You may have guessed that I have had/shared season tickets for the Chicago Blackhawks for over 14 years, during which time, the team won three Stanley Cups. Those were glorious days, and like everything good, has come to an end. In the seven years since the 2015 Championship, the Hawks have missed the playoffs four times and lost in the first round the three times they did make the playoffs. GM Kyle Davidson has said that with the support of the Wirtzes who own the team, the team is doing a tank this season in an effort to get the top pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, the best of which is reportedly Connor Bedard.
At the start of the season, the team came out and played .500 hockey showing scrappiness, more hits that the Hawks have been known for. After the strong start, the losing began in earnest which the team currently posting a 1-8-1 record in their last 10 games. It’s been pretty horrible.
Last night, the Hawks were at home against the Washington Capitals, just out of the playoffs at this early point in the season with 34 points, but only one behind the Rangers for what would be the final playoff spot if the season ended today. What would be interesting about a mediocre 15-12-4 team? The fact that Alex Ovechkin was three goals from 800 goals, a milestone only known by Wayne Gretzky and Mr. Hockey, the late Gordie Howe. This is historic, something that can be appreciated by even the most novice hockey or sports fan. This was perfect for ESPN which has the Tuesday night game (and on the main network, not ESPN2 or U or News or whatever).
Television contracts between leagues and networks often have the option to change a scheduled game for another game that is more important to the standings or if something special could or will happen. The NFL does it fairly often, rescheduling a night game for the afternoon and taking another game with more gravitas to the evening. In this case, ESPN was supposed to show the Flyers/Avalanche game, in part because the Mountain time zone game would start after the “Around The Horn 20th Anniversary” Special. But hat is just another game on the 1,312 regular season schedule. However, Ovechkin was closing rapidly in on goal 800 and then he would be only one goal away from tying Howe. Lo and behold, the Capitals are playing the woeful Blackhawks in Chicago on December 13th. It wouldn’t create much of a hassle for the live fans, the game would be pushed back 30 minutes; besides, the fans are only there to try and witness history. ESPN was going to show hockey at that time anyway.
Apparently, the Blackhawks decided to take the game off. Goalie Petr Mrozek has suffered groin injuries that have limited him to 12 games in 2020-2021 and 21 games in 2021-2022. He has played only 10 of the 30 games on the Blackhawks schedule with Arvid Soderblom playing more games that the man who was expected to be the number one netminder in Chicago. In came Mrozek last night, still suffering from nagging groin issues. Ovechkin scored 798 just 24 seconds into the game; so fast that ESPN was still broadcasting studio analyst Chris Chelios’ pregame analysis. Nine minutes later, Mrazek challenged a shot that bounced straight to Ovie, who buried a tap-in in the 1st period, for 799 and a 2-0 lead.
The Hawks managed to cut the lead in half approximately 1 minute before the end of the period when Tyler Johnson found himself alone in the slot and the Caps goalie flat on the ice. The teams played nearly 5 minutes into the second period when former Blackhawk defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk score to make it 3-1. Jonathan Toews cut the lead back to 1 goal on the power play at 11:38. The Hawks defense was nowhere to be found at 17:12 of the period leading to an odd-man rush. Mrozek made one hell of a poke check to stop the initial shot, but Nick Doyd buried the rebound with nothing the goalie could do.
I’m sure the higher-ups in Bristol, CT. were hoping to get Ovechkin’s 800th, because, even though a two goal lead is “the weakest lead in the game” (not to mention the Ovechkin voodoo dols and pins at work in the TNT headquarters). Six minutes into the final period, the Hawks suffered another of their frequent defensive lapses for an odd-man rush. Once again, Mrozek made the first stop, but the rebound foud its way to Ovechkin for number 800 and a 5-2 Capitals lead.
