Owner Paranoia Has Players Pressured

Apparently, Richard Farley is tired of listening to the same record, though he ironically keeps purchasing it.

And if that’s too tangled of a metaphor, allow me to explain.

In each of the last two seasons, San Diego (soon to be San Francisco) Aviators’ owner Richard Farley has seen his team stumble to the RHL regular season finish line. Last season, it led to a sweep at the hands of the Winnipeg Freeze in the first round of the playoffs. This season, the Aviators are on a collision course for a first round matchup with those same Manitobans. The team has won two in a row but went winless in their preceding ten contests and have little to recommend they will offer much resistance to a playoff team capable of decent play. In line for another early playoff exit, Farley and the Aviator fans will again have something to regret.

It’s too bad that Farley is the person who puts the team in this uneviable position each season, forcing him and his staff to listen to that record of defeat and disappointment before each offseason’s activities.

Before each season, the Aviators acquire a series of players who seem to improve the team’s likelihood of success in the impending season. Last season it was a series of defensemen: Phillipe Boucher, Daryl Sydor, in addition to trading for forward Jaromir Jagr. But all those players were gone before the playoffs as the Aviators pleaded rebuilding in the road to a first round exit in the low-level playoffs.

This season Farley, saying he did not want to go through a season like last season’s, brought in his advertised Big Three: Chris Drury, Mathieu Schneider, and Shane Doan. Doan is already gone, and a series of other sell-offs have taken place, including the trades of Wes Walz and Pierre Dagenais. And again, look where the Aviators are, tripping toward the finish line with seemingly little hope in the playoffs.

The worst part about this scenario: it’s a viable strategy, especially for a team that has little short-term reason to cultivate a fanbase. Were the Aviators sticking around in San Diego, the sell-off of talent and punting of the playoffs might disenfranchise a few of the team’s loyalists. But who cares if some San Diegan doesn’t want to follow the team anymore. With the team in San Francisco, it won’t matter. Punting the playoffs again will yield no negative repercussions for the franchise.

I say again because last season the team was able to use the dissolution of the two league system as a shroud to hide behind, justifying their sell-off. With the second-tier playoffs inconsequential, why not build toward the future?

Last season an excuse, this season a different excuse. Will next season yield a different but new excuse? Who knows. Probably? It’s impossible to know, with this organization.

Particularly frustrating is knowing that Farley and assistant general manager Andy Bartalone are not dumb people, even if their actions are a little baffling. At some point, for all the positioning and jockeying you want to do with the team’s transactions and finances, what you do on the ice matters. And when the games matter most, in the playoffs, you need to represent your organization the best.

Yes, the Aviators are at least making the playoffs, which is a step forward. Against the Freeze, they seem unlikely to be swept, though you never know. They could get swept. They could advance to the second round. It’s anybody’s guess. At least, once their first sixty-six games are done, they will still have a chance at the title. Again, this is more than could be said last season.

The product on the ice is undoubtedly better this season than it was as the same time last. Just the names are better: Drury, Schneider, Turco. Last season, the team started Fred Brathwaite in the playoffs and eventually named Derek Armstrong their season most valuable player. Undoubtedly, strides are being made.

You just have to wonder what the team would do when they actually try to win.

If they ever actually try and win.

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Farley walked out of this team’s locker room Wednesday morning, headed toward the ice to oversee the team’s morning skate. The tension constricting his forehead and jaw brought a determined anger to his face, an anger that radiated throughout the building. It tightened the legs of his players, the men who have just won two straight games but saw in their coach’s face the expectations cast upon them. Not this year. Not again, they know.

He decided in the offseason that he never wanted to go through it again. Swept out of the playoffs, where half the games weren’t competitive. And it was in the lower division, too. They weren’t even playing for anything. After spending more of the year near the top of the table. Swept out of the first round. The playoffs, one season after relegation, another bitter disappointment.

