ECHL Announces Divisional Alignment

The ECHL announced today the divisional alignment for the 2014/15 season.
The former CHL teams will comprise of the Western Conference's Central Division.
Just a reminder those teams are: Allen Americans, Brampton Beast, Missouri Mavericks, Quad City Mallards, Rapid City Rush, Tulsa Oilers, Wichita Thunder.

The top 4 teams in each division will make it to the playoff. 

Updates to the 2014/15 schedule are set to be announced in the next couple of days.

The Beast move up!

One of 7 new members to the ECHL

It was officially announced today after a couple weeks of speculation, the ECHL will absorb the CHL (Central hockey league) for the 2014/15 season. This means one thing: The Brampton Beast are now a member of the ECHL. Great news for the Beast.

There will be plenty more news coming out in the following days regarding the schedule, playoff format and, more.

TFC Goes Back to it's Roots.

Well.

Here we go again. Seems to be the only theme with this club.

Toronto FC fired head coach Ryan Wilson this weekend, along with basically the whole coaching staff including former TFC player Jim Brennan. TFC promoted Greg Vanney to head coach. I have read that the original hiring of Vanney was made with the plan of eventually having him take over as coach, so maybe this isn't so much a typical TFC "panic and fire a coach" as much as it is executing a plan (you'll excuse me for being cynical). Vanney has worked for other MLS clubs. He's been a director for Real Salt Lake and helped establish the first residency program for an MLS club. He's also a former assistant coach with Chivas USA. Vanney also played in MLS for 9 years. So he is familiar with MLS.

On top of that, in an up and down day, TFC decided not to sell Jermain Defoe. Apparently QPR offered $11 million to TFC for JD (as per Sportsnet's John Molinaro).
The problem is that I continue to hear the words "until January" in terms of speaking about Defoe's move back to England.

Another rumor floating out there is that both Defoe and Bradly were not impressed at how practices have been run at TFC and for this reason both players may feel like the move to MLS, or more specifically, Toronto have been a mistake.

It seems like the second Tim Leiweke announced that he will leave Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment was the second that TFC went back to being it's old self. 9 coaches in 8 years. Upset players. Crazy transfer rumors. It never ends.

I saw 2 statement from long time TFC fans this past weekend that sum it up for me:

"This fucking crap never changes and I can't see that it ever will now."   

"I'm just so tired of the B.S. surrounding the team every year".

For me, that's just it. Just as soon as everything was "fixed" it fell apart again. TFC signed 2 huge name players, brought in a world class keeper on a short term loan, made up with Dero and, really looked like a title contender. Goals were coming and everything was right. It felt like, for the first time ever, MLSE was taking the fan's hard-earned cash and spending it on the team to give something back. The warm fuzzies are gone. Honeymoon period 2.0 is over.

Here we are back to where we started. Some days it just feels hopeless.

CHL and ECHL to Merge?

Darryl Wolski, a professional hockey agent, tweeted yesterday that the CHL and ECHL are looking to merge.

The idea, as is being reported by multiple sources, is to have the ECHL and CHL become a viable tier 3 league while the AHL restructures (with a west division) to provide a tier 2 league that will have teams geographically close to their parent clubs so that call-ups to the NHL can happen at a faster pace (as is the case with Toronto and the Marlies).

Should all the teams survive 2014/15 the new ECHL/CHL league should be a 31 team league, which seems like 1 too many if each team has an affiliation.

The question that lingers at this point is: will Brampton make it to the new league and if so, will they remain a Tampa Bay affiliate?

Interesting times coming up in minor league hockey.

Why I Believe Germany will win the 2014 World Cup.

Yesterday the Netherlands lost to Argentina in penalties. In the end, it was a fair game, called well by the refs and, no real controversy.
As a fan of the Netherlands (my grandparents are immigrants from Holland after world war 2) it really sucked to see this happen but the fact is that it was as fair game and the Argentinian goal keeper played very well in shoot out. Nothing you can do. What's fair is fair.

So now it's on to the grand final.
Germany versus Argentina.

If you read my post before the World Cup started I predicted that Germany would take the title this year. I'm sticking to that.
I feel like the Germans have a better squad all around and although Argentina has (arguably) the world's best player it will not be enough.

Funny enough: in 1986 Argentina won the World Cup by beating West Germany in Mexico. Germany got revenge in 1990 by beating Argentina to win the World cup, so this is the rubber match and to the winner? Their second World Cup title.

Head to Head, Argentina has beat Germany 9 times and has scored 28 times during those 9 wins. Germany has won 6 times and managed to scored 28 times themselves.

The top scorers for each team in this World Cup has Messi of Argentina notching 4 goals while Germany's Muller has 5.

Argentina is ranked 5th in the FIFA ranking while Germany is ranked 2nd.