Nothing more to see here – the Caps got two more goals and the Hawks’ Max Domi tallied one for a 7-3 final. Washington comes home to play Dallas on Thursday, but neither the broadcast ESPN or TNT have that game. I’m not saying that it would be better for everyone if Ovie got 800 last night, but it was for everyone except TNT. Ovechkin can think about tying and passing Howe on the all-time goals list and some 90 behind Gretzky; the Capitals can concentrate a little more on their games sine they are in the playoff hunt; the lie fans, even staunch Blackhawk fans, can say they saw history; ESPN gets the recognition of covering the goal live. Blackhawk ownership gets a slightly higher attendance for the Capitals and Ovechkin. The only losers are the Blackhawk players – hung out to dry by the league and ESPN with everyone except the players rooting for the record goal. Even Petr Mrozek who did not play a poor game will go down in history as the victim of number 800.
I’m not saying that there was a fix in, but the coincidence smells like 6-month-old toxic waste.

In the history of sport, most times, when government steps into the mechanism of sport, it blunders by heavy-handedly legislating something unawake of or unconcerned of the ramifications of their actions. Examples of the bad includes baseball being exempt from anti-trust law; to the positive is the case of Title IX which requires equality in amateur sport for all sexes. Then, there’s legal confusion, which occurred today in Washington D.C.
The attorney general for Washington filed a civil lawsuit against the Washington Commanders, team owner Daniel Snyder, the National Football League and commissioner Roger Goodell for allegedly colluding to deceive fans and district residents about the league’s investigation into the team’s toxic workplace culture and allegations of sexual assault in an effort to maintain a strong fan base and to increase profits. Attorney General Karl Racine (D-D.C.) said his office was suing “because you can’t lie to D.C. residents in order to protect your image and profits and get away with it. No matter who you are.” Racine then added, “Even if you’re the National Football League.” Racine said his office opened its investigation last fall and plans to subpoena Snyder as well as former employees, promising accountability and transparency as the case moves through the court system.
Racine said his office has jurisdiction to sue because the District of Columbia’s consumer-protection law is broad and covers any material misstatement that a business or merchant makes that could affect consumers in the district. He said the district is filing a civil complaint because his office does not have criminal jurisdiction on the matter. “For years, the team and its owner have caused very real and very serious harm and then lied about it to dodge accountability,” Racine said. “They did all of this to hide the truth, protect their images and let the profits continue to roll.” The suit includes the NFL and Commissioner Roger Goodell which the suit claims abetted the Commanders’ money making.
Huh? Suing because the Commanders are keeping facts away from people, so, if they are gaining revenue is a version of fraud? This is the strangest suit I’ve ever seen. Yes, Dan Snyder is a truly horrible human being – he established and maintained a team known more for sexual harassment and lies than wins in the NFL. And yes, they kept it under wraps to keep the stands from being empty on Sundays. To me, this is like former President Bill Clinton being impeached for having an affair and lying about it. Of course, he lied about it, but while one could say that he was taking time away from his job and responsibilities when he was actually having illicit sex, I think that’s a huge stretch, as is this.
The suit appears to be as a result of the secrecy around the team, the investigation on the sexual harassment, and the league’s response to the team, p and as a result, every time D.C. residents buy a Commanders’ ticket, or a t-shirt, or a program, it is fraud and D.C. should be suing? I think this is the sports version of frivolous litigation that clogs up the legal system. Should Houston season ticket holders get money back because the 2017 team cheated to a championship? Should Cub fans have sued for the 108 years without a championship because the owners were inept or just plain cheap and this was not announced on the front page of the newspaper?
In addition, while there are rules about the privacy of people, there are no rules that corporations must disclose everything to the fans base. An unusual change in the relationship between fans and teams is when teams announce that they are rebuilding. This never was stated outright by most teams because there was a fear that fans will stay home, no ticket revenue, no parking money, no food or souvenir revenue, so I guess this is a positive in transparency. However, you’re a fan – as the old saying goes “you pays your money, you takes your chances.” No one has a gun in your back to force you to give up your money. Perhaps you just want to go? Maybe you have nothing better to do? Maybe you believe in the truth that if every team that was supposed to win did, there’d be no need to play the game.
