Blast From The Past

Here are my first attempts at blogging, on my Yahoo page a couple of years ago. I came across my old page and thought I would repeat the blog entries here, for posterity and a few laughs.

My up-to-date update is after the old blog entries:

"Entry for November 08, 2005
No rest for me! Running a business, co-ordinating construction of 2 houses, being a dad/stepdad to 4 boys, Scouting, choir, leading a Bible study... I need to find some time for myself.

Entry for November 09, 2005
Things are going well at the houses, although the drywalling at our house is taking longer than I anticipated. Just painting, flooring, cabinets, light and plumbing fixtures and trim to go!
Alistair's house is being framed now and it looks good to get it roof-tight for his next visit in 3 weeks. Everyone who asks if we will be in the house for Christmas isn't joking anymore - yikes! We will be in before Christmas: that is my goal. Of course, my original goal was to be in by Labour Day!

Entry for November 10, 2005
So the insulator's truck is in the shop, so he can't blow in the insulation in my attic. This means that when the guys walk on the roof trusses in the attic when they put in the insulation, they may crack the drywall compound that has been installed and my drywaller is warning me that this will be extra work for them to repair. The wind blew the gate into the drywaller's truck and broke off the passenger side mirror. He said don't worry about it, they will replace it with a part from the junkyard for $5 or 10.
Alistair's house progressed well yesterday, with half of the roof trusses put up. No work on it today (I think) because of windy, cold, rainy weather.
Long weekend tomorrow. We will be marching in the parade to the cenotaph with the Cubs and Scouts. Then we have the rest of the weekend off, just in time for me to paint the front door and install a new lockset, as well as replace the basement light fixtures to dress up the house a bit more.

Entry for December 22, 2005
Wow! Hard to believe it's almost Christmas! We aren't in the house - delay with the hardwood installer, so it will have to be in January. We dug out the Christmas ornaments from the rental storage room. Looks like I won't have time to empty it before the month is up - another $80 down the drain.
Alistair's house is coming along quickly. He will be done not long after us, I figure.
Anyway, here at the office late to finish up work before year-end. See ya in 2006!

Entry for April 03, 2006
So we are finally in the house! Keeping busy with finishing touches. I heard somewhere that it takes a year to build a house and another year to finish it. I can see why. We still have interior trim to paint, landscaping to do, and the back deck and balcony to build."


UP-TO-DATE UPDATE:

Still running the business. We have had some ups and downs, but last fiscal year was quite good. I guess that is what can happen when I am not at a construction site every morning!

Construction is complete, including my parent's house next door and my sister and her family on the other side of our parents. It is great to have everyone so close and yet we still have our privacy and our own lives.

Now I am Dad/Stepdad to 4 boys and 1 girl! Natalie was born on June 8, 2006!!! Philson moved in with us full-time on March 30, 2007!!!

I am still involved with Scouting, although only as a Trainer now. Cheryl is now our group's Registrar. We will probably go back as leaders when David and Natalie are old enough to join Beavers. I know our friend Margaret is waiting for us to come back as her replacement!

I am still in the choir at St. Peter's. We have been struggling a bit with the choir size, with a number of people over the past year or two, with fewer people coming in to replace them. I enjoy it and I enjoy singing praises to God, but I feel like we are only surviving as a choir and I am not sure what we can do to improve the situation.

I am not running the Bible study any more. Life just got too busy when Natalie was born, so I opted to not continue it for that year, which became this year too. I miss it, I know I need to get back into the Bible and while I know that leading a study is not the only way for me to do that, I also recognize that it was an easy way for me to take the time to do it. I need to put forth the effort to study the Bible for my own sake, other people will benefit from my doing so, when I have more balance in my life.

While I have found some time for myself lately, it has been fleeting and I feel guilty about doing it. Cheryl and I are slowly working our lives back to an acceptable balance, with our time together as a couple having been driven down to virtually nil over the past couple of years. We are on the same page and we both want the same satisfaction with our lives as a family and as a couple. It is nice to get back to spending some time together, just the two of us, even if it is only for brief moments at a time right now.

We have been in the house for almost 23 months. Since we moved in the house at the end of February 2006 (what happened to Labour Day 2005!?!), we had the back deck and balcony built. Still working on the interior trim painting, Cheryl has most of the main floor done. I slogged away at getting the yard ready for sods this summer and fall, but I ran out of seasonable weather. Looks like the spring for that project. I knew that if we moved in before painting the trim, it would be the kiss of death for getting that chore done. I guess I was right, after all. Oh well, onward and upward!

