The Two-Line Pass

No, hold the antenna right there. Either Iginla just scored or Phaneuf's leg fell off.

For the last billion years or so, it’s been pretty bad being a fan of a small-market team. This is particularly true in Canada.

For the three western Canadian teams, some games are chosen to be broadcast on pay per view for something like $12 a pop, and some games are not broadcast at all. There have been several Calgary Flames games that I’ve missed over the past few years when they’re not on Center Ice because no one’s broadcasting them. Fans of the Oilers and Canucks have had similar problems.

This year, though, it’s just Calgary that comes out looking pathetic. The Canucks and Oilers are both broadcasting all of their games — yes, some still on pay per view — while Calgary might not. Between the CBC, TSN and Sportsnet, all but 12 games will be covered on free TV (which is a pathetic thing to say just months away from 2009). If you’re an out of market fan and ponied up the well-worth-it $159 bucks, it’s not so bad because you might miss one game here or there over the course of the season against your favorite team, usually mid-week and against a bad opponent. But if you live in Calgary, you’re boned. It’s roughly $150 bucks to watch 12 games against bad teams, and the production values are typically atrocious.

Worse than that for Flames fans? Unlike the Canucks and some Oilers PPV games, Calgary games aren’t broadcast in HD. Over on Calgarypuck, the same frustrations come up year after year, and Flames fans really seem to be tiring of the same old song and dance now. The Flames are right to point out that broadcasting in HD costs about double, but it’s still pretty tough to swallow for any fan who’s shelling out money to watch an F’ing hockey game on TV in their homes.

Says “Incinerator” (perhaps not his real name):

Holding your customers hostage (either buy the crappy version or do without at all) is not how you win fans over.

Calgary doesn’t necessarily need to win fans over, though. The Flames sold more seats on a percentage basis than any other team in the league by a pretty decent margin, and people love the team so much that they’ll do anything to watch them.

The Flames know it’s an issue as much as the fans do, but given the market size, there’s no way to really fix this any time soon. It’s kind of sad that any NHL team has to suffer this type of indignity. No way this is a problem in the NBA or Major League Baseball.

Mickey Renaud was just 19

The cause of death for Windsor Spitfires captain and Calgary Flames draft pick Mickey Renaud, who collapsed at his family’s home back in February, has been determined: it was hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Toxicology tests also confirmed no presence of any type of drugs.

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is a genetic disorder in which the heart muscle can be abnormally thick.

Mark Renaud thanked the public for the “prayers and well wishes throughout our most difficult time.”

Renaud, a talented hockey star, collapsed in his family’s home in the Windsor suburb of Tecumseh on Feb. 18. He was rushed to Windsor Regional Hospital but could not be resuscitated.

If not for some irregularities spotted by doctors at the NHL Draft Combine this year, Lightning draftee David Carle might have suffered the same fate. He, too, was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and as a result will never play hockey again. It is difficult to believe that kids are not subject to the same tests in the CHL combines, given the myriad potential health risks involved.

But this serves as a sobering reminder that life’s bigger than hockey, and hopefully it will lead to earlier detection in other players, like Carle, before something like this happens again.

Hulk Hogan attempts to body slam Andre the Giant

It may not be official yet, but the Calgary Flames’ website is listing Andre Roy as a member of the team.

Darryl Sutter obviously didn’t think bringing in Todd Bertuzzi would be enough of a daily distraction (still a great signing, by the way), so he brought in one of the league’s more unstable, insane, and frankly bad players this side of Chris Simon. In a city that loves its hockey that much, and has a fanbase with elements that are ready to give up on the team because it signed Bertuzzi, a signing like this goes a long way toward alienating those fans — clods though they may be — further.

Andre Roy? Really? THIS sideshow act?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt_PtFx5P2s]

When John Tortorella thinks you’re out of line, you’re bordering on Heath Ledger-as-the-Joker levels of insanity.