While anything that makes Dan Snyder, and Roger Goodell uncomfortable is a good thing, but I think this is a HUGE stretch by the District, and a waste of taxpayer money.

We all have heard stories about or unfortunately endured horrible family gatherings caused by bellicose friends and/or relatives, grudges or new slights, intoxicants, and other things. They make us cringe thinking about them, or not looking forward to them.
However, as a long time NFL fan/writer, I have often wanted to be a fly on the wall for the owners’ meetings. Powerful “titans of industry” (or at least great wealth), all in a room to decide topics big and small about the NFL. Since the league is one of the most ham-handed organizations in sport if not the world, time is probably spent on PR blunders and clean-ups. Most important, to them at least, is how to divvy up the billions of dollars generated by the games.
The owners’ meet next Tuesday in New York, and I wouldn’t want to attend unless anonymously and via Zoom. Already, the owners are angry with the Browns’ owners, Jimmy and Dee Haslam, not for picking up Deshaun Watson – they have and will face the fan backlash; but for signing him to a $240 million with ALL of the money guaranteed. Of course, this leads to every other superstar will be asking for the entire contract guaranteed. In a sport where each play could be a player’s last, only guaranteeing a portion of players contracts is standard practice to place some risk on the player and save the owners’ money.
However, the Haslams won’t be the main pariahs in the room. That spot belongs to Daniel Snyder and has been for a long time. The team has been a failure on the field, 156-212-1 record over Snyder’s 24 years of ownership. No titles, a merry-go-round of head coaches, a continuing search for an elite quarterback. For years, he fought the change of the “Redskins” nickname that almost everyone though was racist and an ugly throwback to an earlier time. If that wasn’t enough, there were allegations of a toxic club culture, sexual harassment, and accounting misdeeds. Snyder has been subpoenaed by Congress, and allowed to testify remotely from his super yacht in Europe. Snyder, who is under investigation by the NFL and Congress, feels as if he’s “backed into a corner” and “he’s behaving like a mad dog cornered.”
Despite all of that, the owners are mostly angry that Snyder’s discretions have bungled any chance of a new stadium, a proposal that once seemed inevitable and is now met with hard resistance by the public and officials in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Showing that birds of a feather flock together, Snyder’s main supporter has been Jerry Jones, the owner, and GM of the Commanders’ primary rival, the Dallas Cowboys. Jones has so many skeletons in his closet that they aren’t news anymore but reportedly, Jones won’t stand behind Snyder anymore.
“Snyder’s already lost Jerry,” the ESPN report said, stating that Jones told confidants he “might not be able” to protect Snyder any longer. He has reportedly has “badmouthed” Jones and has “file” on him.
Like many of the people who have tried to tell the truth on Snyder, the owner has used strong-arm tactics, money, threats to get accusers to remain quiet. There are reports that Snyder has hired private investigators to dig dirt on as many as 6 owners and Commissioner Goodell. Snyder believes he has gathered enough secrets to “blow up” the NFL. “They can’t f— with me,” Snyder is reported to have said in regard to other owners.
The report quotes other people close to the league as saying: “He thinks he’s got stuff on Roger [Goodell].” A former Washington executive calls Snyder “the most powerful owner in the NFL” because of what he knows about other NFL owners.
“The NFL is a mafia,” Snyder allegedly told an associate. “All the owners hate each other.” Another NFL owner had the following response: “That’s not true,” the owner said. “All the owners hate Dan.” Of course, the team issued it’s own statement – it is “simply ridiculous and utterly false” that Snyder ever said that he could blow up the league, or that the league “can’t f—” with him, or that “the NFL is a mafia” or “all owners hate each other.”