It’s not the players’ performance that’s causing the tension in Farley’s face. True, if they were winning more games, he would not be as tightly wounded, a tightness the players sense in every plane trip to-and-front games. They sit at the front of the plane, quiet, for fear that too much noise will be misconstrued by their coach as lack of regard for the team’s dire situation. He sits at the back, clipboard in hand, watching clips from the last game on his iPod. His thumb hits the controls. He puts it down, picks up a blue felt pen, and scribbles on the dry-erase part of the board. He’ll look up every once in a while, stare at one of his players.

He doesn’t examine them. He wonders. Are they hurting as much as he is. Probably not. They have to deal with the losing just like he does. But he also has to deal with the fact that he puts them in position to lose. He knows he authorized the trades. He knows he restricted the budget. There’s only so much he can home Drury and Schneider can do when he doesn’t give them anything to work with. So he keeps looking at tape, playing with line combinations, analyzing the next opponent, trying to make up for all the transactions with some brilliant coaching move that will cover his own ass. Because if they lose badly in the playoffs in RHL16, just like they lost badly in the playoffs in RHL17, nobody is going to blame Drury or Schneider.

His face carries that pressure in his forehead and jawline. The tension. The tension that carries itself like waves into the building. The players have to feel it. They feel it before Farley even shows it. The team has always been a reflection of his personality, even when the names on the back of the sweaters read Jagr and Stevens. The coach, the owner has always been infectious, which is why the pressure he puts on himself puts pressure on them.

Nobody talks about it because nobody’s been around to really know it. The longest tenured players have only been here a couple of seasons. They don’t know how they’re being effected. To them, it’s just a losing streak. It’s just a bad position for the team to be in, having lost a lot of their best players. But to anybody who’s followed the Aviators, it’s obvious. Farley’s fear of failure, of repeated failure, is getting to them, a cycle of poor performance-to-paranoia-to-poorer performance that has stung the Aviators before.

If there’s a team that has more pressure on it than the Aviators, help them, because San Diego’s walking a very fine line between a team with some adversity and a team that’s about to snap. Farley, knowing he’s put his team in this position, continues to press.

More pressing. More pressure.

Spartans New Look: 300?

Jun added a new image to the header of his blog. It reminds me of the movie 300.

Did anybody see it? I know Andy did. We talked about it. We had divergent opinions on it. Andy liked it. I thought it wasted my time. I saw it with a girl who thought it was good. Most people I’ve talked to thought it was good.

Aviators Enjoy Cleveland

The Aviators snapped a ten game winless streak with a Friday night victory over the Chicago Capones. Back to the road for a Tuesday night game in Cleveland, the team took a day off to enjoy their return to Cleveland for the first time in two seasons.

Doug Deutsch, the owner of the Cleveland Crusades, left the RHL two seasons ago only to find himself returning to the league with a new franchise for RHL16. The Falcons, like two of the three other expansion teams, find themselves headed to the playoffs in their first year, a season which is likely to be their worst in a long time. Next season the team will see the start of the Sidney Crosby era, who will join Paul Kariya, Dainus Zubrus, and Milan Hejduk in one of the more skilled groups of forwards in the league. With young star goaltender Rick Dipietro in goal, the future appears bright for the Falcons.

That future has generated a palpable excitement around the city. Cleveland has gone through a series of sports resurgences in recent years, starting with the opening of Jacobs Field and the emergence of the Indians, to the return of the NFL’s Browns and the arrival of Lebron James. Sidney Crosby and the Falcons have ushered in the next era of sports upheaval by the lake, making the Falcons as relevant as the beloved Crusaders were. Whereas the Crusaders, former Queen’s Bowl winners, came up just short of a Kings Cup, Doug Deutsch might have his Falcons on the right track.

For the Aviators, witnessing such excitement has them hopeful for RHL17’s move to San Francisco. The mid-season announcement of the team’s relocation along with the recent losing ways have create a morose atmosphere at the Qualcomm Runway. In that way, getting back on the road has been greeted as a positive by the team. Moving away from the regretful tones and faces of former Aviator fans to a cities that is embracing a new RHL crew has the veterans who will be around next season – Chris Drury, Mathieu Schneider, amongst others – hopeful for their move northward.

