overthere

Or maybe- like GM- they realized that the auto industry in Canada is a sunset business.

That means that one of the respondents to those polls has mild dementia, and the other is strongly partisan and may or may not also have mild dementia. So much for random.

Labour laws here are nothing like France. For example, when you do lay somebody off you are most often obliged to pay all their state benefits- health care, employment premiums, pension contributions etc- for 1 to 2 years.

and who answers their phones from unknown numbers on call display, or from those that identify themselves as polling firms? My ancient mother and..... nobody else I know.

Probably. Google the company principals and report back on the their backgrounds. I have no faith at all in companies doing phone surveys anyway, which is what Forum does for your link. If they are choosing at random, they likely are calling landlines. I know only a few people who would answer any phone call from a polling company, and they are hardly representative of average Canadians. In any case, Mainstreet Technologies is a Liberal operation. Period..

I sometimes wonder how the producers of Game Of Thrones can sustain the very high production values of the series. They must have huge location expenses, and actors get more and more greedy the longer it runs.

I agree. They let him walk for no return because they had some kids that were better than him So I guess he isn't a 3 -4 defenceman as you claim, since the Devils hardly have asets to burn. He was disposable on a bad team. He still is, though we are a worse team. That is Job One for Nicholson: making money. Same for LaForge. It's pro sports remember, and they have a brand new source of loot. They'll put the A Team on that. You think if Katz was seriously concerned first and foremost about the hockey product when the arena is full of beer swilling customers every night? You don't get to be a billionaire with that kind of stupidity. And his actions support what I say. He has put far more time into the business of business than the business of winning. So far... And your evaluation is that based on his actual play he is ready for prime time? Wow, how the fan expectations have been devalued the last few years. Hasn't that been the case for several years, and an area where the Oiler pro scouts have failed d ismally? McDavid did not change that at all. What he mainly does is perhaps put one of the core group into play in a trade. Dreisatl comes to mind and Yakupov for sure. Agreed. In the AHL until he demonstrates he is ready. He starts by putting on some muscle so he can actually win a battle in a corner or box out anybody in an NHL uniform.

You still have time to scamper back to post 209 and change that 62% to 2%.

It is verifiable fact that both of the people who head up and run your 'source' are lifetime Liberal insiders and hacks. You picked them, not me. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Duffy coverage only survives until such time as somebody- anybody I beg you for Gods sake- links the Duffster and his shenanigans directy to Harper. The longer it goes without that smoking gun, the less anybody including the media linger on the courthouse steps. I can guarantee that skinflint editorial boards at newspapers and TV are meeting often to determine if the potential reward is worth the cost of keeping a reporter at the Ottawa Super 8.

Rubbish. New Jersey offered him nothing coming out of his RFA contract, and let him go to free agency for zero return. There is a reason for that. There is also a reason he got $3 million per year on a contract, which is just a bit above the NHL average. Considering everybody pays too much for free agents...... Fayne is barely adequate on a shitty team, no more than that. You're the one blabbing on about how Nicholson taking over every detail of the Oilers operations. Laforge will be the last one to go, since he has done and continues to make plenty of dough for Katz. And that is job one in pro sports: revenue. And Laforge ahs been a rock star with that end. Both Nicholson and Laforge will be spending loads of time turning the new arena district into cash, it is the number one priority. Yes, I'm sure you're much more qualified. Here's an insider thought: his assignment in the offseason last year was to gain 15-20 pounds of muscle because he is another soft dman on a team full of them. he didn't. he was on MacT and Eakins shitlist in September for that. And his play was not inspiring . Trade bait. He's not the answer to any questions. You'd trade Schultz and keep Marincin. Wow. His end of year stuff(pre McJesus) said he'd keep 80% of the team and his top two pairing was going to be Schultz and Klefbom. We're screwed unless that and a new goalie drop from the heavens. All he has to trade for all those immense holes are draft picks and core players. Guys like Marincin are throw ins to trades.

According to numerous Internet cites, both the president Quito Maggi and vice-president David Valentin of Mainstream Technologies are longtime Liberal Party hacks, campaign managers and political animals. I don't believe a single word that emits from any of their collective orifices. Credibility =zero. I am astonished that they stopped at 62%. Why not 163%? You'd be more accurate quoting or linking something from The Onion.

Has Johnnie Cochran been spotted yet, as a member of the crack Duffy legal team? Yes I know he is dead but he makes an outstanding hologram. And an intimidating cardboard cutout.