The one thing Roy brings to the team though, outside of a constant fear that he’s going to try to break a teammate’s neck, is an edge the Flames seriously lacked. Jarome Iginla had said the team lacked a true heavyweight with the loss of Eric Godard, but that it had a number of middleweights that could handle themselves well in a fight, and that’s true enough. But the idea that the Flames were going to enter the season with Brandon Prust as an enforcer was a strange hybrid between laughable and sad.

Roy at least brings a nastiness missing from the team since Krzysztof Oliwa and Chris Simon played in Calgary during the 2003-04 Cup run.

This video is everything that’s good and bad about having Andre Roy on your team. He can intimidate heavyweights, but he’s a crazy person:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsZbfOcpYMQ]

For what it’s worth, and assuaging the fears of Flames fans somewhat, is the fact that this is to be found nowhere else besides the NHL’s website, and they’ve been known to make this kind of blunder before.

From the Surreal Quote department comes this truly touching news story about Robyn Regehr and Zdeno Chara going to Africa to help impoverished people and especially kids as part of the “Right to Play” charity that was supported by Andrew Ference and Steve Montador last year.

Apparently being a hockey player in a nation whose inhabitants haven’t seen ice in their lives isn’t too big of a deal (Regehr says one kid they met knew what a slap shot was), but being gigantic Caucasian men in a country that doesn’t see too many of those either went over huge.

“I don’t think they’d seen a lot of white people. It was all new to them. I actually felt something funny, so I looked down and this kid was licking my forearm. It’s very hard to describe the scene, there was just so much going on.”

Regehr has since returned to Saskatchewan, but seems to have really enjoyed the trip. He also said Chara stayed in Africa to climb Mount Kilamanjaro, presumably in 10 steps.

For those not in the know, Right To Play programs “target the most marginalized, including girls, the disabled, children affected by HIV and AIDS, street children, former child combatants and refugees.” It does so by emphasizing the fun and importance of sport and exercise. Athletes from 50 countries have volunteered for the organization.

Right to Play is an incredibly worthy cause, so why not float them a few bucks?

A little lost amidst the hoopla of Calgary signing universally hated right wing Todd Bertuzzi to a one-year, $1.95 million contract, was the fact that the Flames were on the fence with the signing until Jarome Iginla approved of the deal.

The Calgary Flames would really really really really really like their fans to keep that in mind. From the Flames’ press release:

“Todd is a proven scorer with the ability to play both wings,” said (GM Darryl) Sutter. “He expressed to us that he wanted to play in Canada and that
desire along with signing him to a one year deal was important to our
philosophy. He wanted to play on a good team and it fit our money.

“Additionally, our captain, Jarome Iginla, was a strong supporter of Todd and wanted him on our team.”

No seriously, Iginla wanted him on the team. Listen:

“He is a character guy,” Iginla insisted. “I’ve known him over the years, and he made a very bad decision. I assure you if he could take that back, he would. I do believe in second chances.”

What you still might not understand is that Iginla was the one that wanted Bertuzzi in Calgary. Here are interviews with Calgary’s local sports talk station from Iginla himself, Bertuzzi, and Sutter to reinforce that fact.

Even with their beloved captain and general manager advocating tolerance and forgiveness (Sutter went so far as to laughably compare Bertuzzi paralyzing Steve Moore to running a red light), Flames diehards are still pissed. On the most popular Flames message board, calgarypuck.com, more than seven percent of fans say they will boycott the team until Bertuzzi’s outta Calgary. Almost 57 percent say they aren’t in favor of the move, but will tolerate it.

They throw around words like “bad person” and “locker-room cancer,” as though Sutter hadn’t thought of that. Good for him for not caring whether or not Todd Bertuzzi punches kittens and litters.

If Bertuzzi can produce 40 points in 68 games like he did last year in Anaheim for less than half the cost, the Flames front office will be doing cartwheels.