It is possible that Daniel Snyder is the worst owner in the NFL, perhaps all of sports, but the question is, can the other owners force him to sell the team? It would take a 2/3rds vote of the owners, and since Snyder is petulant and his only aim is to be famous, which comes from being owner of Washington. Lawsuits would fly, the PR of the league, often bad at the best of times, would be worse. Overall, everyone would lose money.
Goodell could follow the route NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has taken in forcing Donald Sterling to sell the Clippers and Suns’ owner Robert Carver both over racist comments. Current reports say that the league will not be taking up Snyder’s fate this Tuesday, but now this is turning into a real life episode of Succession, but unlike that show, the money will be real and so will the animosity.

I hate to say I told you so, but in this instance, I told you so. The experiment by Jerry Reinsdorf and the White Sox to bring back Tony LaRussa to manage the team was a folly. I remember not being a LaRussa fan during his first tenure with the White Sox, mostly how the way he managed pitchers. Of course, he did get the team to the playoffs in 1983 before being eliminated by the Baltimore Orioles.
Credit to LaRussa, he and pitching coach Dave Duncan learned and became better. The duo led World Series Champions in Oakland and St. Louis and a Hall of Fame career. Sox Owner Jerry Reinsdorf outvoted GM Rick and Hahn and SVP Ken Williams to bring back LaRussa, who had been out of the dugout for nine years, and mostly was known for drinking and driving violations.
Two seasons ago, the White Sox clinched their division titlke very early and the team, apparently encouraged by then manager Ricky Renteria to take the rest of the season off in effect did. Unfortunately, the tailspin did not end in the playoffs and the Sox were swept by Oakland. Renteria was not the man, so the search began for a replacement and there were several name managers available, but none of them were interviewed. Reinsdorf, LaRussa’s friend said on numerous occasions that his one regret in baseball was allowing then GM Ken “Hawk” Harrelson to fire LaRussa, so he convinced LaRussa to come out of retirement. Of course, he is an old school manager leading a young team.
One thing struck me as a problem right away; LaRussa’s partner, Dave Duncan, who had been LaRussa’s pitching coach his entire managerial career, is retired and did not joint the team. I think that Duncan was more than a pitching coach – he was like comanager. One of the problems that has been evident for LaRussa’s second stint in the White Sox dugout is the reverence that someone like Duncan would have provided. Some of the nutty intentional walks and other decisions may have been stopped.
The biggest problem may have been hubris. The team is loaded with big time talent, and the rest of the teams in the division had been also-rans. Two things happened in my opinion: first, the players suffered numerous injuries. I believe that the Adonis-like players: Luis Robert, Eloy Jimenez, Yoan Moncada, and others. Instead of working on flexibility, building lots of muscle may actually be detrimental to a baseball player. Add to that, they believed that they could just walk in and win the division, and therefore continued with bad defense, especially in the outfield, and dumb baserunning errors. LaRussa apparently didn’t hold them to a high enough standard.
Old age caught up to LaRussa in the end, a pacemaker that needed to be adjusted and a second, unspecified illness force the manager to leave the team in August, and caused him to step away for the rest of the season, and now the third year of his contract for 2023. There are a number of possible candidates to replace LaRussa. GM Hahn has said that he is looking outside of the organization, which may mean no to former catcher A.J. Pierzinski and former manager Ozzie Guillen (which I think is a smart move). Of course, Reinsdorf prefers people he knows that have loyalty. Time will tell.

For the first time in three years, the Toronto International Film Festival was open for business, almost 300 films, live audiences, masks required in the theaters, lots of celebrities and more World Premieres than I can remember. Almost every film was a world premiere. For the 20th time, your friend and humble narrator ventured up to watch movies.

Friday, September 9

I flew up in the morning, in time for one film, a German-Romanian drama from director Ulrich Seidl called “Sparta.” The film’s main character fights an inclination to pedophilia, but apparently, the parents of the actors said they were left in the dark about the subject matter. The actors were between 9-16 at the time of filming in 2018 and 2019. The night before I left I received an email that the film had been pulled from the Festival. That’s OK – got to hang with friends.

