Zero Creativity

From what I've gathered, the logo to the left is the logo used by the city of Hamilton, Ontario on its letterheads and on official documents. I have no way of verifying this as I have no official documents from Hamilton, but it seems reasonable to assume that this logo would be the city's chosen graphical representation. Knowing how important a logo is for any business, one would assume that those businesses seeking a new image would aim for a great logo. With the AHL's Bridgeport Islanders moving into Hamilton next season, they also needed a new team name on which that logo can be based, and it seems the AHL franchise has chosen three potential team names as finalists.

I made the case back on March 31 that they could ressurect the Hamilton Tigers name as the AHL franchise would pay respects to the NHL team that existed from 1920-25, and it would work well with the city's CFL team who are the Tiger-Cats. It's clear that they can't be the Islanders any longer since they're not on an island, but they conceivably could be the Islanders since Bridgeport was mostly on solid land as a city. In any case, I was hoping they'd go with "Tigers".

According to today's trademark filings, they will not use that name.

Hamilton Mustangs

The first trademark that was filed was for "Mustangs" which seems like a complete sellout considering that the fictional Ontario Hockey League team in the 1986 movie Youngblood were the Hamilton Mustangs. With the new Youngblood movie featuring the same team, I assume the AHL franchise owners thought they could cash in with this name somewhat being in the pop culture spectrum. To me, this is pandering to the easiest name. I know it worked for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, but the fictional teams names can remain fiction.

For the record, Hamilton did have an OHL team in 1986 called the Steelhawks who, in 1996, became the Erie Otters after a stop in Niagara Falls. The Mustangs were never a Hamilton-based OHL team.

Hamilton Havoc

Ok, this name has a little more creativity, but this isn't a unique name by any means as the SPHL's Huntsville Havoc should be filing a cease-and-desist when it comes to this name being used. I can see the owners wanting the alliteration of "Hamilton Havoc" where they can emphasize both words, but I think of Huntsville when I hear "Havoc hockey". It'll take some time for that to change in my brain.

Hamilton Hammers

For a city that is commonly referred to as "The Hammer", using "Hammers" as the team name seems a little derivative. The sports headlines will write themselves with this name, so it makes me wonder why they wouldn't have gone for "Mjölnir" as the name while using Norse god Thor as a mascot. Maybe this imagery was too close to that of the ECHL's Adirondack Thunder, but having the mightiest hammer would set them apart from other teams. Marvel may contest my choice of name and its images, but having players skate out to MC Hammer saying "It's Hammer time" would be an interesting twist.

Ok, so those three names aren't great by any means, so there has to be other ones. I mentioned Tigers and I do like Steelhawks, but it was suggested on a Reddit thread that the team should be called "Lakers" in honour of freighters that cross the Great Lakes and use Hamilton as a port city. I'm not sure the logo would be very inspiring based on the linked image, but "Lakers" could be a team name option as well.

A fun name could be "Isotopes" which would ruin the theme night that the Springfield Thunderbirds hold, but McMaster University produces medical-grade isotopes used to treat cancer! As McMaster's website states, the isotopes produced at the Hamilton-based university are used for "treatment for more than 70,000 cancer patients every year" around the world! Could the AHL franchise be the Hamilton Isotopes?

While the three names highlighted above will likely end up as the franchise's new name, Hamilton clearly has alternate options as good or better than the three they chose to trademark. We know they won't be the Islanders which means that the Fisherman logo can be used by the New York Islanders again if they chose, so I'm hoping these three names were trademarked to throw people who were hunting for a scoop off the trail because those are terrible names.

I had high hopes that Hamilton would get a great team name and logo to use, but it doesn't seem like The Hammer will nail this one.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

A New Position Created

I try not to be too cynical about hockey's hiring practices, but there are often times where it seems like certain people were hired just because someone wants to reward that person for loyalty. We can talk about the nepotism that exists with guys like Scotty and Stan Bowman working for the Blackhawks and Dick and Chris Patrick managing the Capitals, but there seems to be a lot of times where owners simply create a position out of the blue for a legendary player or loyal player who played for the team. That seemingly happened today over in Russia as the KHL's Shanghai Dragons has new members of their front office staff after some position changes went down.

Shanghai missed the playoffs this season after playing the campaign in St. Petersburg for the vast majority of their home games, so it was expected there would be changes. In fact, Shanghai finished in ninth-place in the Western Conference in the eleven-team conference, but they finished 25 points back of the final playoff spot held by Spartak Moscow. That's how bad Shanghai, Lada and, Sochi were this season!

