The Biggest Grift Yet

With apologies to author Michael Lewis and publisher WW Norton for using this lede photo, I think both Jason and I have been very clear that the NHL is one massive bubble in terms of its economic forecast. I'm not saying they're close to financial disaster, but everything they're doing seems to have them on that track. Of course, there are thousands of people whose lives will be affected if and when that bubble bursts, but that matters not to anyone associated with the NHL because that organization will live to play another day. Here's the next chapter of the NHL's certain doom.

There are all sorts of financial instruments one can use to make money. Whether it be the age-old guaranteed investment certificate (GIC) or something with more risk associated such as the stock market, the financial world seemingly works to dream up new ways to find money-making ideas. Banks, though, have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that they inform you of these risks associated with some of the investment products they offer, and this needs to be remembered as you read through the rest of this article.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 14, 2026, CME Group, "the world's leading derivatives marketplace", announced it will launch the world's first index-based hockey futures on September 28, pending regulatory review. If your head is spinning from that last sentence, you're likely not alone in that feeling.

All of those terms used by CME Group are meant to be somewhat confusing to non-finance people. A "derivative" is a financial product whose value is based on the price of another product. It's basically a bet that one makes on something else with the hopes that the initial product's value goes up. What sets that value can differentiate between products, but the understanding is that the derivative is a bet that the value of something else will improve over time. However, derivatives that bet against the success of an outcome is called "a short", and this where The Big Short joins the story.

If you watched The Big Short with Steve Carell, Christian Bale, and Ryan Gosling, you know that the main characters were shorting financial products called CDOs or collateralized debt obligations which are made up of a diverse set of assets - everything from corporate bonds to mortgage bonds to bank loans to car loans to credit card loans can be in a CDO. The banks in the movie were packaging up subprime and risky mortgages into CDOs and selling them off with false ratings as to their financial risks, and our main characters figured that out and were betting AGAINST the success of these products improving in value. That's how we got "the big short".

What CME Group is creating with these index-based hockey futures is a market where people can invest large sums of money into the a team's index of statistics and overall performance in the hopes that the value of the team will increase based on some combination of values. Rather than betting on single games where winning can net a bettor money, the CME Group is offering a product that will allow one to bet on longer-term successes for each NHL team. If the team is succcessful and its index value goes up, you make money.

This is sports gambling on a whole new level. Creating a derivative based on a professional sports team's performance is not how these financial tools were supposed to be used. Not knowing what criteria is being used to determine the value of the index, and that's a major problem for anyone who believes that this derivative market could be used for positive monetary growth. As the SEC filing states,

"The Bruins Index moves up or down based on officially reported statistics from every game, match, or event throughout the regular season and postseason. Positive statistical actions (e.g., goals scored, points earned) add value to the index, while negative actions (e.g., opponent scoring, penalties or setbacks) subtract value. Poor statistical performance by the Boston Bruins could have a significant negative impact on the level of the Bruins Index and therefore the value of the Fund. In addition, unlike instruments that are based on tradable reference assets, the Bruins Index Futures Contracts and Bruins Index-Linked Instruments are tied to an index that is not directly investable and, thus, have settlement prices based on the calculation of that index, not the price of a tradable asset."

How does one invest in something where there is seemingly no set criteria for how the index value fluctuates? Some would call this investment "gambling", and I'm definitely one of those people.

That catch here is that investment firms won't have to call this new financial option "gambling" in any sense of the word because it's just like any other derivatives market and comes with its own set of risks. As long as they advise John Q. Public sitting across from them in their offices that these risks are possible, they have done their fiduciary duty while you, as a supporter of your favorite team, now have a vested interest in how they perform this season. You're not gambling; you're investing in the team's potential performance this season!

If this initial round of "index-based hockey futures" pays off for CME Group, there will be additional derivatives added that will consider the outcome of the initial derivatives. We'll go back to The Big Short film where Behavioral Economics Pioneer Dr. Richard H. Thaler and Selena Gomez explain how these synthetic derivatives work.
In this reference, Selena Gomez's $10 million bet is the investment into the Bruins Index-Linked Futures makret, and every bet after that is a bet on how well Gomez's investment performs. As Dr. Thaler illustrates, that initial investment is now worth billions of dollars.

Remember my comment about fiduciary responsibility above? Because investment firms only have to warn you of the risks associated with an investment like this, they've fulfilled their required fiduciary responsibility with respect to their client. If you go ahead, you assume the risk. The catch here is that you're basically investing in the outcome of sports games - goals scored and points earned vs. opponent scoring and penalties or setbacks - which is what everyone recognizes as gambling. It's just being called something else.