Touring through Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the team was able to get away from the losing streak, the post-trade deadline struggles, and the downtrodden atmosphere about the team and city. Tonight, the Aviators have a chance to let that reprieve produce results on the ice. A winning streak, with a win tonight over the Falcons, would go a long way to returning San Diego to form and prepare them for their first round playoff match-up, be it against Winnipeg or Seattle.

Paul McCartney is a Chode

I haven’t had any time to write to the blog lately, so you know how this news story caught me attention if I’m taking time to post about it here:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/03/21/starbucks.mccartney.ap/index.html

That’s right, and I know it shocks us all, but Sir Paul McCartney has found another huge pile of money to stack between himself and the souls of John Lennon, George Harrison, and his former band.

I realize my feelings towards Sir Paul need a little explaining. Not everybody hates Paul McCartney. I don’t really have time to detail these feelings, the reasoning behind them, or why I’m particularly motivated to speak about them now. Suffice to say:

a.) I am a John fan.
b.) I blame Paul, not Yoko.
c.) Paul is a Chode.

Life, the Universe and Everything

Good Evening folks……I am not going to rant this time. I am going to write a bit about the team…..a bit about me…..and ask you all a burning question that if everyone is paying attention should get just as many comments as my first two posts…or more.

 Ok…..I am not quite sure what we have been doing for the last 3 weeks, but Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick….but we have SUCKED…like the vacuum of space…with the g force neccesary to pull a Wendy’s frosty through a straw…..like…..The Penguins….ok…the Pens sucking is my personal opinion….being from DC, its a rule, you hate the Flyers, you hate the Penguins more, and its not just because Lemeiux and his boys kicked us out of the playoffs more often than Ledell Eackles ever passed a basketball, its because almost every fan I have ever met (my buddy Lowell and my ex Tanya the exceptions) is a slope headed neanderthal whose white-trash, redneck behavior makes Ricky Bobby seem like Felix Unger, and they think fine dining includes a beer bong.  

 Ok….I said I wasnt going to rant. So…….tell me good people….what the hell has happened to our beloved Aviators?

 So…..I am unemployed. And I have been for about 10 weeks. This is the longest I have EVER been unemployed since I was 14. And to say that this trend is making me ( a workaholic who likes to spend money) alittle crazy is an understatement, you should all thank whatever god you worship that there is a ban on trading right now. Because I would be each and every one of you’s personal  pain in the ass.  If you know anyone that could use a guy who has almost 20 years in selling technology (re; high end computer) solutions, just speak up…you know where my mailbox is.

 So…..you get 72 hours with one of these 3 women…which is your choice:

 Amanda Peet,  Maggie Gyllenhaal or Elisha Cuthbert

Whereabouts, Dispersal, Lack of Sleep, and Recent Results

I’m around. Just been tired lately. They’re still having staffing problems at the theater. I’ve averaged 33 hours a week there over the last two weeks. The only social activities I’ve had have been with my roommates. I’ve also been spending a lot of time developing for Fennewea and writing my book – which will NOT be done by the end of this month, as I had hoped. It’s a shame, because as time goes by I feel more confident in the book.

I talked to my boss at the theater about restricting my hours. She nodded with a smile, saying “I think that’s a good idea.” I suppose I knew I’d been looking like a zombie. Two weeks ago, after we had a mandatory meeting from 12am-3:00am at the theater (the quarterly safety meeting), I closed the theater, manning the concession stand. My drawer ended up $34.75 short. I got a written warning. I attribute my problems to fatigue.

At various points in the night, I thought to myself “That order came to $14. I remember giving him $14 as the change. Huh?” That as part of the problem. Another part was a bunch of inventory coming up missing, inventory which was reflected in that $34.75. It was the first time I had even come close to getting a warning about anything, and although I know they don’t do this, I would suspend anybody who was >$30 off on a given night.