As a result of this finish, Dragons general manager Igor Varitsky was shown the door by ownership. Despite having Adam Clendening, Kevin LaBanc, Alex Burmistrov, and Austin Wagner on their roster, the Dragons under head coaches Gerard Gallant and Mitch Love finished with a 21-35-12 record for 54 points. Clearly, the owners of the Dragons thought the roster wasn't good enough, so the architect of that roster was dismissed today with Varitsky being fired.

The vacancy lasted entirely until Varitsky cleaned out his office because the Dragons named Evgeny Artyukhin as the new general manager today. Artyukhin spent 199 games in the NHL with Tampa Bay, Anaheim, and Atlanta before returning to Russia and the KHL from 2010-22 where he played for eight different teams. He had been working as a European scout for the Vegas Golden Knights before this management position opened up, and Artyukhin will now return to the city where he played four seasons for SKA St. Petersburg.

If you're wondering what management experience Artyukhin has when it comes to contracts and running a team, the answer is absolutely none. Artyukhin retired in 2022 after splitting the season between Admiral Vladivostok and Nizhnekamsk Neftekhimik, so it's not like he's been working in front offices learning the hockey management trade or attending management and law school over the last four seasons.

His appointment, however, didn't raise as many eyebrows as the next one did because it seems the Shanghai Dragons are only hiring former SKA St. Petersburg players. There might be a reason for this as well.

According to the news on their website, the Dragons decided to appoint former NHL and KHL sniper Ilya Kovalchuk as President of the Shanghai Dragons! This would be the same Ilya Kovalchuk who officially retired from hockey last season after notable stints with the Atlanta Thrashers, New Jersey Devils, and SKA St. Petersburg. Appointing him as the president of a hockey team that hired a general manager with no experience should mean good things lie ahead for the Shanghai Dragons, right? What could possibly go wrong?

"This is a very exciting challenge for me," Kovalchuk wrote in the press release posted to the Dragons' website today. "I am grateful for the opportunity to become part of the Shanghai Dragons and to help build a competitive team that fans can be proud of."

I know this is the KHL so there won't be any reporters questioning Kovalchuk on how they plan on building this competitive team, but seeing Kovalchuk and Artyukhin hired by the Dragons - who play in St. Petersburg - shouldn't surprise anyone in knowing that oligarch Gennady Timchenko is one of the key people in SKA St. Petersburg's operations. He's currently estimated to be Russia's sixth-richest man.

The Chairman of the KHL's Board of Directors played a key role in Shanghai's move from Mytishchi Arena outside of Moscow to St. Petersburg, so it seems very convenient that two former SKA players with zero management experience were given lofty positions with the Dragons. I can honestly say it wasn't due to their vast hockey knowledge or experiences. I can't see them making Shanghai more competitive next season in any way with their lack of experience.

I don't write much about the KHL because most of the problems they have are self-inflicted, but hiring two guys who have no experience to put together a championship roster for a team that missed the playoffs by 25 points is simply ludicrous. I get that Kovalchuk and Artyukhin are likely pro-Kremlin in their political views which makes them ideal management candidates for Gennady Timchenko based on his political friends, but this egregious cronyism is just ridiculous.

Best of luck to the Shanghai Dragons. They're gonna need it.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

HBIC Summer Project Announcement

Every year on HBIC, I try to come up with a project that will incorporate summer into hockey a little more than usual. I've done a series on women who played both baseball and hockey, I cover a lot of hockey history throughout the summer, and I have covered field hockey at multiple Summer Olympiads, but this year's HBIC Summer Project will take me on the road. This project sadly won't involve The Tragically Hip, but it could be a lot of fun if I can make it work.

Throughout Manitoba, there are large statues in a number of communities. People often stop and take photos with these statues as they travel through Manitoba, but there are a vast number of them that should be documented and discussed. That's what I plan on doing this summer - hitting the road and exploring Manitoba on day trips to all these little towns and municipalities with iconic statues!

To make this a little more HBIC in its push, I'll also seek out the arena or local rink where players gather, and I'll document any significant hockey players who have come from those towns. I'm aware that not all of them will have well-known names, but I'll be looking for any and all hockey stories that involve the town and its citizens as well. I want to find these untold stories from places people should know!

Lastly, I'll be giving a local restaurant a bump as well as I will enjoy a meal in these eateries so you get an idea of where to stop if you want to retrace my steps. There are lots of mom-and-pop greasy spoons and hole-in-the-wall diners that deserve a little recognition for laying down roots in these communities, and I'll pay them my respects by dining at these establishments. Expect reviews of the meal and the food joint at the end of every one of these Summer Project articles!

Where did this idea come from, you ask?

