Extend Commentary On Shea Weber's Contract Negotiations

I wanted to see if I could flesh out a comment I posted in response to a FanShot that the good Chris Burton posted over at OnTheForecheck. Here’s what Mr. Custance had to say in regards to contract negotiations between the Nashville Predators and Shea Weber:

"Fair or not, there's a growing perception that of the three biggest restricted free agent negotiations going on right now — Drew Doughty, Steven Stamkos and Shea Weber — the one least likely to result in a long-term deal is with Weber and the Predators.” 

Now, I am a practical person I can understand that negotiations are ongoing and Weber still has not publicly stated that he will resign with the team. It’s obviously a complex process that is still likely in its infancy, as both the team and Weber have stated their interests lie in playing hockey and not contract negotiations. Ok, that was just a qualifier so that no one thinks I’m going all homer because it pleases my ever-so-rosy outlook on life.

The crux of my problem with Custance’s quote is that it lacks a qualifier and it lacks substance. Simply, what does Less Likely actually mean? It’s an incredibly vague statement that fills words and creates a sense that something somewhere may be doing something. I could easily say that I’m less likely less likely to burn my record collection than I am to grill a nice piece of tuna with some fresh baby bok choy, but that statement doesn’t mean a damned thing. Now, I should try to steer things back into the realm of hockey relevancy.

The other two young stars mentioned in the quote are Drew Doughty and Steven Stamkos or the LA Kings and Tampa Bay Lightning, respectively. If we look at those two teams you see solid management, solid coaching, and bright futures with line-ups packed with talent. What reasons would talents like Doughty and Stamkos have for leaving teams that are going to be cup contenders if not now, then soon? The only things you could offer them would be stupid money or a nigh-certain promise to win a cup in the following season. Since in the modern NHL you can’t put any guarantee on the latter and the Kings and Lightning probably have a good idea about how to keep those two guys around for at least a few more years. All that leaves us with is how the Weber situation sits in comparison to the two that I’ve just discussed.

Weber plays for a team that is consistently a playoff spot contender that hasn’t shown that they can be in serious contention for the Stanley Cup. What you have then is an elite two-way defensive talent that has room to move to a team that is a more obvious contender, or, again, he could be offered stupid money. Weber may also be guaranteed to sign with the Preds, but the situation would suggest that he is less likely to do so.

Custance’s quote isn’t inherently false or misleading, but it is ambiguous. It strikes me as a journalist trying to drum up a story out of little to nothing. Not to mention what about short-term deals? I do wonder what kind of response he would get if the quote had run, as “Doughty and Stamkos are more likely to result in a long-term deal than Weber.”

Feature Friday 002

After a week of explosive web traffic, explosive for me that is, it is time to tone thing down with the second edition of Feature Friday.  Today we'll be taking brief looks at ever so smooth Green Room Rockers and the every incredible Tim Barry.

Green Room Rockers - "Green Room Rockers" (iTunes link)

The gentlemen behind Green Room Rockers quickly established themselves as one of the best traditional ska/reggae revival bands.  The band's hallmark is a fusion of the classic sounds of ska and reggae with ultra-smooth soul sounds.  The crooning vocals fit equally well in the upbeat dance numbers and the ska-inflected ballads and is perfectly backed by the clean guitar, horns, and keys.  While I stand behind all my music, Green Room Rockers have crafted an album that truly a pleasure to listen to.  I could wax on about the beauty of this record, but I'll just let you hear it for yourself.





"You and I"





Tim Barry - 28th & Stonewall (iTunes link)

What can I really say about Tim Barry.  The man fronted the legendary punk rock band Avail, putting out six full-length albums and another five EPs before striking out on his own.  Then, since his first release on the wonderful Suburban Home Records he has been wowing the underground music scene with impassioned folk music and some of the finest storytelling since the days of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.  Tim Barry is passionate about everything he feels and does, and that sense bleeds into every word he cries, line he sings, and chord he plays.  Though he'd probably disagree, just because he's that kind of guy, I may not even be worthy to talk about Tim Barry. The man is a story teller, a poet, and, trust me on this, an American hero.