Regarding dispersal draft, we obviously need to continue planning. I’ve been very concerned with AVI’s recent on-ice performance, but I’m not convinced anything is wrong as much as we aren’t getting breaks. We’re out-shooting, out-passing, and out-possessing people. However, one of my weaknesses as a coach is my unwillingness to change lines based small sample sizes, something that always screws my in the playoffs. We have eight games to go, so we’re down to a small sample size situation to discern whether something is really wrong.

Andy Bartalone wrote:
>
> We have stuff to talk about…dispersal draft stuff
>
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Aviator Slide Finds Them Below .500, Ninth in Conference

It was bound to happen, just as it happened last year. With the Aviators regrouping and rebuilding since the demotion of RHL14, each post-trading deadline season has been characterized by an anvil tied to the team’s metaphorical ankles. This season is no different.

The pre-deadline sell-off is not hitting the Aviators as hard as it did last year, when injuries ruined any chance the Aviators had to advance in the playoffs, but despite the relative healthy, the Aviators now find themselves below .500 and chasing the Winnipeg Freeze for home ice in their eventual first round playoff matchup.

Over their last five games, the Aviators have two points: ties against Baffin Isle and South Edmonton. Their three losses have come to Grand Prairie, the Roadkill, and Seattle. Seattle has been playing good hockey, but the other two teams were very beatable. San Diego’s inability to get two point from any of those games comes down to two things: offense, and defense.

Inconsistent goaltending – Marty Turco and Sean Burke continue to platoon, but neither are distinguishing themselves as they did a couple of months ago. Turco, in particular, has been inconsistent, allowing six goals on twenty-six shots against Seattle before allowing only two against South Edmonton a night later. Likewise, Burke tied the Rovers while losing to the Roadkill. The Aviators need some semblance of consistency, and you have to wonder if the platoon is preventing either goalie from establishing himself.

No goal scoring – Though they’re scored two goals in each of their last five games, the Aviators have not shot better than 10% in any of them. When you review the boxscores and statistics on a nightly-basis, you don’t see a team that’s getting out played or out worked. You see a team that can not score goals. The only bright spot has been Mathieu Schneider, who has four goals in the last five games. Beyond this, nobody seems capable of finding the net.

With a handful of games let to figure out their problems, the Aviators look at another potential first round exist come playoff time, something their fans have become too used to seeing.

Amateur Theologians?

Anybody like talking religion?

I don’t, very much. I like listening to it, though. Hearing intelligent (read: tolerant) people talk about their religious views makes me wish I had a part of my heart that was a little more open to matters of faith, be they religious, scientific, emotional.

My roommate’s boyfriend Matt is in the process of writing a book on his experiences in religion and spirituality. If you’re interested, here’s the link:

Matthew Belousoff’s Personal Thoughts

He has one chapter and a forward there. Why he’s posting it on a blog, I don’t know. But, enjoy!

Google Calendar Link Updated

Daniel alluded to the Google Calendar I maintain, linked in the bottom right of this blog’s sidebar. A while ago, Andy noted that the calendar was not accessible to non-Google registered users, a problem that was my fault – using the wrong link. That link has been updated, and if any of you are curious, you can check out the calendar. It’s more for the people who exist in my physical world, but I put it here because I like the idea of joining the two ‘verses.

Tangentially, my roommate and I are always talking about the pros and cons of doing personal business through Google. He has concerns about the consolidation of information, as do I. I just don’t know where to start and stop with regards to that rebellion.

The Traveller, which I’m almost done with, refers to this phenomenon as The Vast Machine, though it’s obviously a long held idea – a central authority rife with the power of information.

Anybody have any thoughts, either way?

Fennewea

It’s hard to describe, but here it is:

Fennewea

I really don’t know where to start, but know that I am going to be devoting a lot of time to this concept in the future. The idea is the development of a community of complete creativity. It’s being undertaken by myself and my friend, David. It’s a spiritual, intellectual venture that’s going to encompass development, music, writing, religion, politics – a bunch of stuff.

We registered the domain on Saturday after a month of talking about things. It’s nothing special right now, but if you want to follow another one of my (many) projects, check it out.

