Salt on Monday

Hello people and say welcome back to your favorite weekly column ‘Salt on Monday’. The beginning of June is the slow season for sporting addicts, and the busy season for their mates. Between weddings, stags, engagement parties, and family issues, Salt on Monday couldn’t give you a column last week.

But we’re back, and while we are happy that the NBA, and NHL have crowned champions, and the NFL is merely six weeks away from training camp, we can still find some salty issues to share with you.
As always, I am a river to my people. A salty, bitter, sour river.

ALERT!! ALERT!!! ALERT!!!
Breaking news folks, the Stanley Cup finalists the Ottawa Senators have decided to part ways with their GM John Muckler. Seems second place just doesn’t agree with Billionaire Eugene Melnyk. I guess Melnyk saw what we all saw; that Ottawa would still wilt when you came at them head on. The Leafs used that trick every time they played the Bytown skaters in the playoffs, and battered them into submission. This year, Pittsburgh tried to skate with Ottawa – and that might work for Pittsburgh next year – but their young team couldn’t match the Senators. New Jersey tried to go Trap to Trap, and see who could execute the left wing lock with more proficiency, but without a monster performance from their best player Brodeur, the Devils went away with a whimper. You already know how I feel about Buffalo. A pretend team full of perimeter players just wasn’t going to make the cup finals.

So when Anaheim decided to punch the Sens in the face, they didn’t punch back. They just didn’t have the players with the type of grit needed to punch back at the end of this six-week tournament.

That said, they made the freaking finals people!!! What does new G.M. Brian Murray have to do to keep his job? Well, the first thing I would suggest to him is that he not hire a coach with General Managing experience, because that tends not work out so well.
Just ask John Muckler.

Both the NBA and the NHL had horrible television ratings for their finals. The finals in the NBA topped out at a 6.9 million share out of the 113 million television households in the United States. To make sense of that number just think that the LOWEST ranked NFL game last year was the 2nd Monday Night Game of the opening weekend (San Diego vs the Raiders) - after the Opening Thursday game, the Sunday day and night games, and after the 1st Monday Night Football game – and that was only available on Cable and was watched by 7.9 million households. As to the NHL television ratings in the USA, let’s just say that if Chris, Brad and I drove to Buffalo and watched the finals in a bar we might just have doubled the national ratings.

What is the answer for these two leagues? Well Don Cherry has the answer.
(Note to Don. There is NASCAR and then there is Demolition Derby.
NASCAR has millions of fans and commands a huge television audience.
Demolition Derby is a staple of county fairs all across the south.
Sometimes the Demolition Derby winner gets to take home the winning purse of a basket of homemade biscuits with chittlin’s.
NASCAR winners fly home in their private jets with millions of dollars in prize money and endorsements.
More fighting turns the game of hockey into Demolition Derby, not NASCAR.)

THE HAMILTON STEELERS? THE HAMILTON STINKERS?
THE HAMILTON notMAPLELEAFS?

What will Blackberry Billionaire call his new toy, formerly known as the Nashville Predators? I know there are a lot of people out there who think that the Leafs will never allow a team within their NHL mandated ‘Competition Zone’. Well that was until a man with some big stones walked into the picture. As soon as Jim Balsillie worked out a deal in principle with Preds owner Craig Leipold, who got tired of losing money, to pay a whopping $220 million for the team - which was only valued at $111 million in 2004 - did you notice the announcement from the Federal Governments Competition Bureau regarding NHL Non-Compete clauses. Must be something of a coincidence right?
Balsillie is overpaying for the team in order to pave the way for a move into Southern Ontario. No way is Leipold leaving $220 million on the table no matter what the NHL Board of Governors says. And will the owners of the Atlanta Thrashers or the Tampa Bay Devil Rays object to the sudden increase in the value of their team? Will they give back the millions of dollars they stand to gain from a television deal in an area that is crazy about Hockey? Get ready Leaf fans, yet another team in southern Ontario will get to the Cup Finals before the Leafs do.

And Finally….







Is Tiger on the clear?????
And will his nipples just remain erect indefinitely?