The SBP Archives - Your less than frequent dose of SBP!

Treat yourself once a month after a Sens victory with this delicious dessert from the good people at Tim Horton's!

The rebuild is on. If you're going to blow it up, blow it up and blow it up real good. The Senators trading their #2 and #3 centres in Mike Fisher and Chris Kelly show they aren't messing around and are fully committed to the rebuilding process necessary to get this team back to being competitive again. Good drafting, developing their young prospects...the cornerstones of building a strong franchise. Ottawa actually did this quite well for about 10 years, when they brought up such players such as Marian Hossa, Martin Havlat and Daniel Alfredsson.

Some bad signings, trades, and recent draft picks have made them a shell of their former self. GM Bryan Murray is trying to bring in as many assets as he can with the players that he has that still have some value. Teams are loading up for the playoffs and veterans with playoff experience are a prime candidate for trade, especially when they have an expired contract at the end of the season.

Chris Phillips has been a model Ottawa Senator since 1996 when he was drafted first overall by the Senators. He's not flashy, he doesn't have the offensive skills that some elite d-men have, but he does bring a hard work ethic and a simple, no nonsense defensive style that, until perhaps this year, you can count on to shut down the opposing team's top tier players. At 32 years old, he doesn't have a lot of time left in the NHL. And just to be selfish, he should agree to help the team he's been loyal to for 14 years by agreeing to get traded to a Stanley Cup contender and get the Senators a pick or prospect they can hopefully develop into a full-time NHLer.

While he is saying the right things to the press by stating he wants to stay in Ottawa and help with the rebuild, the bottom line is that there are no guarantees the Senators will re-sign him to a new contract. In actual fact, I think if the Senators DID want to hang onto him, they'd have signed him to an extension already.

If Phillips plays for another team and has a strong playoff, that increases his value come free agency time. And that might also convince Ottawa he'd be worth keeping. There is no rule in the NHL against trading a player at the deadline and re-signing him for next season over the summer.

And one thing I've learned as a fan over the years, is that winning the Stanley Cup is one of the most difficult things you can do in pro sports. You never know when your career will end. You never know if the next injury will be your last. And you never know if the team you play for will be good enough to take it all. You want to give yourself every opportunity to win it, and I think Phillips might regret one day missing out on what could be the chance of a lifetime.

The thrill of going to a live sporting event, especially those with a championship on the line, is an experience that can't be beat. I actually still can't believe I turned down a ticket to the World Juniors gold medal game in 2009 because, get this, I had an Ultimate game that night. Forget the fact that I can't even remember who we played or even if we won, it's a mistake I'll never make again if the opportunity comes around once more (the dedication I show my teammates though, eh?).

Anyway, my experience is somewhat different than what I want to blog about with you now because at least with my situation, the ticket was a surprise and it was a simple car ride away to get to the game. Can you imagine spending thousands of dollars in air travel, hotel, food, etc. plus the hundreds or thousands of dollars for tickets on the sporting event itself...and being turned away at the gate at game time?

Now I bet you may be thinking about the 400 unlucky fans at Sunday's Superbowl who were turned away because the temporary seating structure conjured up for the event wasn't approved by the fire marshal. That's also a big slap in the face, but the incident I'm talking about happened at the FIFA Asian Cup final held in Qatar on January 29th.

The final was played between Australia and Japan (Japan won in overtime 1-0 in case you care, woof) so there were a few fans who wanted to see the game that had to hop on a plane to witness the final. But security, the riot police, apparently blamed too many people arriving without tickets that somehow gained access to the grounds that caused all the security problems, which led them to close the entrance gates leaving people with valid tickets unable to watch the game. They further explained fans WITH tickets should have shown up early to guarantee access. Sorry, but in every sporting event I've been too, you could show up five minutes before the game ends if you wanted and still get to your seats. To throw salt in the wound, the Qatar people who organized the event said they'll "consider" issuing refunds to the people with valid tickets who were shut out. What? Consider? (The day after the event, they wised up and announced refunds were coming).

Qatar was recently awarded the 2022 World Cup, and I bet FIFA officials are reviewing that decision already. I can only imagine the disappointment of being a fan who saved their money and planned their time to come out to such a huge event and endure such heartache when you can't get into the event you paid for and looked forward to.

The NFL tried to make amends with the Superbowl fans by giving back three times the face value of the tickets, in addition to free tickets for next year's event. Much better compensation than the Qatar people offered, but still, if you're a Green Bay fan, you missed seeing your team win it all. Would you be excited to see the Bills play the Cardinals in 2012? Not likely.

I hope nothing ever like that happens to me with my future Senators Stanley Cup final tickets.