For three years, the AHL team in Des Moines was affiliated with the Dallas Stars. It seemed right to this Iowa boy, who’s first NHL game was a North Stars game at the old Met Center in Bloomington.

But the Dallas Stars got a new affiliate, and the Iowa team was picked up by the Ducks, who decided a re-branding was in order. So… what do people think of when they think of Iowa?

Pork!

Ergo… the Stars have been reborn as the Iowa Chops. I think the logo’s actually pretty cool, and they’re certainly not the first pigs in the league.

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…it’s in the Kamloops Daily News.

Greg Drinnan, sports editor of the Daily News, reported the really, really big news that the sale of the Winter Hawks to an Alberta oil magnate is all over but for the formality of league approval.

Drinnan’s sources indicate a total clean-slate approach on the hockey operations side, which means an end of the Ken Hodge era. (General manager and former head coach Hodge was one of the “three amigos” who originally brought Canadian major junior hockey to the states when they moved the Winter Hawks to Portland from Edmonton in 1976.)

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The Portland Winter Hawks owners managed to survive their audit by the WHL, which means they’ll probably be playing in Salem by 2010.

In other WHL news, the city of Moose Jaw and the league have reached an agreement keeping their franchise in Moose Jaw, predicated on the city building a new arena to replace the “crushed can,” one of the smallest arenas in the league.

The prairie town I grew up in wasn’t exactly like Moose Jaw, but I can relate.

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They say hockey guys talk dirty. Huh. Listen to Seattle Mariners’ manager John McLaren cuss up a blue streak.

On the hockey front, Congrats to Detroit, even though I was bound by blood to root for the Pens. I wore my Pens’ hat throughout the series, but that wasn’t good enough. The best team won, and it was a great series.

Pittsburgh is going to be a force to be reckoned with, and will have the cup in the next few years, just you wait.

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Winter Hawks play-by-play man Andy Kemper has a great summary of former Portland players in the NHL playoffs, which start today. Recent Hawks grads Brandon Dubinsky (NY Rangers) and Braydon Coburn (Philadelphia) should get some serious ice time, and Cody McLeod (Colorado) should get a few shifts.

Check out Andy’s write-up of older Hawks grads, including Marian Hossa (Pittsburgh), Andrew Ference (Boston), Brendan Morrow (Dallas) and Scott Nichol (Nashville).

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It seemed like Randy Leonard was pulling his punches when he wrote to me a couple weeks ago that he “was not convinced… that the Blazers were to blame for the deteriorating relationship” in lease renegotiation talks with the Winter Hawks.

Now he’s dropped the gloves.

In today’s Portland Tribune, Leonard tells us how he really feels.

He says “I felt like I was being played,” and “an impartial observer could conclude, ‘Am I in the middle of a used-car deal, or a problem with the Winter Hawks?’”

In addition to the lack of negotiation prowess, issues surrounding the price and quality of the big screens Leonard helped get installed at the Coliseum and bluster about moving to Salem have Leonard disillusioned with the ownership group of Jim Goldsmith, Jack Donovan and John Bryant.

You’ve got to give him credit for trying, but he’s now part of the legions of disgruntled Hawks fans who are increasingly resigned to the fact that their home town hockey team may soon be folding or moving.

I still hold out hope that the league will force a sale, and we’ll get an owner group that knows hockey, knows sports marketing, and knows how to negotiate.

Hey, it could happen!

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The kids had a little fun with the Winter Hawks schedule and some Easter bunny magnets.

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New York City bar keep Jim Goldsmith has finished his second season as owner of the Winter Hawks with his operation under scrutiny from the Western Hockey League. Commissioner Ron Robison has ordered Goldsmith to step down as director of hockey operations and renegotiate his lease with the Trailblazers. There’s been a fair amount of posturing in the press, including Goldsmith complaining about the lease, saying “…do we have to just feed the pig?”

Not a good way to start the renegotiation talks, and the Blazers have been predictably cool to this kind of bombast. Their response? “…[T]hey need to get their fan base back.”

Scared shitless that we might lose our franchise in Portland, I wrote an e-mail to City Commissioner Randy Leonard, who last fall intervened on behalf of the Hawks to get their replay screens installed in the Coliseum. Here’s part of what I wrote:

The Trailblazers do not seem interested in renegotiating the lease, which they say currently brings them revenue equivalent to one concert from the entire season’s games.

My question to you is whether the city can do anything to prevail on the Trailblazers to renegotiate, or if this is entirely up to the Trailblazers’ management. Since the city owns the venue, it seems to me we should have some say in this.

While the Winter Hawks clearly aren’t a big money maker for the city or the Trailblazers, the value of this team to the community transcends the direct revenue they bring. As you know, Portland has a rich hockey tradition, going back to the Portland Rosebuds, the first US-based team to play for the Stanley Cup in 1916.