His most recent album, released earlier this year, finds Tim refining his voice and diversifying his sound.  The most notable addition are added instrumentation to arrangements that used to primarily consist of acoustic guitars.  His songs go between raucous songs about travelling the roads and living life, to slower numbers simply moving in their melancholy.  Even on this album there is still a standout track.  Prosser's Gabriel is the incredible story of little talked about slave revolt lead by the titular Gabriel Prosser.  I won't bother trying to describe the song, rather I've included a live performance of the song that appears on youtube.  I also strong recommend the song South Hill from his previous album. WARNING: NSFW or language sensitive people, South Hill is written from the point of view of a soldier in Iraq and in the chorus he drops some f-bombs.

"Prosser's Gabriel (live)"

The NHL Color Scale: Purple, Green, Gray, and Natural

Its Thursday and we're down to the final four color scales.  First, a quick thanks to Buddy Oakes at the View From 111 for the re-tweets and links.  Speaking of which, you can follow me on twitter here.  Finally you can see the first two color scale blogs here (blue) and here (Red/Gold/Orange).


These are smallest of all the scales, and its a bit of a shame in my opinion.  I think the NHL as a whole seriously lacks greens, and purples are almost unheard of outside of Los Angeles.

Some would argue that Colorado should've appeared in the red scale, but the maroon-ish color they has enough purple for me to keep Los Angeles from being the sole user of purple in the league.  Despite the loudness of the Kings's throwbacks worn this season, the current purple worn on their primary jerseys is actually a brighter shade.  Again on the green side you see San Jose which could've found a home on the blue scale but ultimately fit better on the green scale.  Looking at Dallas's green, I really wish they had kept more of the color when the switched to their current jerseys.

And to round off the whole series we have two scales that are almost exclusively secondary, tertiary, or accent colors.  Its worth noting that Edmonton's and Nashville's blocks are both metallics.  We have our first shared shade with Minnesota and Phoenix using the same sand color for their uniforms, numbering, and lettering.  If you've looked at all the other scales then you can see that Columbus uses a ton of colors in their new third jerseys.  Finally you can the Rangers's "antique white" or throwback white, or whatever you want to call it.

And those are the color scales.  For those who are interested I can throw together a large image of all the scales together or provide the scales on this page individually.  Other than that I'm going to put these guys on the back burner in case I come up with any swell ideas for them.  I hoped you enjoyed taking a look at what colors are used in the NHL and how each team uses them.  One of my favorite exercises that went along with this project is seeing how different the shades often looked when paired with the other color(s) in a team's uniform.

Look for my Feature Friday artist/album profiles tomorrow for some recommended listening and some new music to hate or love.

The NHL Color Scale: Red, Yellow/Gold, And Orange

Before I post the next set of scales I just wanted to thanks to the people that have been spreading my blog around amongst other hockey folks.  Special thanks to Matt Wagner over at Jackets Cannon for mentioning me in a fan post, it was a a treat to see that traffic.  The response yesterday was great so I'm going to go ahead and post a trio of color scales.

First of all, you can instantly see that while red is the second most popular color in league, the color still pales (he he) in comparison to the number of teams that use Blue.  Part of that can be accounted for by the number of teams introducing new shades of blue in their palettes with 3rd jerseys.  I admit I was shocked that Phoenix and Atlanta's reds were the same and that the red outlines on the Oilers's current alternate (old regular home) jerseys is also the same.  Also of the 14 teams using red as part of their jersey design, only two use unique colors.  Its interesting how similar the shades of red are between the 4 Original Six teams that appear on this scale. 