If You’re Wondering …: Blog Update

If you’re wondering why a recap of last night’s loss to the Roadkill has not appeared yet, know:

• UGH!!! I’m pissed.
• I’m on the third consecutive night of double shifts, so my motivation to do anything besides make sure I get through a tough scheduling stretch is somewhat low.

I’m also looking for a good reason to NOT watch Set It Off¹, which a friend has recommended I do. If you have one, let me know.

¹ – I’m not a big fan of the redesign IMDB did on their individual movie pages.

Running Away With Awards

Has anybody noticed that out impending decisions on Forward and Defensemen of the year are not going to be too interesting?

Amongst forwards, Chicago’s Martin Havlat leads the league in goals scored by ten tallies. He has a nine point lead in the points race. I’m certainly in the camp that goals are by far the most important measure of a forward’s contribution, though certainly not the only meaure. Ten tallies (or more) is a ton to explain away. I’m not going to think twice about voting for Havlat, provided nothing dramatically changes.

Likely, the Defenseman of the Year has been snagged, with Scott Niedermayer looking to win his second consecutive award. He leads all defensemen in points with 66, 21 ahead of the next highest total. His 55 assists are ten ahead of Sergei Fedorov for the league lead. He is second in the league in minutes played and plus-minus. Only Wade Redden’s +47 rating betters Niedermayer’s +44.

Goaltender is closer, and the Coach, GM, and Goons of the year will always be controversial and divisive, but the Forward and Defensemen of the Year should be pretty straight forward.

Promoting the Free Agent Auction

How many different ways can this league promote the free agent auction?

This is an issue derived from the discussions we’ve had here and a comment I made on Chris’s blog, here.

Off the top of my head, the league does the following to promote the free agent auction:

• Signing bonuses, making it more expensive to keep players away from unrestricted free agency.
• Demands using the second, third, and fourth highest paid peers, skewing towards a high number to resign players.
• Greed factor, further inflating demands and signing bonuses.
• Four year contracts, creating unrealistically high-turnover of players.
• Limiting teams to two resignings of potential unrestricted free agents.

And I feel like I”m missing something.

Frustrating.

Gerber Formula Holds Aviators to Tie with Baffin Isle

It was a game that few Aviator fans expected to get a point from, let alone two, in the wake of the shocking loss to the Grand Prairie Stingers two nights before. The team was wary of a tailspin. On Tuesday night, fans got quite the opposite, with San Diego playing a controlled, opportunistic game in hosting league-leading Baffin Isle, leaving the visitors happy to be leaving Southern California with half the points they had expected upon arrival.

NIGHT’S THREE STARS

#1 – Martin Gerber, G, Baffin Isle 36 saves Tie 5 saves in overtime

#2 – Mathieu Schneider, D, San Diego Game-tying goal 37 minutes played Six shots on goal 23 completed passes

#3 – Sean Burke, G, San Diego Tie 26 saves

The Aviators put thirty-seven shots on goal, despite allowing the Rovers to control most of the play. San Diego created their opportunities by quickly capitalizing on Baffin Isle errors, attacking the net aggressively in lieu of setting up an attack in the Rover zone. The result was a lack of cohesion in the Baffin Isle attack and a barrage of shots on Rover netminder Martin Gerber. Thirty-six saves by Gerber kept the Rovers alive, while twenty-six saves from Aviator netminder Sean Burke left the game in a 1-1 tie.

The results kept the Aviators in eighth place in the Howe Conference standings with twelve games left. The Winnipeg Freeze, like San Diego, have totaled fifty-five points, though the Freeze have only eleven games left to play. Five points behind seventh place in the Howe, the teams seemed destined for a rematch of last season’s Premier Conference playoffs, where the Aviators were swept out of the post-season by Winnipeg.

Baffin Isle has a three point lead on the Guelph Reapers in their race for the Queen’s Bowl, a six point lead on Saskatoon for their division and conference lead.