Let me be clear that the derivative market, when properly managed and scrutinized, can be an effective way to invest. It's certainly not for everyone when it comes to the markets on which these derivatives are based, but, for those who can afford risk in their portfolios, it can work to make one money. As with any investment, there are no guarantees for a return on the initial investment, but one can explore these options with a certified financial planner.

After spending two decades in finance, I would not be recommending this "index-based hockey futures" option to any client because it's simply sports gambling masquerading as an investment option. I see why some sports fans might prefer this option, but, as we all know, only "the house" gets rich when it comes to people gambling.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

ਰੋਜਰਸ: ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਵਿੱਚ ਹਾਕੀ ਦਾ ਖਾਤਮਾ

If you can read the title of today's article, you likely were a fan of Hockey Night In Canada's Punjabi broadcasts. The title is written in Punjabi, and it reads "Rogers: Killing Hockey In Canada" after they made the inexplicable decision to end the Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition broadcasts this season. After not renewing Kelly Hrudey's contract, selling off Wednesday nights to Amazon Prime, killing Hockey Night In Canada on CBC, and killing sports radio stations in both Vancouver and Calgary among a pile of job cuts, it's pretty clear that Rogers is only concerned about maximizing profits.

For those unaware, Harnarayan Singh, Randip Janda, and Bhupinder Hundal began planting the seeds for Punjabi hockey broadcasts back in 2008. They worked on demos they pitched to network executives for their broadcasts, but none of it took until CBC's Joel Darling invited Singh to broadcast from Hockey Day in Canada as CBC looked to add multiple language broadcasts to its programming that day. That opportunity turned into a chance to call the 2008 Stanley Cup Final, and CBC expanded the Punjabi broadcast to Saturday night doubleheaders the following season that saw Singh pay for his flights to Toronto from Calgary every weekend just to call games.

That led Janda and Hundal to push for more exposure at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver after the Rogers-owned OMNI was named as part of the Olympic consortium. They were given the chance to call one preliminary-round game for the Canadian men's team. That stretched to two, and then three, then four before "we eventually got to the point where we did all the men’s games right through to the gold medal, and we did basically all the Team Canada women’s games all the way through to the gold medal," Hockey Night Punjabi producer Nathen Sekhon told Sportsnet's Sonny Sachdeva.

In 2012, Hundal and Sekhon recruited Singh to join the broadcast team on OMNI for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, and it appeared that things were on the rise when Rogers Sportsnet acquired the Canadian broadcast rights for NHL hockey. The group pushed for more with NHL hockey being a Rogers' property, adn the stars would align shortly after when Sportsnet Pacific moved east to Toronto, leaving their studio vacant. Hundal and Sekhon convinced then-Sportnet president Scott Moore to allow them to launch Hockey Night Punjabi in that studio space, immeidately raising their profile and giving them a polished look for their broadcasts. They had a future!

For the Canadian Punjabi population that numbers just short of a million people, they make up 2.6% of the total population. The market is already small, so it's not like Rogers was looking at generating truckloads of cash with OMNI's broadcasts. Adding to the problems with getting national attention was the fact that OMNI, as a station, wasn't carried outside of specialty cable packages.

On May 15, 2017, the CRTC granted OMNI access to Canadian homes via basic cable packages, making it far more accessible. However, Shaw Communications applied to be exempt from that decision on June 29, 2017 for all households it serviced in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia where nearly half the Punjabi population in Canada lives. With OMNI based out of Vancouver originally, this decision had a massive effect on the availability of OMNI's broadcasts in those regions, but Hockey Night Punjabi pushed forward with its unique hockey broadcasts as expected thanks to Rogers' NHL rights.

There wouldn't be a change in Shaw's TV offerings until 2023 when Rogers bought Shaw Communications. With Shaw customers now under Rogers' umbrella, OMNI was introduced back to the channel options that had been not be available for years, but the damage had been done when it came to Hockey Night Punjabi's following as many Punjabi residents in western Canada simply had no access for years. As such, viewership was always lower than what could have been.

That brings us to today where Rogers Sportsnet announced that Hockey Night Punjabi would not be back for the 2026-27 season, citing that "the show's overall audience average was just 1,500 viewers, with more than half of all games averaging fewer than 1,000 viewers" as the reason for this decision. This is the end of years of hard work, dedication, passion, and a dream to bring hockey to the Punjabi community in their language after 18 years, snuffed out because Rogers likely saw it as red ink on their balance statement.