Saturday, September 10

I could have watched “The Warrior King” in the morning, but I figured the film would be coming to regular theaters (although star Viola Davis was there). I found another film interesting – “De Humani Corporis Fabrea” is a documentary about spending time in hospitals and using the small cameras used for surgery to record what it looks like to be inside the human body. I was a biology major in college and was curious.
The film was often visually fascinating – the shots in the operating room, the pictures from inside the body, the comments from the doctors in the OR were all insightful. Unfortunately, unless you’re in medical school, this not a very good film. The filmmakers shot in several French hospitals over several years, but there was no guiding link. Not that a documentary has to be a story, but usually, there is a theme – one day in a hospital, stories of the patients or the doctors. The film returned to several characters, but there was no rhyme or reason as to why we’re following them around, what made them compelling.
One of the filmmakers, Lucien Castaing-Taylor attended the screening (the other director Verena Paravel was not there) and said that he was an anthropologist and were not interested in a “plot” or telling a story. That was obvious, and while visually interesting in many places, I started off with the worst film of the Festival right off the bat.
Things got much more interesting after that. First, when leaving De Humani, the crowd I was in were held back – not allowed to leave. The reason? Former Senator, First Lady and Presidential candidate Hilary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea were coming through the lobby. They were in town to publicize a show they were doing together. My phone wasn’t ready for a picture – oh well…
One of the films I most wanted to attend was “Black Ice,” a Canadian documentary about Black players in the NHL and the discrimination and racism they faced and still face today. I had only heard of the Colored Hockey League of the 1890s, up through Willie O’Ree, the sad story of Herb Carnegie – the best Black player to never play in the NHL (but still a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame), up to the present day. This included traumatic stories from Akim Akiu who got a coach fired for using racist language directed at him; life for Wayne Simmonds.
As much as hockey is loved in Canada, it should be little surprise that it won the People’s Choice Documentary Award, but I am a little surprised because it told some horrible stories that don’t paint Canadians as the kind, accepting people many believe they are. The film, coproduced by Drake and LeBron James, was another World Premiere and lots of hockey stars attended including P.K. Subban, Simmonds, Akiu, and Nasim Kadri. It was a terrific film.
Continuing a Canadian theme, my next film was a fine comedy called “The End of Sex.” In this film, a couple try to rekindle their routine sex life when their kids go off to a winter school break camp. Write Jonas Chernick is Josh and Emily Hampshire from Schitt’s Creek were the couple and of course, there are old crushes, new crushes, frustration and looking at your relationship through a different lens. It was routine, but it was very funny, especially if you are in a long marriage and have kids.

The busiest day of the Festival for me, and it started with a star-studded documentary. “Sidney” is a documentary on the late Sidney Poitier, directed by my college roommate’s old friend from East St. Louis, Illinois, Reggie Hudlin and executive produced by Oprah Winfrey. While I generally try to avoid Ms. Winfrey at all costs, the film was a very through, honest view of Mr. Poitier’s life. Ms. Winfrey had filmed 8 hours of interview footage with Mr. Poitier before he died which Mr. Hudlin used in fine form to allow the subject to narrate his own life.
Of course, this World Premiere had to have an appearance from Ms. Winfrey and her Sancho Panza Gayle King, which would have been enough to make me puke, but five of Mr. Poitier’s six daughters attended the screening and provided quite a lot of background on their father. This film will be on Apple TV – see it!
The next film is also very good – “Chevalier” is the story of Joseph Bologne, a brilliant violin player and composer in the years before the French Revolution. Kevin Harrison, Jr. (“Waves”) was most effective in bringing the man to life while hobnobbing in French high society including Queen Marie Antoinette. The story of course has racism and transcendence, in telling a tale of a great, obscured artist. Directed by Stephen Williams who has been best known for directing premium television series like “Watchmen,” “Lost,” and “How to Get Away With Murder,” did a wonderful job in this historical costume drama.