After a scoreless first period, Rover forward Kris Draper started the scoring in the third minute of the second, potting his fourteenth of the season with assists from Olli Jokinen and Rhett Warrener. The goal came after a first period in which the Rovers were outshot 15 to 7. In the second, Baffin Isle adjusted with a more meticulous approach that held the Aviators at bay, leading to a 7 to 6 shot advantage. The teams went into the third period with the Rovers in a 1-0 lead.

In the first minute of the third, Mathieu Schneider evened the score with a power play goal, his eleventh of the season. Tomas Zizka and Geoff Sanderson recorded assists. Neither team would score over the next twenty-four minutes, giving each team one point on the night.

For the Aviators, the play of Brent Sopel and Schneider, the teams number one defensive pair, was key to the tie. Each player played over thirty-seven minutes, were rated even, combined for ten shots and thirty-nine completed passes.

“They were incredible tonight,” Aviator coach Richard Farley said, post-game. “I can’t say enough about the effort those two are giving us.”

Politics: Scotter Libby Goes Down, Convicted at Trial

This might be the first politics-related post I’ve made to the blog, but I can’t help but comment briefly on the news from the “Scooter” Libby trial.

I. Lewis Libby, known as “Scooter,” was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice today. He faces up to 30 years in prison upon sentencing.

In case you are unaware, here’s the story: The Vice President’s office leaked the name of an protected CIA agent to the media as retribution for that agent’s husband writing an article for the New York Times which undermined Bush administration claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to get enriched uranium from African countries. In the course of investigating the leak, Libby (Dick Cheney’s top aide) gave inconsistent testimony to the special prosecutor. He was charged with five different counts associated with perjury and obstruction of justice.

With his conviction today, he becomes the highest ranking executive to be convicted of a felony since the Reagan administration’s Iran-Contra scandals. He faces up to 30 years in prison.

I’m a little conflicted about my feelings on this conviction, as it’s always hard for a family to see somebody they love go to prison. And Libby is going to be incarcerated for being a good solider, a quality that is both disturbing and admirable.

That said, I can’t help be feel that the rather arrogant leadership this country has elected to support over the last seven years got sent yet another message today. Libby was not just some lower-rung stooge on the team. He was a major player in the administration, using his influence and the influence of the Vice President’s office and connections to define the Bush administration’s culture. A blind, arrogant, head-strong cloister that has led the U.S. to where it is now, Libby was a general in the hierarchy (to keep with the solider/military metaphor). This is not just dinging a friend of a business relation (as happened in the Clinton administration). This man was a key part of the infrastructure.

I can’t help but think this conviction is part of the country righting itself. Maybe I’m staring too close at a vague silver lining. A husband, a father is going to go to prison, and that’s sad. But this is the game he played, a game he signed on to take part in. And hopefully, its a game that will be curtailed, if only slightly, as a result of the conviction.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink

These days it’s rare that I pick up a book and read it all the way through without stopping to read something else. As such, I usually have five different thing’s I’m reading, all of which conflict with my work, my work, and my writing. Oh, and my social life. While I really don’t let myself get particularly busy, I can only do this by deprioritizing things like reading. Hence, reading five books at once though never writing anything about them.

When I started reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink (Little, Brown; 2005) last week I thought it would just join the pile of books that I’m both reading and not reading, looks like Alice Munro’s Runaway, Albert Camus’s the Myth of Sisyphus (and other essays), Michael Cabon’s Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, some Orwellian essays and John Twelve Harkes’s The Traveller, all of which are in various states of not read. But a funny think happened once I started reading. I wanted to finish it.

Gladwell’s best known for this pieces in The New Yorker as well as his first book, The Tipping Point, about the nature of movements/fads. His first book being one of the most influential reads I’ve ever undertaken, I bought Blink almost immediately after it was distributed. Two years ago. In the interim, I kept up with Gladwell through his periodical and Gladwell.com.

As with his first book, Gladwell tries to explain a mystery of human though. Wheras The Tipping Point sought to answer questions as to why certain ideas catch on and become social phenomena, Blink dives into those first moments of cognition – first impressions, if you will – where so many of the decisions we make about what we see are made.