When I first started this project I had a separate category for "metallic" colors, but in the end that just didn't work as well as I had hoped.  So, instead we've got the Yellow/Gold category.  Not a lot of similarities when its comes to yellows and golds in the NHL.  What's most interesting is that all of the teams on this scale simply tag their shade as "gold" despite the obviously difference.  Atlanta decided to call theirs Peachtree Gold, so I guess they win the contest for originality, stupid names, and reasons why I hate driving around Atlanta.

As we move on the scales get smaller and smaller....  Now we're going to take a look at the orange scale.  And there's a great question, did you know that orange is the fourth most utilized color in the league?  I included the shade that the Flyers's up until last year for the added diversity and point out that I love how much red there is in that shade.  San Jose shows us why that orange is used just for outlining, its great as what it does and makes the Sharks's jerseys look great but its just muddy.  Biggest surprise for me, that Edmonton and Philly both use the same shade of orange.  Clearly the Oilers stole the Flyers orange.

And that wraps us up for today.  Tomorrow I'll post the last four scales (the baby scales) and that'll wrap up this brief look at the color with the NHL.  Then there will be another Feature Friday, so check that out and take a break from hockey blogs to listen to some music that you might have never heard.

Also check the first and last scales.

The NHL Color Scale: Blue

Don't forget to check out the rest of the series: Red, Yellow, and Orange and Purple, Green, Gray, and Natural

I broke my furious blogging pace to work on a project that's actually taking some serious time.  I happen to really love color.  I spent a decent amount of my time in psychology consuming and analyzing all I could about how we process and are effected by color.  You look at the hockey world and the NHL is ablaze with more color than even many hardcore hockey fans would admit.  In the spirit I set out to create color scales for all of the major colors that we see on NHL jerseys.

All of the colors I used were extracted from the galleries over at one of the best, and possibly my favorite, hockey jersey resources NHLUniforms.com.  To do the extraction I used a Google Chrome extension called Color Pick.  The colors that I'm looking at ignore those found in crests and patches and focus only on the body of the jersey.  And below I present a break down of the use of the most popular color in the entire NHL, blue.  A few things to note: Nashville's third jersey and New York Rangers's third jersey use a navy blue that is barely different another blue that is actually the most popular shade in the entire league.  If you've got good eyes or a good monitor then you can likely zoom in and see the line between the two Navies.  What I also found interesting is huge differences between all the light blues found on the various third jerseys.

This is just the first of color scales that I produced.  I choose to post the blue scale by itself due to its size.  As the week goes on I'll post more of the scales.

Feature Friday #1

Here is my first "Feature Friday" where I'm going to present some of the music to which I've been listening.  Typically The band and album will link to the bands website or store and I'll provide a second link that should take you to iTunes if that's your thing.

Today we've got two very different bands in the indie pop sounds of Washington and the punk fueled rock and roll of the Blacklist Royals.

Washington - I Believe You Liar (iTunes link)

Washington is a one woman indie pop project that works really hard to be an indie pop project.  Dense, upbeat instrumentation and interesting musical arrangement carry the fun lyrics and genre adequate singing.  Not to say that Ms. Washington does have vocal talent, its just not exemplary in the world of female indie rockers.  Overall its a good album, except things get a little dull starting with track nine.  The first eight tracks are either incredibly fun numbers or stripped down, soft pieces that are shocking beautiful in their simple nature.  After that the album gains an "already done that, and done it better" feel.

One of the best things I can say about this debut album is that Washington is totally honest about what she's presenting you, an unabashed indie pop album.  That being said it feels kind of pretentious at times, but seeing that she made this album on her own I think she earned that right.  In the end I've got high hopes for her future work because there is potential for Washington to stake out her own little indie pop corner in the world.

Blacklist Royals - Semper Liberi (iTunes link)

I discovered these Nashville boys earlier this year in my never ending quest for un-distilled rock music. Blacklist Royals occupy a broad genre of punk-and-roll that was really popularized by the instant classic Gaslight Anthem. The band definitely falls more on the punk end of the spectrum with the crunchy guitar, gruff vocals, and occasional cursing and sneering. Oh, and these boys definitely have some Nashville country/southern rock flavor that lets everyone know that they as know as much about Springsteen as they do about the sounds that define their city.