With “Sparta” pulled from the Festival, this left me with an extra ticket, which I used for a film called “Runner.” Writer-Director Marian Mathias tells the story of an 18-year-old woman who lives with her father in Missouri. A dreamer with a plan to build and flip some houses, has not been able to do anything well except drink at the local bar and ring up debts (most people believe him to be mentally ill). The father unexpectedly dies and the girl, names Haas (Dutch for “hare” or “runner”) takes her father north to Illinois for burial. She has little money and her house is in the process of foreclosure. Once there, rain postpones the burial and she ends up hanging out with a young man who has a bicycle.
Not a romance as such, the two hang out together, spending much time in fields. The photography was unusual because the sun never shone, the sky was always grey and even seemed lighter and grey when it was supposed to be dusk or night. I understand that this was supposed to be a film about a period of the characters’ lives, but Haas remains in the same predicament – no money, house about to be taken away. It moved slowly and had no point to me.
The final film of the day was an interesting exercise called “Sanctuary.” The heir to a hotel empire (Christopher Abbott) meets with a dominatrix who he has been seeing for some time (Margaret Qualley) trying to break off the relationship. It turned into a sexually charged, 21st Century take on “Sleuth” – a two character film as both characters play verbal and physical games to gain the upper hand on the other character. It was an interesting game to watch, but the movie wimped out at the end going for the easy happy ending that didn’t really fit.

After 20 film festivals, there are many times when time seems to bend back on itself – stars you’ve seen before, directors whose earlier films you’ve seen. Monday started this trend. Oscar winner Jessica Chastain who I’d seen in person at TIFF for the film “Molly’s Game” attended her latest movie, a well-acted but fairly by the numbers drama called “The Good Nurse.” In it she plays a real-life single mother with a very dangerous heart condition and not enough time on her job to get health insurance. Into the medium size town where she lives, comes a new male nurse, played by Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne. The man has been bouncing from hospital to hospital, which is unusual because he appears to be quite a capable nurse.
People start dying and the hospital covers-up any possible wrongdoing by forcing the nurses to silence and playing the police for fools, but Chastain’s character Amy knows what’s happening but how to prove it without losing her job and children and life, is very good. I haven’t read the book on which this film is based (but the real-life protagonist did attend the screening – another World Premiere), but I found myself very happy that the film didn’t take an easy way out and turn the third act into another slasher/kids in danger film. Again, it was a déjà vu screening for me. The film was the director’s (Tobias Lindholm) first film in English. As it turned out, I had seen one of his earlier films, “A Hijacking” which I saw in 2012. I liked that film, and I like this one also. It will be on Netflix.
Another Netflix film was my second of the day, but boy am I glad that I saw it on the big screen. Director Edward Berger brought the German anti-war book “All Quiet on the Western Front” to the screen. In German, it was a vivid and memorable view of World War I but from the eventual losers’ view. Of course, the defeat would have ramifications for the entire world in the years to come, but all of that death and destruction over just a small amount of land showed the horrors and wastefulness of war. Well worth seeing.
The third film of the day was called “The Menu.” Imagine a mix of The Food Network and the Addams Family. Ralph Fiennes is Chef, whose restaurant is the most expensive, most secluded food experience in the world. Of course, the restaurant workers are all cult-like members and like slaves to the demented and dangerous Chef. Directed by Mark Mylod (Succession) and starring Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch), John Leguizamo, a restaurant critic played by Janet McTeer, three tech guys, and Judith Light who all are not there by accident. Ms. Taylor-Joy’s character has been brought by a man to eat for free.
VERY dark humor, with a great deal of panache and daring, this film is not for everyone, but if you like your satire sharp, this is a very entertaining film.