It would be a real shame if Portland lost the Winter Hawks because they are nothing but chump change to Paul Allen. Our only hope may be if the City of Portland were to step in at this point.

Is there any chance of that happening?

Thanks for you consideration.

Randy got right back to me, and confirmed my suspicions that the Winter Hawks owner’s style was hurting his own chances of renegotiating:

I do not believe the issue of re-negotiating a lease with the Trailblazers is exclusively because of the Trailblazers conduct. I have been party to some of the negotiations between the Blazers and the Winterhawks and I was not convinced, after that meeting, that the Blazers were to blame for the deteriorating relationship.

I will continue to do what I can to help improve the venue for the Winterhawks.

So there you have it, hockey fans. If you’re trying to get one of the world’s richest men to renegotiate your lease, it’s probably best to not start things off by calling him a pig.

Just sayin’.

Update, 4/8/2008: Randy’s got a lot more to say today.

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I caught the final Winter Hawks game last Sunday, and it was a doozy. The Hawks won on an unbelievable behind-the-back move by Matt Schmermund in the shootout.

This was almost enough to make me forget, for just a moment, that the Hawks were finishing one of the worst seasons in the history of the WHL, and that the threat of relocating the franchise is hanging like a pall over Hawkey Town.

Bombastic principal owner Jim Goldsmith bluffs that he’s looking at rinks within 60 miles for potential relocation if he can’t renegotiate his lease. (Of course, anybody that knows anything about hockey in the region knows there is nothing within 60 miles.)

So Goldsmith, under orders from the league to renegotiate, appears to be playing a game of high-stakes chicken with the Trailblazers, the lessor.

The best hope for the Winter Hawks would be a new owner group, one that knows hockey, knows the region, and knows how to negotiate. Short of that, Goldsmith’s best hope might be if the city, which owns the Memorial Coliseum, steps in to twist the Trailblazers’ arm to enter into lease renegotiation talks.

If neither of these two things happen, I’m afraid Schmermund’s move last Sunday may end up being our last look at Canadian major junior hockey in a city with a rich hockey history.

That would really suck.

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I admit it… I’m a bad hockey fan. It’s usually about this time of year that I realize I haven’t seen a hockey game, in person or on TV, for a month or more. Then I look up and realize that all the local teams are finishing up their seasons.

The Jaguars were swept three games to none in the first round of the NORPAC playoffs Thursday, Friday and Saturday last week. PSU finished their season last month.

So, having realized the local season is slipping away, I went to see the Winter Hawks take on the Kelowna Rockets last night at the ol’ Memorial Coliseum. Not having seen the Hawks for over a month, I was cautiously optimistic that I’d see some improvements in both the team and the presentation of the game.

I was sadly disappointed.

On the ice, the team continues to struggle getting the puck out of their own zone (it doesn’t help the the defensive corps has been plagued by injuries), and they continue to have a very hard time establishing offense. The Hawks ended up losing 2-1, but were out-shot 37-17. Their lone goal came late in the third period on a power play with the goalie pulled.

Off ice, the “replay screens,” the jumbo center-hung video screens, were on the fritz for the first period. For the second period, they were on, but only showing graphics — no video. In the second intermission, they tried to bring up some video to show a live interview with Christian author Karen Kingsbury.

It turns out it was “Faith Night,” but no amount of praying could get the big screens to work. When they did work, earlier in the season, they were pretty harsh. Very bright, but pretty low resolution, and the picture was very jerky due to ancient analog video equipment feeding the digital screens through analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion.

Last night this was so bad, it looked like they sent the video feed over Skype to Russia and back. The frame eventually just froze on an unflattering view of Kingsbury and her interviewer from the local Christian radio station. Kingsbury was saying something about how her fans are her friends, and “there are no autograph lines in heaven.” The whole thing completely broke down, and they just blanked the screens for the third period.

This is pretty symbolic of how far this franchise has fallen under the leadership of Jim Goldberg, a self-proclaimed “winner” who’s turned in two of the worst seasons in the history of the Western Hockey League. Things have gotten so bad, the league calls the situation in Portland the top priority of the WHL, and has mandated that Goldberg replace himself as Director of Hockey Operations.

Hopefully there are no New York City barkeeps buying major junior hockey teams in heaven, either.

The good news last night was that I was surprised to learn that the Oregon High School Hockey League was having their championship game immediately following the Winter Hawks game, and I stuck around for three exciting periods of co-ed high school hockey, followed by a five minute overtime and a three-round shootout. The PIL (Portland) took the shoot-out to beat the Pacific (Southwest suburbs) team 3-2.

The Winter Hawks have three more home games this season, including Friday, March 7 against Everett, Saturday, March 8 against Seattle, and Sunday, March 16 against Spokane. The March 8 game will feature a Memorial Cup anniversary celebration with appearances from 1983 and 1998 championship team members and Dean “Scooter” Vrooman, the erstwhile voice of the Hawks, as master of ceremonies.

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