Well, if you were around in the 1990s, "Another Roadside Attraction" was a concert series that toured across Canada that featured a ton of great artists and was headlined by The Tragically Hip. In 1997, it was just outside my backyard as the concert landed at Assiniboia Downs in Winnipeg, and my backyard was just across the highway from the horse racing track. The Hip headlined as stated above, but they were joined by Sheryl Crow, Wilco, Los Lobos, Ron Sexsmith, Ashley MacIsaac, and Change of Heart. In short, it was an incredible concert.

If you're wondering, yes, all those linked songs were heard that day.

Back to the idea itself, I have been wanting to travel more in the summer. I love a good road trip, and this seemed like a great idea to get out and explore the province a little more. I may be limited by gas prices based on how things are going, but there's no time like the present to do a little exploring in my "backyard" here in Manitoba. By combining that with hockey and these iconic statues, I should have a lot "to write home about" when documenting my adventures!

I plan on starting this in May, so keep an eye on this blog for these updates. My hope is to have one town or municipality with a statue featured every week throughout the summer with weather and gas prices pending, but I'll do my best to get out to some of these amazing towns and talk about why you should be visiting them during your next Manitoba road trip. Buckle up because this will be fun!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Cannot Generate Emotion

How about that comeback tonight from the Buffalo Sabres? That was a heckuva rally in the third period with three goals in a 4:34 span that moved Buffalo from a 2-0 deficit to a 3-2 lead in a game they won 4-3. News stories are already being written about it. Sportswriters are already hammering away at their keyboards... or so we believe. I say that because tonight's victory for Buffalo was fifteen years in the making, meaning that there should be a ton of passionate writers and bloggers talking about how much this victory means to the city of Buffalo, to themselves, and to the team. However, Steven Levy has me wondering how much writing is being done by people when it comes to these stories.

Levy is a longtime tech journalist who writes and publishes pieces for Wired. I find his pieces grounded in common sense and practical wisdom, but with an optimism that humanity and technology can work together. In his April 17 piece titled "AI Drafting My Stories? Over My Dead Body", Levy pulls back the curtain on how finance and tech writers are using AI more and more to generate the basis of their stories that are published. In the article, he writes,

"Last month, my colleague Maxwell Zeff wrote about writers who unapologetically generate at least some of their prose via unbylined AI collaborators. The star of his piece was Alex Heath, a tech reporter who said he routinely has AI write drafts based on his notes, interview transcripts, and emails. That same week, The Wall Street Journal profiled Fortune reporter Nick Lichtenberg, who explained to the paper that he leans heavily on AI to churn out his work. He has written 600 stories since July; on one day this past February, he had seven bylines."

Now you might be saying, "Teebz, these finance and tech reporters can do what they want because sports is different," but is it? Can AI-generated stories capture the passion, the exhilaration, and the emotion seen in Buffalo when the final horn sounded after fifteen years of heartbreak and disappointment? Can the human element be replicated by something that feels no emotions or has bias?

Levy writes, "Those relying on 'AI-assistance' claim that these stories are not replacing the work of stylists, but are put to use only in cases where the reader simply wants to consume information, be it a scoop or description of some development. All people want is the facts."

Facts are all fine and dandy when one is building a foundation for a story, but that is a terrible way to report about how a playoff victory came 5473 days after Buffalo's last playoff game and how much it meant so much to a city and its fanbase. AI cannot accurately convey those feelings because it hasn't lived through that heartbreak.

Give me the writers who have had to follow this team for a decade without playoff hockey. Give me fan accounts of how important this game and win was. Give me players' quotations and perspective on their victory. Give me all the stories that Buffalo has in seeing their team rally for a win when it seemed like Boston was in control.

Levy comes to this conclusion in his article, writing, "... because AI doesn’t live in the actual world, or have actual human experiences, no matter what it writes, or how clever it may be, or how much it takes on the voice of a singular flesh-and-blood writer, it can only play a partial role in human expression" which is absolutely true.

In no way can AI replicate the human emotional experience of being a Sabres fans and knowing how it feels to see this team rally from a 2-0 score to win the game in the third period. Yes, factually, it can talk about stats and numbers of how many times the Sabres have done that this season, but AI isn't sitting in the stands watching the Sabres make core memories for fans who have never witnessed a playoff game in Buffalo. That's where sportswriters play their role.

Let me be clear that I have not seen a Buffalo Sabres story about tonight's game that seems like it was generated by artificial intelligence. I chose that game as the example because of Buffalo's situation when it came to their fans' clear excitement over seeing a playoff game for the first time in fifteen years. Combine that with their incredible comeback and victory, and this game had all the right emotional markers that would make it impossible for AI to come close to describing the game in comparison to some great Buffalo reporters like Lance Lysowski and Mike Harrington of The Buffalo News.