Forget that this was a hockey broadcast for a second and realize that this was a Rogers-created entity that had existed for nearly two decades on channels hardly available to anyone, and it still had a loyal following. Forget that it helped to promote Harnarayan Singh as a legitimate play-by-play hockey broadcaster who now finds himself calling games in English for Rogers Sportsnet. Forget that they had their own segments such as Meri Gal Sun ("Listen to me") - "basically, what your parents would say to you before they lecture you," Hundal explains - based on Punjabi culture. None of that mattered to Rogers when they looked at the books and saw that Hockey Night Punjabi simply wasn't a money-making property. Share prices matter, right?

It's amazing how Rogers can continue to be seen as a positive partner for hockey when it is doing irreparable damage to the game in Canada. There are no more over-the-air options nor streaming options on CBC with that network being removed as a broadcaster. There are no more Punjabi broadcasts to try and attract fans from that community. The quality of on-air talent is being diluted by letting accomplished analysts walk away in favour for cheaper, less talented analysts with some radio broadcasts no longer even existing in markets. When do we see Rogers actually INVEST in hockey?

The answer is likely "never" thanks to an $11 billion bill that will be amortized over the next twelve years. We've already seen them raise prices on their streaming services and sell off a day's worth of games to a competitor while raising prices on Blue Jays, Maple Leafs, and Raptors tickets, so don't expect the cuts to "extraneous expenses" to stop as Rogers tries to gets its financial house in order. Until this twelve-year anchor around their neck is gone, Rogers will simply cut, get rid of, and eliminate any property it doesn't see as profitable.

Rogers has done incredible damage to hockey since 2013, so maybe it should officially change its mission statement to "Killing Hockey In Canada". After all, that seems to be its intended goal with these cuts.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Hockey Show - Episode 725

The Hockey Show, Canada's only campus-produced radio show that strictly talks hockey, is back in the UMFM studios with all sorts of hockey stories that need discussing and examining. There are a handful of stories that once again cast shadows onto the sport, and we're not about to shy away from these stories because they have to be made part of the normal conversations if we're going to make a difference. There will be some tough stories to hear tonight along with our normal chatter about dumb stuff, so get yourself ready for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason will discuss a disturbing local hockey hazing story that saw a player lose his suspension appeal, an OHL team billet on trial for terrible crimes, Hockey Canada's acceptance of a decision made on five of its former players, the insanity surrounding the USHL franchise that is supposed to be expanding into Phoenix, an AHL team likely moving, an NHL getting radio back, the same team having its TV broadcast get worse, the horrible ending to a contest, and anything else we can squeeze into the hour! It should be a fast-paced show, so make sure you're set and ready for The Hockey Show at 5:30pm CT on one of 101.5 FM, Channel 718 on MTS TV, or via UMFM.com!

If you live outside Winnipeg and want to listen, we have options! The UMFM website's streaming player works well if you want to listen online. We also recommend Radio Garden if you need an easy-to-use online stream. If you're more of an app person, we recommend you use the TuneIn app found on the App Store or Google Play Store.

If you have questions, you can email all show queries and comments to hockeyshow@umfm.com! Tweet me anytime with questions you may have by hitting me up at @TeebzHBIC on Twitter! I'm here to listen to you, so make your voice heard! And because both Teebz and Jason are on the butterfly app where things are less noisy, you can find Teebz here and Jason here on Bluesky!

Tonight, Teebz and Jason chat about unremorseful players, criminal billets, codes of conduct, arena problems, relocation foreshadowing, radio noise, TV noise, bad jerseys, and much more exclusively on 101.5 UMFM and on the UMFM.com web stream!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Phoenix: Bad For Hockey?

As a retirement community, Phoenix, Arizona seems ideal. It's warm, there are lots of days of sunshine, and there always seems to be something to do while not being too far from other major centers like Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Phoenix, however, has had its share of problems when it comes to being a hockey destination as the WHA's Phoenix Roadrunners lasted from 1974-77, the IHL's Phoenix Roadrunners skated from 1989-97, and the Arizona Coyotes played in Phoenix from 1996-2003. As you can see, no one had a run that lasted longer than eight seasons inside Phoenix's city limits, and now it seems like the USHL will join the list of short-live Phoenix hockey franchises that tried and, ultimately, failed in the Arizona desert.

I'll tip my cap to Craig Morgan who is still covering hockey in and around Arizona as he filed an outstanding story on his Substack about the new USHL team set to play in Phoenix beginning in 2027-28. As you may recall, the Coyotes left Arizona for greener pastures in Salt Lake City, Utah after they couldn't get an arena deal done inside Phoenix, and now it seems that this expansion USHL venture is running into the same problems that the Coyotes found in Phoenix.

