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Thursday, June 15, 2006
Carolina success amplifies Thrashers’ failures
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
A hockey team off the Florida coast won the last Stanley Cup. A hockey team on Tobacco Road is on the verge of winning the next Stanley Cup.
What to do first if you live in Atlanta?
Laugh at Canada or scream about the Thrashers?
General manager Don Waddell joked Thursday that “redneck hockey” has taken over Raleigh. Tailgating scenes at Carolina Hurricanes games have resembled those of college football. Capacity crowds are commonplace in Tampa, and it’s getting there in Raleigh. “Yankee flatball” has consumed two Southeastern markets.
But if you’re Waddell’s Thrashers, this doesn’t merely scream, “We’re next.” It amplifies their failures. There have been six seasons over seven years, with no playoffs and a fragile fan base to show for it.
People talk about the pressure on Hawks general manager Billy Knight. What about the pressure on Waddell?
Over the Thrashers’ six-season existence, only one other franchise has failed to make the playoffs (Columbus is 0-for-5). Nashville has been a playoff team the past two seasons after failing in five tries.
Nashville. Tampa Bay. Carolina. This market dwarfs them all. But the hockey team continues to take a back seat. No playoffs and only occasional sellouts.
It has happened there — why not here?
“There’s no reason why it can’t,” said Waddell.
He generally comes armed with statistics in interviews, and this was no exception: “All four teams in the final four this year — Anaheim, Edmonton, Carolina and Buffalo — miss the playoffs the [season] before. That just tells you all you have to do is get to the dance. Once you’re there, anything can happen.” “If only we had only made it …” It’s the loser’s lament.
Carolina? The Thrashers went 4-3-1 against the Hurricanes this season. They beat them 9-0 — in Raleigh. They beat them twice in April. “If only …”
There are two schools of thought on Waddell. One: Six seasons and no playoffs? Goodbye. Two: Personnel moves always can be debated. A late-season pointless streak buried the team’s postseason hopes. But the bottom line is the Thrashers finished two points out of a playoff spot with their starting goalie (Kari Lehtonen) missing 41 games.
They were sloppy and received poor goaltending in a must-win game at Washington. The loss sealed their fate. Waddell: “We’ve had lots of low points here. But as far as on-ice activities, this year was by far the low point of my career.”
Excuses?
“There are none,” he said. “It is what it is. We had things to overcome. In the end, we didn’t get the job done.”
He’ll take the hit. Miss the playoffs again, he’ll take a zillion more. This offseason, he has re-signed the team’s best defenseman, Niclas Havelid. But significant problems remain. For starters: a No. 1 center.
Marc Savard? He’s gone. That’s not something a general manager is going to make official before the start of a free-agency period. But if Waddell really planned to re-sign Savard, he would have made a significant attempt by now (as with Havelid). Even if Savard doesn’t get the $5 million per year he thinks he’s getting in free agency, he’ll get more than the Thrashers will pay.
Even Waddell’s diplomatic analysis can’t hide the obvious: “The market for Savard is one we probably can’t afford to be in. We already have two $6 million players [Ilya Kovalchuk and Marian Hossa].”
This is post-lockout economics. Savard was the Thrashers’ No. 1 assist man and second-leading scorer last season. There’s a belief internally on the team that any decent center with Kovalchuk and/or Hossa will produce. But you don’t easily replace 97 points. Waddell is taking a risk.
The Thrashers also need a backup goalie. And a solid defenseman. They will try to move one of three $2 million defensemen (Jaroslav Modry, Greg de Vries or Andy Sutton). There’s also a first-round draft pick to dangle as trade bait.
Everybody is watching. And waiting. Again.
“I’d like to have a so-called ‘regular’ season without obstacles, instead of what we’ve had the last three or four years,” Waddell said. “If we do, we’ll be in the playoffs.
“I’ve lived with that pressure every day since I’ve been here. So this is no different.”
Except when you look at Carolina and Tampa, it is a little different. It has been done in the South, just not here.
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Love can’t find magic this time
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Mamaroneck, N.Y. — There were proceedings taking place that disputed the popular media projection that this U.S. Open is somewhat more than two-man match play between Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. And that the mourning for Woods’ father had run overtime. There were 154 other players in the field at Winged Foot Golf Club, all with grief of their own and personal agendas, among them Davis Love III, who has known what it is to win a tournament on these classic grounds in Westchester County, more than your average county, but a commonwealth of some of America’s most elegant estates.
This has not been the kind of year that Love would press, like a rose, between the pages of his diary. On the PGA Tour, his best finish has been a tie for 12th in the Ford Championship at Doral. There was the redeeming feature of reaching the final of the World Match Play Championship, reaping a reward of $750,000. Otherwise, his take-home loot is just over a half-million bucks.