Yes, I get that. But Laforge has not been fired, and he will continue- as will Nicholson now- on locking down and increasing overall revenue for the Oilers Group. It looks like they have just about forced Rexall Place into closure, Northlands has pretty much folded their tent. But there are about 270 nights not taken by the oIlers or Oil Kings at the new barn, and they want them all sold. There are also ancillary business opportunities in the Winter Graden and other enarby Katz properties that will fall to Laforge and Nicholson to maximize. The Oilers a a hockey have been f***king awful, but as a business LaForge has done a great job. The exec who has what appears to be an undefined role is Lowe....... I did not say Fayne was not a legit player, but he is no better than very ordinary. His greatest failing is that he is soft/not physical(14 PIM in 74 games!) and is not a puck mover. His best bit is that he is good defensively, and deserves to be kept. But yes Virginia, he is a journeyman plugger who would be in the third pairing on a real team. Marincin is a fourth year pro and played only 41 games this year on the Oilers, a team gasping for anybody back there that can skate backwards. The only reason he wass back here for the last quarter of the season is that the Oilers just ran out of options because of injuries. Bubble player and trade bait. Thems the facts. No they play that way because he is allowed and encouraged to carry the puck. When he does, a winger instantly drops back. When Schultz does a rare rush, the other team inevitably ends up with an odd man rush because we are completely clueless and badly coached by a series of rookie NHL people. McTavish has also failed to provide Schultz with a reliable defensive defensive of any quality. Karlsson has had mostly Methot and Wiercioch, a pair of trusty guys who look after things when he takes off. Schultz has nobody like that, so he rarely employs what got him to the show. Are you expecting some 'bold moves'?

The team that plays the best over the course of the long grind of the playoff season. It is different in an Olympic tournament or world championships or world junior championship. These are short sharp tournaments with a few winner-take-all games where a bounce can make the difference. The Memorial Cup has three teams that have been through a Stanley Cup type long grind to get there, then there is a frenzy of one game eliminations. But not the NHL. 4x7 games against increasingly tough competition......

It's easy to understand why the CBC has had its head in the sand with Gomeshi, and it is not complex. First is that Gomeshi was a rockstar in an organization that has had very, very few successes and loads of flops in recent decades. Overlooking his warts was preferable to management compared to taking action to shut him down. There was little in the way of formal complaint prior to this explosion of allegations, which made it very easy to pretend there was no substance. Second is that- deny it all you want- the CBC operates in a civil service mode. There is little accountability for management error, and no personal liability at risk. It's been the way of public sector management forever. It must have come as a terrible shock to the two executives fired that there was a price for their errors. The CBC was in desperation mode when they took that extremely rare path.

News flash to OP and organized labour in general: don't worry about the cow leaving the barn. That cloud of dust you see on the horizon is the whole herd disappearing.

Was it this thread where it was explained that Bettman picks on Canadian teams? I'm just wondering how one Canadian team getting the #1 overall pick 4 times in 6 years fits into that conspiracy?

99.9% means one in a thousand times a team flukes is away through 4 rounds of the playoffs. The current pormat of four x best of seven playoff format is what- 30 years old? Do you have a prediction on when we'll see your prophecy revealed in the next 970 years?

No, the business side has been the responsibilty of Oilers CEO and President Patrick Laforge for years, and there is little doubt he has done an excellent job of it. You're thinking like a fan again, overrating the players. Fayne is a journeyman plugger. Klefbom looks like the real deal. Marincin is on the bubble of being an NHL player. Nurse is a great prospect, but is still a baby and wholly unproven at the NHL level. Nikitin is hopeless. Ference is old, small, slow and talks a far better game than he now plays. Schultz has yet to be given a chance to play the game that made the entire league salivate. This is a major, major failing of MacT- not getting complementary players and systems to optimize the skills of Schultz. . Watch how Ottawa plays when Karlsson is on the ice for an explicit primer on how to do it. Keith Aulie is a joke. Hunt, Davidson, Osterle,Musil- do any of these names strike fear n the heart of opposing players? Barring upgrades in the offseason our starting 6 next year at this point will be Klefbom, Schultz, Ference, Nilkitin, Fayne, and somebody else who should be in the AHL. The 7th dMan will be another AHL player. Last year we had the worst defence group in the league. It is silly to think the same group will be any better this year. We also had the worst overall goaltending. To quote MacTavish, 'bold moves' are required.

You missed my point entirely. I meant the money to pay coaches or GMs doesn't matter to the Oilers, they can afford whatever. But hiringt a cocach of any stature will not just involve lots of salary, bonus money and long term. It will also mean that coach will have a free hand and a public voice, and the OBC will not like that part at all. You probably mean the Pronger saga. Souray was already divorced when he was here. His family lived in SoCal. He left in part because the Oilers - specifically Tambellini- treated him like a turd when he was injured. .

Relax Skippy. My side of the argument is that the NHL playoffs are easily the most physically grueling playoff test in pro sports. Football- three or four games and there is a champ. Baseball is a grind but simply is not on the physical scale of hockey where large men hit you over and over. Baseball: like chipmunks arguing. lacrosse: very violent but very short playoffs. Rugby: same Nobody but nobody else gets hammered that hard for that long. And the best team wins every time. Not the team that wins the regular season, where there is much floating and coasting. The best team at the time of the playoffs wins the Cup.

several of the main characters are coming together geographically..... winter is coming....

CBC TV hammers away at it relentlessly, but of course very few Canadians watch CBC.

Oh, and giys like Babcock and McLellan are going to want four or five year deals and they will insist on a lot of control The money doesn't matter or the term, but I don't see Lowe and MacT wanting anybody else speaking their minds.