Maybe it's best to end this examination of AI-generated stories with the quotation with which Levy began his article. It reads, "Sportswriting legend Red Smith once said that writing a column is easy: 'All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.'" Hockey is a sport played by men and women who are falliable, quotable, emotional, and logical, and we need those perspectives to keep the game real. Your words bring the game to life every time you write.

If you're a sports reporter, the blood, sweat, and tears matter to the people who are reading your work. Don't give in to the easy solution of letting AI generate your content. As Steven Levy summed up nicely in the last paragraph of his article, "... we will all be impoverished by the loss of the human voice. Not to mention the soul."

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Luck Favours The Prepared

By now, everyone has heard the comments made by various Winnipeg Jets as they cleaned out their lockers, and it seemed like there general consensus that the Jets have to get younger and faster. Whether that happens will be seen in the future, but there was a good display of how old and slow plays against younger and faster tonight as the Minnesota Wild opened their series against the Dallas Stars by punching them square in the mouth via their 6-1 win. This game was over before the halfway point with Minnesota building a 4-0 lead, but what surprised me was how the Wild made the Stars look much slower on the ice comparatively.

In short, Dallas could be in real trouble in this series.

Of course, it's just one game and this series isn't anywhere close to being over, but the Minnesota Wild looked like they had been shot of a cannon comparably to Dallas. It's said that teams have to be good to lucky, and we saw Minnesota get a couple of goals in that fashion that had the Stars reeling. If the hockey gods were smiling on Minnesota today, it's likely because they won a ton of puck battles, they were first to a lot of loose pucks, and they kept Dallas on their heels with their forecheck and speed. This wasn't lost on the Stars.

"First 30 minutes, we didn't win enough battles," Dallas Stars forward Mikko Rantanen told Taylor Baird of NHL.com. "They were just that little bit stronger in the battles and that's why they were able to make us defend more than we want to. Just got to be stronger."

Dallas head coach Glen Gulutzan also made mention of losing battles.

"When you're not winning anything and you're not winning your races, you're not winning your 50-50s, you put yourself at risk for what happened," Gulutzan explained to the gathered reporters in the postgame press conference. "Deflections, a shot from the half-wall that goes off a guy and goes in, one from behind the net. Because you're in vulnerable spots because you're not winning battles. Like I said, to a man I think we can all be better in that area."

Stars defenceman Miro Heiskanen tried to sum up what needs to happen in Game Two, saying, "Have to play a little harder, close the gaps a little quicker, and not give them that much time. I think those are the keys. It's a long series."

On the other side, Minnesota Wild head coach Jon Hynes spoke of his team's preparation as a key leading into this first playoff game.

"We prepped for a couple days coming into this one," Hynes said of his team after their Game One win. "Now, we will gather information from this game and continue to move forward. For me, it’s game to game and day to day. We want to continue to get better. We won and they lost. It's not so much being satisfied where you're at or that's what it is. We need to continue to find ways to get better."

If there are things that don't need to be improved in any major way, Minnesota's transition defence was on display for sixty minutes as they continually caused Dallas headaches. When Dallas came down the ice, there was zero room to manoeuver, resulting in turnovers and Dallas having to retreat. Speed, positioning, and understanding the assignment gave Dallas fits in getting down the ice today.

Minnesota moved the puck very well in all three zones, and they rarely struggled to find space on the ice. Dallas missed assignments, Dallas missed both stick- and bodychecks, and Dallas chased the puck far too often. How does Joel Eriksson Ek stand so open on the power-play in the middle of the slot twice, resulting in two goals? How does Kirill Kaprizov not get pasted into the boards every time he touches the puck? Dallas has to mind the details to win in this series!

Dallas will get set for Monday night's Game Two by focusing on the details that they clearly ignored today. I expect the Stars to finish checks, drive the Minnesota net more, and pay attention to defensive assignments. On the flip side, though, Minnesota will take today's game as the first step they need to get to the second round, continue to play at a high level, and focus on making Dallas's trip to St. Paul less fun by taking both games in Dallas. Game Two should be intense!

Like the St. Louis-Winnipeg series last year, whoever wins this series may come out worse for wear based on the bumps and bruises they'll sport. Minnesota is 25% of the way there with their big win tonight, but they still need three more against a team that has played in the Western Conference Final in the last two seasons. Expect a tougher Dallas team to clock-in on Monday for Game Two of this series!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!