The day at Winged Foot began bogey-double bogey, a front nine 4-over par, two more bogeys and another double bogey on the back nine, and a round of 76. This was not Davis Love golf. So much more is expected of him, another major championship to go with his PGA title, won on this same course in 1997. He has reached the critical point in which he needs to start picking up shots rather than giving them away.
“I got it back to 1-over par on the front nine with two birdies, but then hit one bad shot, and that led to another.” Triple bogey at the 9th, and 39 at the turn. Par on this course, designed by A.W. Tillinghast, considered the equal of Donald Ross in his time, is 35 per side.
“Give me three swings over per round, my dad used to say, and I’ll win the tournament,” Love said. “Well, I could have used those three swings today.”
Love is not one to give into depression. Any suggestions that “this must be tearing at your innards” simply gets waved off. “No, it’s not Davis Love golf, but I keep a positive outlook. It’s a pretty simple tournament: You hit the ball in the fairway, you hit the green, and you putt. But I’m not doing that.”
Love, too, has lost his father, in a sudden and most shocking tragedy. A private plane crashed, taking the lives of Love Jr. and two associated professionals. Quite a bit was made of him, the son of a PGA professional, winning the PGA Championship on this course in 1997, a scene eerily decorated by a sudden rainbow that graced the scene at the 18th green.
As his threesome, including Justin Leonard, who was with Love in the final pairing in 1997, approached the 18th tee, the wind freshened a bit at their backs. Love’s approach was a striking shot that came to rest about five feet below the pin. He made the putt and, as they say, there’s nothing like a good finish to bring you back tomorrow.
“Did any of those thoughts of the PGA Championship run through your mind on that hole?” he was asked.
“It’s always nice to come back to where you’ve played well,” he said. He would have none of that. “I’m not that sentimental about something like that. Memories ain’t gonna do it. You need to get back to what you were doing right.”
Besides, he concluded, it’s not the same course. “It’s playing harder than it did then.” And so we drew the curtain on another day in which the pursuit of former excellence continued.
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Having a ball with the Cup
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
I’m not a morning person, and I’m not much of a TV person, either. But every morning I watch the World Cup, and every afternoon, too. The days I’ve tried to stop watching have produced the most riveting finishes of the tournament — Australia scoring three goals in the last eight minutes; Saudi Arabia scoring the apparent winner only to be matched by Tunisia’s even later equalizer. So now I’m hooked for the duration.
I’ve even developed a system. When Dave O’Brien is calling a match for ESPN or ABC, I switch to Univision. Do I speak Spanish? Why, no. But I’d rather understand next to nothing than to listen to someone who knows less about soccer than I do. I’ll flip over at halftime for the analysis — Eric Wynalda is rather good — and then back to Univision for the second half.
Sometimes, just for variety, I’ll hit the TV mute button and listen to the play-by-play on XM radio. This can be confusing, given that the satellite radio feed takes longer to bounce back to Earth and runs about 10 seconds behind the televised action, but when there are three games every day you have to mix it up.
The highlight of the tournament to date has been Shaka Hislop in goal for Trinidad and Tobago against Sweden. I’ve liked Shaka Hislop for years — he plays for West Ham in England, and West Ham has always been my second-favorite side after Manchester United — but he’s considered past his prime now and started only because the No. 1 T&T keeper hurt himself in warmups. But Hislop, on cue, was fabulous, keeping a clean sheet for the smallest nation in the field.
The lowlight? Well, the U.S. loss to the Czech Republic was bad, but I can’t say I was all that surprised. Even though many observers in this country believed the U.S. performance in the 2002 World Cup was a sign of greater things to come, I’ve tended to believe that much of what happened in Korea and Japan — Argentina, Portugal and France being eliminated in the group stages, the U.S. reaching the quarterfinals, South Korea and Turkey making the semis — was an aberration. I think the U.S. is getting better every year, but I still think it has years to work before it can approach the better European sides.
No, the real lowlight has been Ronaldo. He is, not to put too fine a point on it, fat. He did nothing against Croatia, and by nothing I mean he didn’t even trouble himself to run. When mercifully he was pulled, Brazil finally started to look like Brazil. But I think the controversy over what to do what the famous Ronaldo will undo Brazil in this tournament, much as it did when an obviously out-of-sorts Ronaldo was allowed to play against France in the 1998 World Cup final. (France won 3-nil.) I’m one of those who believes the world’s best team will not win the 2006 World Cup.
So who will? When in doubt, go with the host nation. Even Germans hated this German team coming into the World Cup, but after two rousing wins they’ve begun to believe. And so have I. As they say in their anthem: Deutschland Uber Alles.
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