Rainmen cut Williams, bring back Booyer

The Rainmen recently announced that Devino Williams, the teenage talent with the Rainmen's best 3-pointer stats, was released from the team, apparently for not displaying "the level of maturity to play professional basketball.", according to Coach Lewis on the Rainmen website. James Booyer, a 6'9" forward will be re-joining the team after spending the first few weeks of the season holding down one end of the bench because of an injured leg.

I wonder if there is some kind of internal deal with the players to keep a maximum of 10 players on the team? We definitely need more forwards and fewer guards, so hopefully this is a step in the right direction. While Devino is talented, we have other shooting guards who have more facets to their game. It also seems like Coach Lewis has favourites, and apparently Devino wasn’t one of them. From the first round of Booyer’s stay with the Rainmen, he allegedly is one of Coach’s favourites. How will this play with the rest of the team?

Having the players live in one house may be good for bonding as a team, but having the wrong guy in a house can act as a poison for morale. Was Williams that wrong guy? Was Booyer (in his original stint with the team)? One thing is for sure, the revolving door cannot be helping morale. Not knowing if you will still be with a team that has moved you to Halifax for a few weeks and then cuts you (Hardy, Gladden, and now Williams) must weigh on the players’s minds.

On the other hand, all of this speculation is just that - speculation. We fans don’t live in the house and we don’t really know how the dynamics run in that household. I just hope the core players are able to overcome this apparent obstacle of player turnover and finish the season strong. The wins will come if the players are happy.

Rainmen need help

Along with other people who watched this game, I was puzzled as to why our mainstay players were not playing in their proven positions. I think Coach Lewis should leave the experimenting to when the Rainmen are ahead by 20-30 points, not when we are playing the strongest team that we have faced. When fans can recognize the individual players’s strengths, why can’t the coach? Our team should have established roles by this point in the season, not still seemingly trying out players in positions to see what happens. Having said that, we desperately need another forward who can drive to the net, not another low percentage shooter.

As we saw over the past couple of games, rebounds really matter. The game that the Rainmen won by 30 points had probably their highest number of boards, especially defensive, for the year. It was too bad that the Rainmen gave up on the rebounds so much against Vermont, especially since the Frost Heaves are not a team that gives up on a ball underneath the net.

Why do we completely abandon the chance for a tip-in on errant three pointers? If our guys were shooting better on the long shots, I would see the wisdom on getting back early for defence, but 33% (according to the Rainmen site) on three-pointers does not seem to me to be a high enough number to just let it go and hope for the best. I think Eric should be under the basket to add even more points to his total, he seems to be the best at finishing off shots already.

While this game was fun to watch, although ultimately disappointing in its result, I would say the brightest points of the double header were meeting the Vermont fans - who were very nice and were trying to convince us to come down to Vermont - and Darrell Dexter’s turn as the 13th man.

I just read that Halifax is #1 in fan attendance in the league! Wow! And we thought there weren’t many people showing up. Having said that, we can always do better.

Looking at the ABA Power Rankings of the Top 15 teams, it appears that only the lowly Maywood Buzz (1-15) are not on this list. The ABA says it will have 16 teams in the playoffs. Considering there are only 16 teams left, I think it’s safe to say that we are in the playoffs.

How bad do the Buzz players feel (other than because they are 1-15)? They are the only team in the league that is not listed on the Power Rankings. You would think the ABA would just list all 16 remaining teams now. What happens if more teams fold? Will they have a Top 14 list? Top 13 list?

Looking at last year’s playoff tree, I think we want to stay around the middle of the rankings to last longer in the playoffs. It looks like a typical #1 plays #16, #2 plays #15, etc. playoff.

If there are an odd number of teams, I think Halifax, as the #1 in attendance figures, should get any available first round bye as a reward (if there are an odd number of teams).

The Rainmen Have Value

After this season, I think Mr. Levingston should seriously consider taking on some local investors and pony up the $1,000,000 to join the NBA Development League. That means 20 people at $50,000. That is chicken feed, to be part of the NBA Organization. As reference, the Raptors have a franchise value of $373,000,000 on revenues of $124,000,000 and operating income of $29,000,000 last season. This page on the Forbes website has more information. I like the Wins-to-player cost ratio at the bottom of the page, it gives us an idea if the payroll expense is really worth it, since wins and losses (and championships) are how we judge sports teams.