"I'm talking to various people to find a permanent location that does not exist," USHL Phoenix franchise owner Ben Robert said to Morgan yesterday. "To me, to have a metropolitan area that is the (10th) largest in the country and only have one mid-sized arena is kind of mind-boggling. So I'm talking to various people to see if there would be an opportunity to build one."

If you're thinking that this story sounds familiar, welcome to Phoenix. The Coyotes exhausted almost every possibility when it came to finding land for a new arena complex before being sold, and now we have another franchise owner looking to build an arena for a significantly less-profitable team in the USHL. Yes, the arena would be smaller, but the land needed for building said arena still hasn't materialized. It's almost like Phoenix isn't a hockey market!

"It's going to take a lot of heavy lifting," Robert added. "But we're looking for a permanent solution, while all the while looking for a temporary solution to play in while it is being built."

Read that stement from Robert again where "while looking for a temporary solution to play in" should jump off the screen. The USHL Phoenix franchise is set to begin operations next season, and they still don't have an arena secured for home games? What kind of farce is this? How is the USHL, as a league, ok with this information?

Making matters worse, "Robert said he needs to have an arena solution by mid-October, with the goal of building a venue in the 4,000-seat range," meaning that he's looking at a two-month window to get the USHL Phoenix team's affairs in order. As per Morgan, "[s]ources at Mullett Arena confirmed that Robert has not contacted them and there is significant doubt that the team would be viable and be able to afford using Mullett for a year or two" while Ice Den Scottsdale "doesn't have the ice availability or capacity needed to host the USHL team" and "the new Fire 'n' Ice facility in north Phoenix" has seating for just 800 people in its largest rink.

Based on this information, it seems USHL Phoenix is dead-on-arrival.

Everyone seems to believe that Ben Robert can solve this problem after he oversaw the building of Ralston Arena in Omaha as the owner of the USHL's Omaha Lancers and the Videotron Centre in Quebec City as part of the NHL expansion team there. What people don't remember are the details of those arena builds, sepcifically the one in Omaha where the USHL has a franchise and operates successfully.

Ralston, Nebraska had an "abandoned downtown golf course" in its suburb, and it was looking for some sort of development there. It didn't take long for Ralston to put the question to voters in a special election, and, in 2011, they voted to allow the arena to be built. $32 million and 15 months later, Ralston Arena opened for the first time.

In short, land was available, the city was motivated to develop it, and the price tag was just low enough for Ralston to spend the money. The problem, though, is that there are sorts of extra costs and amenities that hockey teams need, and it seems the City of Ralston didn't budget for any of that. Or ice resurfacers. Or a scoreboard. Those things are kind of important in hockey arenas.

Based on today's economic forecasts, Ben Robert is talking about a $50 million investment into junior hockey in Phoenix - a place where the NHL couldn't thrive. He wants to build a 4000-seat arena for a team who may not draw many fans in a city where the Coyotes couldn't make hockey work successfully. Make that make sense.

I have no issue with Ben Robert's ambition for this USHL expansion nor will I fault him if he's willing to gamble $50 million into an arena project that may not have a hockey team in a few years. Those decisions are entirely on him, and he'll have to live with those decisions even if it means his bank account heads towards insolvency. But not having an arena to play in while this arena dream is being formulated is complete insanity, and it points to an inconvenient truth about the Phoenix hockey market: Phoenix is not a hockey city.

Just because there's a TV market there doesn't make Phoenix a hockey market. Based on the lack of arenas and the current state of having no arena to play in, this USHL Phoenix team seems like it will be relocated before it ever plays a second of hockey in the USHL.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Shudder Island

Let's be honest right off the bat here in HBIC and say that this is the day that all of us have been waiting for since the New York Islanders announced their contest where anyone - fans, fashion designers, blind people, or players themselves - could design the Islanders' third jersey that they'll wear during the 2027-28 season. Today marked the day that the Islanders unveiled their eight finalists in their jersey design contest, and there was high hope that the new jerseys would be the best Islanders jersey in history. Of course, I may have set the bar a little high, so let's see what the Islanders gave us.

I'm going to look at each of these jerseys through an objective lens being that I own both a home and road Islanders jersey, a home Fisherman jersey, and a Stockton Thunder "Heritage Hockey" jersey from 2014 when the Thunder were an Islanders' affiliate. I'll also be conjuring the ghosts of the Bridgeport Islanders and that Islanders' Reverse Retro jersey when looking at the candidates, so let me be clear that I want to see original designs for this third jersey!

Without further adieu, let's check out these potential third jerseys!