Outside of the "goals scored over the tournament" category (Argentina has 8, Germany has 17) this match looks VERY close on paper. If we adjust Germany's number to 10 because of the beating they laid on Brazil, that number looks very close again!

So why do I believe that Germany is going to win this game? A couple reasons:
- Germany has been in the past 4 World Cup semi-finals.
- Germany plays a more team focused game while Argentina leans on a few key players (primarily Messi and the hot goaltending of Romero).
- Germany's back line, while younger, all play for big name clubs and have experience playing in big tournaments. Not to mention this German team has played together in international competitions where German has made deep runs.

In a couple words: This German team knows how to win and that's why I believe Germany will be the 2014 World cup Champions.

2014 World Cup Picks

With the 2014 world cup around the corner I thought I'd put together a little prediction bracket.
I think this year we are going to get a treat in the sense that there are a couple of groups that have the potential for all 4 teams to move forward meanwhile we a have couple groups in which a team that may not be considered a threat will get through to the round of 16.
I'm very interested in group C for example. Greece has been a good team for years but the likelihood is that Ivory Coast will challenge them and Columbia for that spot in the round of 16. Group G could be equally as interesting. Germany will most likely win the group but will the USA be able to beat Portugal to get in or vice-versa?

I've made my picks in the picture below. I feel strongly that Germany will finally break through this year. I also expect Brazil will make an excellent showing as most are predicting. Spain is still a very strong team and can't be counted out.
Speaking from a fan's point of view only I will be watching the Netherlands and USA closely. My background is Dutch so I'll be hoping for a Dutch world cup win...after loosing in the final in 2010. I also will be following the USA because I feel like they are in an interesting group, they have a lot of MLS talent and, with Ronaldo's injury being a hot topic I'm not sure how well Portugal will play (sorry Phil if you are reading this!). With that said, I kind of hope the USA doesn't make it to the round of 16 so Michael Bradley gets back to TFC.
Below is my bracket (you can do one too if you visit mlssoccer.com) what do you think? Feel free to let me know your opinions in the comment section!

The Argos at BMO Field: The Story Continues

Yesterday the news broke that the plan to renovate/expand BMO Field is going to have to go forward without the inclusion of the Toronto Argonauts.

The reason for this is that the federal government has not signed off on providing a portion of the funds that Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment (the owners of TFC and the company that will fund most of the BMO Field renovations) has requested to help complete this project. The reason for this? The Conservative Party of Canada has made it a policy not to help fund stadium projects that are not associated to University programs.

For a guy who loves sports, this policy is actually something I really like. I think there is way too much public money dished out to the private sector when it comes to sports. Plus, MLSE isn't exactly cash poor.

That said, the renovations of BMO Field must go on to be able to host the rugby 7s tournament portion of the Pan-Am games and MLSE has gotten the construction plans re-drawn. The new set of plans do not account for moving the north our south end of the stadium which means that pitch at BMO will not be long enough to fit a CFL size field.

This also puts the Argos in a tough spot. Not only are they back to having to find a new home before 2017 (when Rogers has told them they will not be renewing the least at the Rogers Centre so they can install a permanent grass baseball only field) but now they do not have a perspective buyer. Their current owner, David Braley also owns the B.C. Lions and purchased the Argos in an attempt to keep the team from folding back in 2010 when the previous owners just gave up and walked away from the team.

A third factor comes into play here as well. With the passing of Ralph Wilson recently, the Buffalo Bills are up for sale. The idea that someone in MLSE (most likely Larry Tanenbaum) wants to purchase the team and move them to Toronto has been floating around for quite some time. The NFL has made it very clear that they do not want an NFL team in Toronto to be the death of the Argonauts and they would prefer that the owner of an NFL team in Toronto also own the Argos.

With what has transpired over the past 24 hours the question is: did something about a potential purchase of the Bills fall through? Is that why MLSE is no longer willing to try and incorporate the Argos as part of BMO Field?

My opinions have been made on this blog before. Frankly, as a TFC fan first and foremost, I'm happy. I don't want to see the grass removed from BMO. If we didn't have grass here I'm confidant that Bradley and Defoe would not have even considered a transfer to Toronto. I also love the CFL and the Argos so I don't want to see them go, I just don't see BMO as a proper home for gridiron football.

I think for the Argos to come up with an ideal solution it's time to look to York University. The subway line is going to be going that far north, the team is already holding pre-season at the campus, the university could raise their program's profile in CIA and although I have heard a few opinions say it's not possible, there may even be a way to convert the track and field stadium currently being built on site (for the 2015 Pan-Am Games) in facility that could house the Argos. Another option might be to look just north of BMO in Liberty Village. Lamport Stadium and the south side parking lot may be just big enough to put up a 25,000 seat stadium. Granted it probably couldn't be expanded for larger events like the Grey Cup but it still might work.

Either way, the Argos need to look elsewhere and if they want government funding they should probably consider teaming up with a school.