I don't know the Rainmen's revenues, but let's just say they only get their home game ticket sales and merchandise. If they average 2,000 people per game for 18 home games at $15/ticket, allowing for discounted tickets but also the floor seats, that is $540,000. Let's say they sell 2,000 mechandise items this season, at an average of $25 each, including replica jerseys. That is another $50,000.

I don't know how much sponsorship they have, or if it is even included in revenues. Most of the sponsorship appears to be in kind, like the Printing House, Daily News, Q104, Reebok, Physioclinic, The Westin. As a guess, let's say the total sponsorship is $300,000. I assume the Metro Centre keeps the concession revenues, to keep things simple. Based on the Raptor's value to revenue ratio, this makes the Rainmen franchise worth about $2,700,000, from $890,000 in revenues.

These figures are all just guesses on my part, I have no actual information on the Rainmen finances. I also assume that there is no economy of scale; in other words, a bigger company like the Raptors would probably have better profit margins than a new company that operates on a smaller scale, like the Rainmen. This is because fixed costs such as travel, salaries, venue rental, etc. are probably all a much bigger percentage of revenue for the Rainmen than for the Raptors.

If the Rainmen don't make as much as 24% income on their revenue (the revenue figures being complete conjecture on my part), then the franchise value would not be as high as the above figure. If their costs are $20,000 per game ($8,000 for venue rental in Halifax, say the same for travel costs for away games, $12,000 per game in salaries of players, coaches, staff), that means they have costs of $720,000 for a 36 game season. That leaves about $170,000 of around 19% of revenue, as income. Based on the Raptor's figures, that makes the Rainmen worth about $2,200,000.

I am guessing these figures are on the low side, but my point from this exercise is to show that the franchise has a value that could easily be supported with a local consortium with the current owners retaining 50% of the team to reward their risk-taking on starting the team, to enter the NBA Development League. Once the Rainmen join the NBADL, attendance will go up and that increased revenue will go toward the bottom line, although I figure player salaries will probably also rise, but probably not as much as the increased revenues from attendance and merchandise.

How about the Green Bay Packers model of local people owning shares, maybe for a part of the team ownership to raise money (it essentially acts as a bond to raise money)? Sell 2,000 shares at $500 each. I would definitely buy one of those, and I am sure most other season ticket holders would, too. Heck, I paid more than that for my 5 season tickets. What do you think, Mr. Levingston?

The Rainmen need to look elsewhere

The ABA is no place for a good team. This is evident by how many former ABA teams have been leaving the league to join other groups.

The more I learn about the ABA and what I observe as this season progresses, I hope Mr. Levingston is able to take steps to join another league next year. He and the other viable teams in the Northeast and North divisions should approach the NBA Development League, the Premier Basketball League, or the Continental Basketball Association.

Of these, the NBA D-League is the most attractive choice, and not only for the obvious brand recognition reason. The D-League has no teams in the Northeast area of America or any Canadian Teams. If the 6 teams in the Northeast and North divisions of the ABA could form a new division for the D-League, it could benefit both groups. The D-League would have viable teams who would relish the opportunity to be linked to an NBA team (or two) and they would also expand into a new geographical area. The teams would benefit from increased popularity from association with such a widely recognized brand of basketball as well as the stability that comes along with the NBA. I think a natural NBA team that the Rainmen could be the farm team for would be the Raptors.

If the NBA is not receptive, then there are at least 2 other options: The PBL and the CBA.

The Premier Basketball League is a new group of 8 former ABA teams that started playing their first season last week. I think the jury is still out on whether this would be an improvement over the ABA, if only because of the PBL’s newness. I think their growing pains would have to be done before considering a move there. Having said that, if the ABA provides no support to its teams and its reputation is actually hurting financially viable teams (like Halifax, Vermont, etc.), then this might be the only way to survive.

The Continental Basketball Association is also made up of mostly former ABA teams. This league seems to be very spread out geographically, but again, they have no representation in New England/Atlantic Canada. This year, there was a team in upstate New York and one in Pittsburgh, so even if only some of the ABA teams in question decided to join the CBA, there would be some competitors fairly close by.

Other professional leagues of note are:
- the United States Basketball League, which just announced the suspension of its entire 2008 season, because of so many teams folding. So much for that as an option.

