Cowtownguy

I dunno man. I have never purchased a home where the lot was the correct size. Some areas of the city that are relatively high up experience frequent flooding. There are still lead pipes in the city, and when they put new asphalt on 16th ave, apparently they forgot about the rail lines underneath and had to do it again. What these problems have in common are "engineers" who were educated in the "Cs and Ds get degrees" era.

Dude, nothing can be worse than the old Winnipeg Arena. Now that was a fricken scary arena. You could be on beer #7 and still get scared mierdeless. When I sat in one of the worst seats in the 'dome, they actually have staff approach you every now and then to ask how you are doing. Someone musta had a panic attack up there or something. They are the most loyal fans up there too. They cheer the Flames even though they can't really watch the game without a telescope.

I am not as hard on council as many others are in this city. I think that they work pretty hard. Their back and forth on this looks really bad though. A week was too short, two months seems too long to me, so why not give people until Aug 15 or so? Calgarians deserve time to speak to the actual deal that was recently completed and released. 2-3 weeks seems sufficient to me given that this is an ongoing negotiation. To be clear, this deal is unlikely to change. It is Council's job to hear from the public even if they don't like what they hear. I agree that CESC will not appreciate the delay. I doubt the deal will look worse over time though.

The city has now asked the Flames to extend discussions on the arena until into September. A poll was conducted on the effectiveness of council and support for the new arena. Not surprisingly, those with higher incomes are more likely to support the new deal whereas lower income folks are far less supportive. It is important to allow time to review and comment on this expensive project. A majority of Calgarians thought this deal was being rushed. linky

The city did extend the timeframe for Calgarians to respond to the deal until Monday. I think that was a wise decision because it gives any fence sitters time to read the details of the deal if they wish. I actually doubt that many more people will submit their ideas than were intending to, but it is important to allow that opportunity. I suspect that many Calgarians are more or less satisfied, if cautiously optimistic about this deal.

From a GM and fan point of view, it is a decent contract. From Rittich's perspective, I wonder if he finds it a little short on term. I suppose the way it is set up, he is in the driver's seat.

That is a straw man as nobody is suggesting as much. How about giving Calgarians 2 weeks of consultation for every 1/2 billion spent? If they want to change the toilet paper at city hall, go ahead and make that decision independently. No worries.

I can completely understand not wanting any feedback at this point. Theoretically, we have infinite time to express ourselves as we can virtually contact our council any time, any day. It seems to me that after discussions "broke down" and council formed a committee to generate a deal, Calgarians expected some time to react to the actual deal. Nenshi himself has changed his tune from arguing no city resources for an arena, to we have a half a billion dollar deal done to be rubber stamped in a week after bogus consultations. Hey, why even bother with a week?

I agree with ABC923 that they should have given Calgarians more time to react to the plan. Even if they do not include a plebiscite, they should let people react within a reasonable timeframe. I understand that the deal will not change, but allowing people to vent might be helpful. I don't think that public engagement on this issue was well done at all. The process itself needs to be reconsidered.

I was going to say that they are a bunch of bums up there in Edmonton for dumping on players like that. Then I remembered a few dozen comments I made about Wideman and Brouwer, and the front page of the paper telling Brouwer to get out of town, and yeah. I will just keep quiet.

Ah yes, that makes sense. That is why it is short, but generous/fair in terms of price tag. I sure hope that he gets decent line mates and decent ice time. No pressure eh?

I have to keep reminding myself that he is quite young.

Apparently, he is still a restricted free agent after this deal? How does that work?

No real surprise in the AAV there. It is a little shorter than I anticipated. It looks like a good deal.

I would not blame the Flames for refusing to buy out another player. The owners distance themselves somewhat from day to day operations by hiring a staff to deal with these issues when you know some want to get more involved. It is their money after all. Then, they are asked to throw away money because a trade doesn't work out as planned? I would tell them to "fix it" myself. Neal was a brutal signing. A lot of people, myself included, thought Treliving had made a very solid deal. After all, the dude was known as "the real deal" given his scoring consistency. So, how do you fix a player who is not performing? I cannot blame Treliving for acquiring Neal, and I hold my nose at getting Lucic, but this was likely a necessary evil. He turned nothing into something. Now, if James Neal had dressing room issues that could have been identified by Treliving ahead of the trade ...