The easy way to see exactly what Gladwell’s referring to is to recall how you act when meeting somebody. Have you ever just liked somebody, upon your first meeting? Or this opposite. Have you ever just gotten a bad vibe? These feelings are instantaneous, yet there is a life time of experience that is rolled into making that evaluation. And Gladwell lists scenario after scenario in which this kind of information processing on an unconscious level – adaptive unconscious, he called it – happens in everyday life.

One of the more telling stories in the book serves as its introduction. The J. Paul Getty Museum, in its infancy in the early eighties, is presented with a rare sculpture – an ancient Greek piece that would not only be a distinct find for the art work but would also command a seven figure price from the museum. But price is not an issue. The Getty wants it, and immediately starts putting the piece through its authentication processes while taking it on loan for a year. If everything goes well, the piece would cost $1,000,000. The scientist confirm that the piece is made from stone out of a Greek quarry dating back three thousand years, but many of the art experts who see the piece immediately feel uneasy about it. While they can’t describe exactly why they know, they do know: the piece if not authentic. The Getty, though, has the scientific evidence from the analysis of a sample of the piece. The objective data says its authentic, and the museum pays the price.

That story would have never led the book if the piece turned out to be authentic. Something within the head of all the experts knew what the scientists did not. Their experience, their intuition told them it was a fake, and once the scientists figured out there was a way to soak the stone used in potato water to trick the tests, human intuition had its win over science.

The book isn’t about intuition, ESP, or anything of that nature. The book discusses how these evaluations on rooting in logic an experience. The art experts have a lifetime of experience to call on, manifesting itself in a feeling they get after just moments of looking at a fake statue. That they can’t articulate exactly what went into that feeling is the wonder of Blink. How does our mind work so quickly?

Our ability to intuit is both powerful and dangerous, Gladwell points out. Some people become so good at reading others that they’re able to pick up the little ticks in a facial expression, the small variances in voices and discern the exact emotions somebody’s feeling. That’s powerful. Most people have deep seeded stereotypes hammered into our subconscious through decades of living in this culture, swaying us toward specific traits in people: white skin, height, male gender, for example. This is the dangerous part of “thin-slicing,” the act of triaging a wealth og information in processing it in the blink of an eye.

Gladwell is not deterministic about this power; rather, he takes pain to point out that these behaviors are but template for people to act from. We may be predisposed to certain tendencies, but we’re not bound to them. A subject of one of his annecdotes, a car salesman, tell of the main reason for his success: to go out of your way to treat everybody equally. There is nothing you can see about a person than makes them any more or any less likely to buy a car. The salesman has trained himself to ignore whatever unconscious tendencies he may have had.

Along with highlighting the power and wonder of thin-slicing, Blink points to our ability to recognize these problems and avoid them. The human mind’s strength is in its power to do things like thin-slice, but with this power needs to be the recognition that, applied in correctly, thin-slicing is nothing more than justification for some of the negative aspects of our lives. We unconsciously thin-slice an association between height and leadership, gender and strength (or lack of), race and good or evil. Blink shows us how to recognize these negative as a way of appreciating how powerful we can be.

Aviators Announce Agreements With Five Free Agents-to-be

The San Diego Aviators announced that five players were resigned within the last weeks, keeping them off the free agent market this offseason.

Matt Pettinger received the largest contract in terms of overall value, signed to a four season, $2.1 million deal. Acquired last season from Indianapolis, Pettinger has two goals and three assists in 32 games, averaging seven minutes per game. Recently, Pettinger has seen his ice time increase after being put on a line with veteran centerman Dave Scatchard.

Brian Willsie received the highest valued contract per season, signing a one season deal worth $721,000. Willsie has one goal in thirteen games this year for San Diego, splitting time between the RHL team and San Diego’s ARHL affiliate in Las Vegas.