- The new National Professional Basketball League, which starts this spring. This league is apparently based in the northeast United States, with teams in New York state, New Jersey, Connecticut, MAryland, Delaware and Virginia. As a spring league, the schedule for games would probably not interfere so much with Mooseheads games, meaning we could possibly have more weekend games. As we have seen so far this season, the weekend is when people come to the game. The NPBL season is going to be from March 1 to early June. This looks like an interesting alternative.

P.S. The former ABA Corning Bulldogs — now called the Elmira Bulldogs — will be part of this league. By the way, Corning is a town of 10,000 in upstate New York. It was the smallest town with an ABA franchise. It would be like Truro having a franchise, to put things into perspective. No wonder they only drew 80 people to a home game.

Rainmen are looking for a few good men

The Rainmen are going through some growing pains, signing and releasing players in an effort to strengthen their team's weak spots (such as a power forward other than Eric Crookshanks).

With so many of the other teams in the ABA folding, there must be some castaway talent from these defunct ABA teams. Having said that, I saw ex-SMU player Brian Thompson in line to get some food at the game last night. Although he is older than Benoite, he was the man back in the day: on the AUAA all-star team, AUAA MVP and CIAU all star team over a 4 year period. If Vinny Testeverde can play for over 20 years, why can’t we get some local university alumni to jump in and play relief for the Rainmen?

Rainmen draw 2741 in their win over Montreal, January 6, 2008

2700+ is probably a reasonable expectation for spectators at a weekend game. Hopefully next season, the Rainmen can negotiate to have more weekend games. The Moose aren’t here every Saturday!

This game had its bright and its dim spots. Great show on the rebounding (I haven’t looked at the stats, but their boards, offense and especially defense, must have been much higher than average) but the Rainmen handled the ball sloppily way too many times, especially under the net.

It was great to see the 13th man actually dressed for the game, participate in the team talks and even play the final minute or so! I believe it was Barry Barnet, our provincial health minister. He certainly did not embarrass himself. Barnet even went up and down the court, kind of covering his opponent, although I think the Montreal player was mostly concerned about hurting him. This was a refreshing start in the right direction of actually using the 13th player rule. Keep it up!

Squid played a very entertaining half-time show and Bruce Guthro sang O Canada, which was cool. We have so much talent in Halifax, there should be no problem getting singers for the anthems. Having recording artists perform the anthems is an added draw that may impress some people. Every little bit helps.

Coach Lewis was actually fairly impressive in his vocality with the refs. At one point, he remiinded them about the rules about calling timeouts after a Montreal player tried to call timeout as he jumped out of bounds trying to save the ball. Even though the refs agreed with Lewis, they made up some story about “inadvertant whistle” so that Montreal retained the ball on the throw-in, then they made some bogus travelling call on Montreal to give the ball to Halifax.

While I don’t agree with the strategy of playing one line for a whole quarter at a time, I think the coach is growing in experience and the players are getting tighter as a team on the court. This is evident in their improving season record. I guess we have to remember that this is not the NBA, all the people in the game — refs, coaches, and players — are not at that top level. However, it seems like the officiating is fairly odious. The officials kept Montreal in the game by calling fouls anytime more than one Rainman was near a Royal in the key. It was pretty disgusting.

I am looking forward to seeing the Rainmen play Vermont, I hope they can at least split the two games. The scheduling for this part of the season is fairly haphazard, with all three January games occurring in a span of 4 days and a similar timetable for February. I would rather see one game a week, like the first part of the season. I guess with opposing teams folding or “suspending operations”, we are lucky to get games played at all. Go Rainmen!

ABA's 13th Man Rule

The ABA has a rule that teams can dress and play(!) a 13th player on their roster. It is seen as a public relations scheme to increase fan interest. It seems to draw its friends and foes, but I like it.

Unfortunately, the Rainmen have not really been using it to their advantage. Past 13th players have been Jordan Croucher, a local R&B artist (probably a good choice since a lot of people cheered his introduction), Cindy Day, the local weather personality (maybe for the "rain" connection? Uninspired selection in my opinion), and mostrecently Barry Barnet our provincial Minister of Health. Only Barnet actually played, even though it was only for the final minute of so of a game that the Rainmen had well in hand.

I would like to see some local b-ballers get the nod for 13th player and actually see them play. It is one of the rules in this league, designed to put more people in the seats. How about the university player of the week be named the 13th man? There are probably some issues with eligibility, even if high school players were used, but there must be some contractual way around that. Why not make it a charity fund-raiser? The 13th player rule can be a positive thing, if it is used in the right way. Even though it is a gimmick. it doesn’t have to bring down the level of play in the game.

