The title holds a lot of irony in it. Both will need to spend a lot in a massive clean up effort if their current attempts fail to contain a rapidly growing, oily mess.
Hockey: I'm a Canucks fan. I'm from the Okanagan. This year, the Canucks are holding their training camp in Penticton, BC. The Canucks hold their training camps around the province to make them like BC's team, not just Vancouver's team. The turn out to these camps are amazing. A great way to spread the popularity of a team. Teams in the shaky US market could learn from this. Washington is the dominate team in the SED, and is slowly becoming a favorite across the hockey world because of Ovechkin, Green, Backstrom, and coach Boudreau. The star power of the Capitals will continue to attract young fans to playing and watching the game. You can't say the same for the 4 other teams in the SED.
The NHL entry draft is on Friday June 25. Edmonton has the first overall pick--a pick they deserved. Edmonton has completely fallen apart over the past 3 years. Since their cup run in 2005-2006, Edmonton has tumbled down the standings. At the start of the 2009-2010 season, Edmonton was ranked higher than Vancouver and Colorado in the NWD by TSN. Bringing in two head coaches (Tom Renney and Pat Quinn), a resurgent goaltender (Khabibulin), and the having the belief that the long list of young players would develop earned Edmonton that ranking. However, players like Gagner, Cogliano, Brule, Pouliot, and Jacques didn't answer the call. It's a disturbing trend to see that number of young players stagnate in a division, let alone within a single organization.
That's not to say all is lost. Lowe knew he had to make changes that would turn the course of the doomed vessel, targeting and hiring Steve Tambellini as the new GM. After one season it is impossible to say if there's an impact. The 2010-2011 season will be the decision for the Oilers organization: getting the first overall pick has the chance of adding a player to your organization immediately. Whether it is Hall or Seguin remains to be seen, but both have that potential. Although a deep draft this year, Edmonton only has 1 top-30 pick. This would be one reason why Tambellini is fielding offers. The deal with the best outcome would be a deal with Boston that would ship an unhappy and discontent Sheldon Souray and the first overall pick (plus others?) for the 2nd and 15th overall picks. This strategy will only work if Edmonton does something about their development system. Hall and Seguin may be neck-and-neck for that top ranking, but I fear that whomever is chosen by Edmonton will have his value immediately diminished. While Pheonix is the financial sinkhole of the NHL, Edmonton might be the talent black hole.
A few other notes: while the draft is coming up soon, shortly after that we have free agency. The pool this year is massive. I'm predicting a lot of deals and a lot of "favors" being done to ensure that high-cap teams are able to engage the free agent market. I won't be shocked if teams like Calgary (with an incomplete team and 3.8 million away from the cap) deal with like Columbus for money-trades.
New Jersey has a new head coach. The organized hired from within, bringing up AHL affiliate coach McLean. McLean lead Lowell to a 39-31-4 regular season record before being ousted in the first round of the AHL playoffs.
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