It can be what it wants to be too - a content company - free of distribution via its spin out of cable and now aol.

It can focus on what to do with its print based properties and its branded networks that really repackage other people’s content. This will be a challenge as well. We all will be watching as Oscar Wilde once said, “The two great tragedies in life are NOT getting what you want and GETTING what you want.”

Congratulations to the people of aol. Make us proud.

Hockey’s Dream Series

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Nice to see Time Magazine mention the Caps vs. Pens series last season as one of its Top 10 sports moments. We won the game; we lost the series; and the Pens went on to win the Cup deservedly so. Check out this article.

Those playoff games seem so far away. So long ago.

We are in the midst of reinvention, a new season and a long road trip. More injuries are piling up. Yuck.We got done to us last night what we did to Tampa on Monday night. We were shut out. We didn’t take advantage of our opportunities to score and their goaltender was on top of his game and was the difference maker. Buffalo was the better team last night. Our six game winning streak is over. Back to work. See you all Friday night at home against Carolina. You can’t win them all. Sorry about that.