I smell a tv3 made for tv movie. ” title=”Smiley” />

Devils won 10-1 on sat and 11-0 on sunday by the way.  Eaden had about 8 points on sunday.  Pad his leading stats totals.

If I had the old canucks jersey, I would change it too.  I suspect the next group of thunder players would be the same.  Look at original 6 teams.  How different are their jerseys from the original? 

Point being is that if I was growing a team, I want control of the image.  I don’t want someone elses image dominating mine.  Sponsorship is important however there are other ways of achieving it.  The other 4 teams in the league haven’t splattered their jerseys yet.

When the french league is a league worthy of emulating, I’ll take a look at their jerseys.  It’s like saying, those mogolians sure have got it right, let’s follow them! ” title=”Wink” />

Is there a reason the NHL is the most popular hockey league in the world as far as marketing and merchandise sales?  I don’t see many HC Davos shirts in the shops.  As a person who has bought supporter jerseys in the past, I would be pretty disappointed when 3 years later, every logo on the jersey is irrelevent because all the sponsors have changed.  However the oilers jersey I bought in the early 90’s is still pretty current because of one important logo.  I’m pretty happy about that as a fan.

now take all of those logos and put them all on one shirt.  And then change the springbok color to something else.  Change the manchester united color to blue.  Wallaby to purple etc and see if there is any brand recognition anymore.  I bet you would see a massive drop in jersey sales. 

Although Al is off my xmas list and I’m also critical of some things Bode did as a “professional” coach, I was impressed how Bode imparted a system onto a bunch of players who previously thought a system was an Xbox.  When the team lost last year, it was because of a lack of fitness and simply not doing what they had learned.  It wasn’t because they didn’t know how to play.  Bode was good at video analysis and teaching a bunch of adults things that normally would have been taught to peewees.

Also though, Bode did not give any team wall material.  When media asked how we will do, she would always see “We’ll see”!  You won’t find any of her quotes in the opponents dressing rooms as motivation.  She acted professionally while in the public’s eye.  That included while on the bench.

Last years game was 16-4 by the way (I can’t remember a 17 to 1)and no disrespect to this years Thunder team but having played in both games, last years team was able to get more sustained pressure in the zone and were a bit more threatening when comparing game to game.  Plus Toby who played the bulk of that game had a groin injury.  He’ll show you the photo’s too! ” title=”Wink” />  Both teams were different though so the comparisons aren’t terribly valid.

If you are comparing one year to the next, final stats may help.  Also attendance, team morale, community satisfaction, sponsor retention etc.  Lots of different things.  Plus how the Thunder respond next weekend says a few things.