One of my favorite things about this album is the seamless integration of a piano instead of you know… more guitars. When a punk band throws in a novel instrument I always get concerned that it will either turn into a gimmick or it will be lost in the cacophony, distortion, and reverb. BR step right around there and just allow the whole thing to work and add a refreshing flair to the album. Tennessee Blues is a stand out track on the album since it not only features the wonderful piano work, but also some fun fiddling that fits right into the heart of the band's sound 

And since some will wonder, Semper Liberi translates to Always Free.

The Current State of Fans and Body Contact in the NHL

Watching and listening to Predators games this season I've noticed a common topic that frequently crops up between play-by-play man Pete Weber and color commentator Terry Crisp.  Crispy was consistently noted the strong fan reaction when the home town crowd sees one of their boys leveled with a hit.  The gist of Crispy's comments are along the lines of current NHL fans believing that any body contact between two players should result in penalties or retaliation.  Further, he believes that the NHL hockey culture as cultivated by the central NHL officers are, at least in part, to blame for current fan-reactions to body contact.  As with most things there is a grain of truth in what Terry Crisp has been saying recently, but as always I'd like to spend some time thinking about what may actually be gone on in the minds of fans.

Whether for better or worse every hockey fan can agree that the game has changed since the league entered the post-lockout world.  Grappling and constant body crippling hits have either decreased or been totally eliminated from the game and as fans we're now experiencing traditional North American hockey with some added European style flavors.  The NHL have also placed a greater emphasis on player safety with rules that try and protect players from head shots and other plays that result in high probability of injury.  The easiest thing to say about the fans is that when you and your friends or family are sitting in the stands all you can see is the hit.  Like with many potential penalties, the fans can't see every detail.  Sometimes the fans see a trip, but the hometown guy just stepped on a stick.  The same thing happens to referees.  Predators fans may recall a penalty last year called against (I think) Kevin Klein.  He was called for a slash after Klein's opponent broke his stick by clashing Klein's.  The same thing can happen with hits of all types, but I don't think that is the essence of the issue nor what Crispy has noted in his commentary.

I think the fan unrest that we're see when it comes from hits stems from two things: perceived inconsistency of rule enforcement and sensitization.  As always this isn't a commentary on how people are doing their jobs, but rather a hopefully objective exploration of a hypothesis.  With the NHL's closed door, window, and vent policy fans know little to nothing about injuries, rule making, and rule enforcement outside of what is directly observable in public settings.  It is therefore difficult to neigh impossible to comprehend how the NHL deals with supplemental punishment.  After several seasons of confusion on the parts of fans as to why and how certain suspensions and fines are doled out we're becoming acutely aware inconsistencies.  Its tough when you see a fan favorite penalty killer and fourth line grinder go into the boards face first and watch the guilty party skate away and face no consequences, then days later see a player get suspended for two games after trying to squeeze an opposition player through the cracks in the glass.  I could illustrate more instances, but if you're a hockey fan I'm sure you're aware of a dozen examples on your own.

What you're see is the perceived inconsistencies in enforced discipline is causing fans to become hyper-sensitive to hits and any other type of body contact.  Fans have started to look at and mentally break down each and every hit trying to determine not if its clean or dirty, but rather to what degree of dirty was that hit.  The problem is then only compounded as similar hits are treated differently and further complicated by fans trying to figure out what the equation that is used to determine how justice is doled out, or not doled out as the case may be, based off an equation whose variables are the very players involved.  At some point fans might as well boo any hit because no one really knows when or if a hit will be considered dirty by the NHL.

As a final note, the whole Crosby/slew-foot topic could also be included in the above blog, but I won't be addressing that topic.