Derek Armstrong, the ironically longest tenured Aviator after being acquired from the Guelph Reapers before last season, signed a four season, $1.98 million deal. Armstrong has six goals and seventeen assists in forty-five game, getting almost sixteen minutes of ice time per contest. Armstrong won the RHL15 Aviator Award as that season’s best player.

Shaonne Morrisonn, acquired in the preseason dispersal draft, received a four season, $1.96 million deal. Morrisonn is a +7 in thirty-five games in which he’s averaged eighteen minutes of ice time. Morrisonn has also been injured on four separate occasions this season.

The final Aviator signing was young goaltender Mikael Tellqvist, who received a two season, $1.3 million deal despite not having appeared in any games during RHL16. Tellqvist, acquired from the Waterloo Thundercats last season, has been playing in Las Vegas since the acquisition of Sean Burke from the Reapers.

Aviator Finances Finally Show Improvement

For the first time in three seasons, the Aviators financials are showing marked improvement.

As of Sunday, San Diego finally has over one million dollars in available cash. The Aviators are projected to finish the season with over two million dollars in cash and could possibly finish near three million dollars if the playoffs hold form.

The Aviators will be giving out no signing bonuses in resigning their free agents. With a full roster of players and only $21 million in allocated salaries going into free agency, the $3 million bank balance is part of a larger picture which will give the team a degree of offseason flexibility it is not used to.

With key needs a right wing and defense, San Diego will looks to try and use their bank balance and depth to address their obvious needs. Trade discussions have already taken place in anticipation of the offseason.

Aviators Stung on the Prairie

A third period collapse that could threaten the trajectory of the remainder of the Aviator season saw a 2-0 lead in a game which San Diego controlled for two period fall by the wayside to a 3-2 loss to the Grand Prairie Stingers. Goals by Ryan Johnson, Josef Vasicek, and Radek Martinek helped solidify the Stinger hold on the tenth and final Howe Conference playoff spot while the Aviators now find themselves fighting to keep hold of the eighth spot.

Behind a first period goal from Dave Scatchard, his fifth of the year, and a second period goal from Alexander Daigle, the Aviators built a two goal lead after two periods and looked to be cruising toward the victory. But Marty Turco, who stopped all eleven shots he faced in the first two periods, allowed three goals on seventeen third period shots, unable to hold back the Stinger barrage. The final of the three goals, a blue-line wrister from Martinek, went under the goaltenders’ right arm to shock the Aviators and break their backs.

It was a game where San Diego jumped out early and just tried to hold on, having seen two of their forwards leave the ice with injuries through the course of the game. Brad Isbister left early in the second period hold his elbow after being taken into the boards. He did not return, nor did Taylor Pyatt, who did on come back from the locker room after leaving the ice late in the second with an apparent head injury.

Aviator Head Coach Richard Farley, however, said the injuries were of little consequence.

“Those guys wouldn’t have been on the ice much, given the circumstances,” Farley explained. “This kind of failure

I don’t understand.

I know that the new NHL is the kindler, gentler more snuggly NHL but I still thought it took alittle grit and balls to play the game.

 On my last post to the blog, Howard asked me if I had seen the complete cheap shot on Tomas Kaberle, and I told him I would go take a look at it. Its been a busy weekend and I just got a chance to take a look.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Mx_x8g7y0

I think they shouldnt allow any Maple Leafs back in the locker room, and they should burn thier equipment, they should be shamed and mocked at every opportunity.  After the above hit, noone went after Janssen at that time or at any time during the game.  I have played rugby and hockey all my life and I have NEVER seen this sort of behavior in sports, particurally hockey players, where noone will step up for a teammate. Maybe I am alittle too old school, but to me it doesn’t matter if you get your ass handed to you in the fight, you have to deliver a message to Janssen or anyone delivering that hit that he CANNOT be allowed to get away with that. PERIOD.

The biggest difference between this hit and the one I previously discussed on Chris Drury is that Drury has teammates, there was no hesitation, Drew Stafford, a rookie went right at Chris Neil. I think the Leafs could learn alot from that rookie.