NAVY LIGHTHOUSE: For as much of a fan as I am of the lighthouse logo, this jersey feels woefully incomplete. The lack of a shoulder yoke seems like an easy fix, but the teal colour isn't needed as a stripe. These are decent, but they could have been more.

JERSEY SCORE: ★★★☆☆

ORANGE LIGHTHOUSE: When did the Islanders become the Edmonton Oilers? Sure, there are minor differences, but this one is automatically disqualified for being an Oilers knockoff and for the awful 2014 Stadium Series shoulder logos. No orange jerseys.

JERSEY SCORE: ☆☆☆☆☆☆ (extra empty stars for awfulness)

NAVY FISHERMAN: This is the 2022-23 Reverse Retro, but the hemstripe is now a modified wave stripe. I do like the lighthouse shoulder patches, but the name and number fonts leaves a lot to be desired. These jerseys need more colour and contrast to have that Fisherman logo pop off the chest. On this jersey, it does not.

JERSEY SCORE: ★★☆☆☆

ORANGE FISHERMAN: We finally got some contrast, but there's just way too much orange here. I wanted a Fisherman jersey, not a beacon on the ice. Is that hemstripe supposed to be a wave? I'm getting Edmonton Oilers vibes off this jersey as well. Not good.

JERSEY SCORE: ★☆☆☆☆

NAVY NY LOGO: This jersey is all sorts of awful and it starts with that garbage logo. The contrast on the stripes is good, but no shoulder yokes nor shoulder patches make this jersey feel incomplete. As such, this jersey can show itself out of the contest. Hard "no" from me.

JERSEY SCORE: ☆☆☆☆☆

ORANGE NY LOGO: I should have said off the top that all Stadium Series jerseys in NHL history have been total garbage, and this proposed jersey follows those ill-conceived jerseys with only two colours, the awful NY logo, and a terrible orange base colour. Let me correct myself: this is the worst jersey of the bunch by far.

JERSEY SCORE: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (lots of extra empty stars)

NAVY WORDMARK: Where the heck is the logo? It's a stupid nickname jersey, not a New York Islanders jersey. Was the designer making knockoff jerseys for Wal-Mart and Target? The stripe contrasts are nice, but this is not an NHL-calibre jersey by any measure.

JERSEY SCORE: ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ (plenty of extra empty stars)

NAVY RUGBY: What the hell is this? Does this designer have a vested interest in rugby? The design is identical! This jersey commits the faux pas of having a chest stripe only on one side the jersey and the NY shoulder patches need to be outlawed. If the Islanders were a rugby team, they'd be ready for the pitch! Except they're not.

JERSEY SCORE: 🏉🏉🏉 (3/5 rugby balls)

Assuming that the Islanders received more than 80,000 submissions for their new third jerseys, these eight jerseys are some of THE WORST designs I have seen. And if you were paying attention while reading my scores, how is it that every front-facing jersey is wearing #62? Go back and look because it's not #26 based on the numbers that are visible. How did no one from the Islanders notice that detail?

Based on the jerseys chosen, it's clear that these alternate jerseys will only be worn at home since none of them have a white base colour. Frankly, the Islanders' white jerseys have, in my view, always looked better than the dark jerseys because the Islanders logo pops off the chest and has excellent contrast with the stripes. That was also true of the Fisherman jersey with its mix of colours and stripes, but I don't work for the Islanders when it comes to jersey design.

What I can tell you is that the eight designs above leave a lot to be desired. I get that the colour schemes and logos of the Islanders don't allow for a lot of variation when one is trying to come up with a snazzy third jersey, but there should have been an option for something other than navy and orange base colours. I took the liberty of desiging my own jersey which I kept upder wraps until now, so here's my design that the Islanders excluded from the final.

You might be thinking, "Teebz, those are just as bad as the jerseys above them," and you're entitled to your opinion. My thought process, however, was to recreate the arm and wave stripes in the same pattern as the background of the lighthouse logo, thereby tying the entire jersey together with the lighthouse logo being "on an island" in the middle of the jersey. I tried not to overthink this one.

I just don't see how any of the eight finalists they picked are remotely close to representing Long Island, the New York Islanders' history, nor the future of the franchise. I'd imagine these jerseys aren't one-and-done jerseys, but it sure feels like the Islanders are trying to make that happen with the eight finalists they chose. In any case, feel free to leave your takes in the comments below. I'm curious to see what people think of the finalists, but feel free to add your critique my jersey design if you like. I can handle it.

Based on my love for the Fisherman jersey, my design might be the ninth-best design shown here! Either way, Long Island is becoming Shudder Island with these frighteningly bad third jersey options.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!