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I really ought to just have one post in which I stick all of the budget related stuff. I should also make use of the tags, which I will start to do with this post. Anyway, from today’s Edmonton Sun:

Thanks to a Canadian dollar that’s trading at 94 cents US (up from an all-time low of 62 cents in 2002), a team that used to struggle to keep its head above water with a payroll in the low $30-million range is now budgeted for $45 million going into the season.

A team that used to get subsidy money from the NHL is now paying into the revenue sharing pot ($2.7 million US this year towards a fund that’s divided among the league’s trouble spots) and getting nothing out.

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Kevin Lowe’s spin machine is red lining, as indicated by this quote in the Edmonton Journal:

“Quite frankly, I’m a little perturbed we’re having to defend this, [the Oilers draft record]” said Lowe, who let it be known that one of the deals he was working on until the 11th hour would have seen the Oilers move up to the No. 2 spot.

“Statistically this team, since our regime took over, has had seven first round picks and we have 18 players in the NHL. The highest is 22.

“We have had a lot of good picks.”

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Matt Fenwick had an excellent piece at his site about the recent trade of the rights to Scott Hartnell and Kimmo Timonen from the Nashville Predators to the Philadelphia Flyers.  For the purposes of this comment, I’m going to assume that what Nashville really did was grant Philadelphia a right to talk contract with Timonen and Hartnell, on the basis that if they came to terms, Nashville would receive a first round pick in exchange for their rights.  While I disagree with a few points, there’s a more important issue there, I think.

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Eric Duhatschek has a nice quote from Lowe on his blog at the Globe and Mail:

Lowe, for one, said he passed on Cherepanov at No. 15 because of the uncertainty over the transfer agreement between the NHL and the Russian federation and made an interesting point: That if a young Russian gets too good too soon, a handful of Superleague teams can actually offer them more money than if they played in the NHL’s entry-level system, which is governed by the cap. The fear of “wasting” a pick played on his mind, but he was also prepared to look at Cherpanov at No. 21 if he dropped that far.

If the Oilers had cited hockey reasons for not picking him, well, I don’t know enough about the prospects to say that they were wrong.  Now that it’s clear that it was just the transfer agreement…geez.  As to his point, whil ethe SuperLeague teams can offer them more money guaranteed, entry level players can do well with bonuses in the NHL - I seem to recall Crosby and Ovechkin pulling in $3MM in bonuses.  Additionally, Cherepanov has apparently said repeatedly that he wants to come to the NHL and, assuming he’s not a moron, he would have to understand that once he’s done his entry level contract, he’ll make more in the NHL than anywhere else if he’s a star.  Indefensible move on the Oilers part.

That’s it for me…Kevin Lowe’s two weeks of redemption are not off to a good start.

9:47 EST: Patrick White goes to Vancouver. Apparently you can’t get a haircut in Tri-Cities.

9:46 EST: Does Sutter even speak English? Jesus. Duthie gets in a nice jab about the Keenan/Healy relationship which I think is best described as “poisonous.” This guy that Calgary picked seems to have said that Vinny Prospal is the best player in the NHL, although I suspect I may have misheard that.

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This story seems to have slipped through the cracks but it provides an interesting look at the police tactics in Edmonton last year during the Finals.

Aside from providing clear statistics, the arrest records — released in April — allow a quickly-scrawled, sometimes barely legible look at what arresting officers were thinking.For example, on June 17, a 21-year-old man was yelling: “Shirts off for Horcoff!” at women on Whyte Avenue near 107th Street. According to an arrest form, officers warned him he could be arrested, and he yelled, “I was only arrested for yelling, ‘Shirts off for Horcoff!’”

The arresting officer noted, “I believed (this was a) deliberate attempt to inflame group. No force used other than escort hold.”

I’m still amazed that there haven’t been any actions against the police for the way that they went about controlling the city - according to this story, on June 17, 2006, the police arrested 386 people, of whom 2 were charged.  The FLQ Crisis is kind of seen as a major black mark in Canadian history and 62 of the 497 people arrested were charged with crimes then.  This isn’t my legal area, so I’m hardpressed to comment authoritatively on it, but I’m more than a little surprised that shouting “Shirts off for Horcoff” is an arrest worthy offence in Edmonton.

This is just something that I’ve thought worthy of mention, given Jim Balsillie’s decision to take a run at purchasing the Predators and, supposedly, move them to beautiful downtown Hamilton. There’s been a lot of discussion about the clause in the lease that the Predators have with the City of Nashville that permits the lease to be broken if the Predators aren’t able to average 14,000 tickets per game.

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Daryl Katz has apparently upped his offer to purchase the Oilers from $145MM to $150MM.  There isn’t a lot of news other than that in the latest Journal story but I wonder - how does a guy make an offer like that if he hasn’t had a chance to examine the team’s books and get an idea of what their revenues and expenses look like?  I’m the furthest thing that there is from a corporate lawyer or monacle wearing financier but it would seem to me that he’d have to some idea of what the Oilers finances are like before buying the team.  If that’s true, one would assume that EIG is perhaps a little less the disinterested third party, fighting off a guy trying to give them money for their team than they might have you believe.

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People reading this site may be familiar with Terence Corcoran, a National Post writer. His biography provides the following information:

As a journalist, Mr. Corcoran has been writing on business and economic policy matters for most of the past 35 years, bringing a free-market perspective to Canadian economic and political affairs. He won awards for news reporting in 1976 and editorial writing in 1984. He was co-author of Public Money Private Greed, a best selling book on the a major Canadian real estate scandal surrounding the collapse of three Ontario trust companies in 1982.

Sounds like a heavy hitter. This isn’t one of the usual guys I kick around unfairly, a sports writer who really has no experience or background with business issues. He’s a serious media guy. Unfortunately, he’s apparently shockingly out of his depth when it comes to the NHL.

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There were a couple of interesting stories floating around the internets on Sunday.  First, this from the Buffalo News:

Owner Tom Golisano says the only way the Buffalo Sabres can max out on the salary cap and break even on next season’s bottom line would be by advancing to the second round of the playoffs.

I assume that he’s talking in terms of a $48MM cap, which seemed to be the consensus as of Sunday morrning.  Now, think about that from an Edmonton perspective.  According to the Globe and Mail, as of January 31, 2007 the Oilers were pulling down $355,000 US more per game in ticket sales than the Sabres and Buffalo was selling out.  Over 41 home games, that’s $14.6MM US more than Buffalo.  I can’t imagine where Buffalo would make it up - I’ve been there and there’s just no way that they have significant revenue streams that the Oilers don’t.  Now Edmonton’s cost structure isn’t going to be the same as Buffalo’s - I’m sure that the Oilers spend more on travel and people’s relatives than Buffalo - but at the same time, two rounds of the playoffs isn’t worth $14.55MM US, particularly in Buffalo.  It’s a vague quote - two rounds of the playoffs means somwhere between 4 and 8 home games but no matter what angle you look at things from, it’s hard to come to any conclusion other than the Oilers are a pretty wealthy team at the moment.
The other one that intrigued me was Larry Brooks’ column from the New York Post about the salary cap going up to $52MM but that one will require its own post, I think.