Reminds me of a lot of ski hills. The skiing is secondary to the reality that many of them are real estate ventures for the wealthy. Maybe they are not specifically undocumented refugees, but we do bring in immigrants to do a lot of construction/mining work. Governments need to identify ways that we can grow our knowledge base when we initiate such large projects. We could extend the economic benefits of these ventures to more people.

It is rather amusing on the surface. They discuss this since 2007, explicitly for the last few years with a lot of dirty laundry aired, and the answer to the problem is 50/50. I understand that it is more complex than this.

🤣

I want to hear from Nenshi about this one. How do you start from "We are not dedicating any city resources, including land to this venture ..." to [Kermit the Frog voice] "We are pleased to announce a stupendous collaboration that benefits everyone ..."[/Kermit the Frog voice]. And the news conference about the arena is delayed for some reason.

I hope that Lucic brings his presence too. He actually looks like a defensively responsible player which is amazing coming from Edmonton. While we are paying dearly for toughness. I rationalize it by thinking that we are overpaying Lucic by about $2 million or more, but we were already overpaying Neal by about $4.5 million given his performance. Treliving did partially fix the Neal debacle to some extent by getting value out of the contract with Lucic. Doing it this way, however, reminds people of the mistake last year. Like many others, I really thought that Neal would be our scoring threat. I cannot blame Treliving for Neal deciding to suck this year. So, this was "The Good, the bad, and the Ugly (Oilers)" trade. I just hope Treliving works some tres-magic before the summer is over.

I was disappointed that Tuulola was not there. He was amazing at his first camp. I think the dude managed to swing something like 3-4 goals in the scrimmage. He has high hockey IQ from what I can gather. He is one prospect that I have high hopes for.

I really liked Hiller. I mean, he was absolutely amazing in his younger years. I watched that guy stand on his head for several years. Then, it was like all of the talent in him just vanished. He really seemed to want it and fought to be better, he just couldn't swing it. The same process appears to be hitting Smith. Again, he had some really good years in him, but I think he is finished. Even playing for Edmonton I would like to see him excel, but I doubt it will happen. I am not sure he can ever really be a successful #2 goalie. That is a positive comment on his competitive spirit. I do think you nailed it with Talbot. Edmonton seriously pooched him out playing game after game without rest. I think that dude played more in 2017 than Kipper often did each year, and few will measure up to that performance level. I remember in a 2017 interview, he claimed that more games played helped him perform better. I thought that he was just parroting what the brass was saying, and that no goalie could sustain that work load. He was a lamb about to be sacrificed by the old boys club. Voila, they did exactly what I, and I suspect many of us, thought they would. They ruined a solid goalie in order to cover up other inadequacies of the team. Smith will be a good addition to Edmonton if they use him sparingly, and he is as much of a mentor than anything. Who knows, he might turn into a good goalie coach. I like our chances with Talbot being the goalie than Smith at this point.

I hear what you are saying. I am not impressed with our goaltending or our ability to spot/develop our own goaltenders. It remains to be seen what becomes of our newbies. I wanted a true #1 goalie as much as anyone. Given that short-term options were limited, I think that Treliving made the best choice. I have some confidence in Rittich as the starter, and Talbot could make things interesting. Edmonton waaaaay overplayed him in 2017, and I think most of us knew that would bite him/them in the butt at some point. I forget his workload, but it was insane. Surprise, surprise, they burnt him out. He is still young enough to make the last two seasons a vague memory. If nothing else, it will make the games between Edmonton and Calgary all that more interesting ... if weird.

I was cranky that I did not pick up breaky before the game today. Just sayin'. I found it difficult to observe the individual talent that was out there because they played such a defensive game, and always at the wrong end of the ice. Do you think that you could evaluate/rank order the goalies on the basis of this game, and the way it unfolded? You might have a better eye than I do. They all looked impressive to me. Schneider and Parsons were very good. They had better keep up the hard work because the others also looked solid to me. Pospisil stood out somewhat. He was very verbal, dogged it at times, show amazing speed at times, and behaved oddly to me in a shootout situation. He skated quickly, full stop, and slapped the puck in. I think the goalie was Schneider (please correct me if I am wrong)? He just shrugged, which made me laugh (I like Kipper emotional intensity). Overall, I was quite impressed by the speed of the game.

I agree that his injury really impacted him and he has never quite been the same. This is not the same guy who used to be able to steal a game every now and then. He was never quite a Kipper, but he was a pretty solid tender. He should hang them up this year IMO.