From Chris Parsons's blog:

BelarusRikk Says:

January 6, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Imagine if the Frost Heaves, Gwizzlies and San Francisco Rumble ALL showed up in Halifax on January 9th? In any other league miscommunication of this magnitude would be impossible, but in this one…don’t say it can’t happen

BigDaddyPhil Says:

January 7, 2008 at 10:29 am
Rikk, if all four teams showed up (including the Rainmen), I think there should be a 10-on-10 Battle Royale. Each team puts 5 guys on the court (say Vermont and Halifax versus Georgia and San Fran) and everyone tries to score points for their combined team. At haliftime, the winning team combo splits up into their original teams, then they play the second half 5-on-5 to determine the game winner.

That might actually be really cool to watch! If Joe Newman ever reads this, it might become a new rule next year! You read it here first - I want royalties on this idea.


Here is a hilarious link for the oddly named ABA team Georgia Gwizzlies that were supposed to have played the Rainmen but couldn't get passports?!? They were originally from Gwinnett County in Georgia, but they moved and must have decided to keep the Gwizzlies name for brand recognition (ok......).

New Nickname for Rainmen's Kadiri Richard?

My favourite player on the Rainmen is Kadiri Richard (#5). He is athletically talented, he makes huge swat-blocks that look cool (about one every 4 minutes or so that he is on the court), he has a great attitude, he has taught special needs students, he gives his team-mates their props after they score, and when he is playing, his facial expression alternates between a huge grin or the most intense scowl that I have ever seen. He is even growing a beard to support his fellow Rainman Jermaine Stewart, who is trying to qualify for the Olympics on Canada' national team.

I ordered a Rainmen jersey with his number on it, I am looking forward to wearing it to games!

Chad Lucas, a reporter for the Herald, mentions here that he thinks Kadiri needs a better nickname than "KD". I suspect that Chad is sick of hearing me shout it whenever Kadiri scores or makes a huge block. I sit right behind his media seat at the games. hehehe

I asked Kadiri if he had a nickname, back at the start of the season. He replied with “KD”. That’s good enough for me. We have to remember that a good sports nickname has to be easy to chant and to be understood when yelling it.

Some alternatives: Sultan of Swat, The Swahili Shield (Kadiri is a Swahili word/name meaning a type of tree). These may be offensive to some, so they are probably out.

How about Rocket Richard? I know he pronounces his surname differently than Maurice Richard did, but I think yelling “Rocket” might be fun.

My latest try is The Fortress of Swat-itude. Hmmm. Needs some paprika.

P.S. I think the announcer should give a nightly shout out to DJ Ronnie, who spins the tunes during the games. It is an easy thing to do and it adds to the connection we can have with the team, by giving the fans some knowledge about the people involved with the team.

Can't get enough of Guitar Hero?

How about this new game?

Here is the point of reference from the SNL skit

This is the best delivery of a funny line in one of SNL's funniest skits ever. Chris Walken may be a cartoon character of himself now, but he can do comedy!

NBA Development League may be the Rainmen's ticket to survival

It looks like the D League needs a Eastern Division (there are no teams east of the Mississippi). I agree with Chris that the NBA name would give Halifax fans a reason to come out to the games. It seems like Halifax needs a big-time name to convince people that the product is worth consuming. Imagine if we had some NBA games to start the season like we have with hockey?

I remember the Halifax Voyageurs — yes, I am that old! They were a big part of why I became a Canadiens fan, because I knew that someday there would be players that I was watching in Halifax who would eventually play in the NHL. As it turned out, quite a few Vees played in the NHL after their time with us. Guy Carbonneau was my favourite player then. I think he has some role with Montreal now

The Rainmen need to promote themselves more, get their message out and build public awareness as to their mere existence. How about live radio broadcasts? I am sure they could use webcasts effectively too. Try taking a page from the Vermont Frost Heaves. They have webcasts and 4 of their fans drove 13 hours to see them play in Halifax! That’s commitment!

I would hate to see the Rainmen go the way of the Windjammers: a good team with solid fan support that gets brought down by a shaky league (or two).

By the way, I really enjoy the games although the officiating is suspect at times. Maybe it’s tougher to see fouls on the floor rather than from the stands.

Lastly, I don’t know about the other fans, but I think the bottom parts of Section 22 and 23 have the loudest, best fans in the arena.

Go Rainmen!

Halifax Rainmen!

I have been overdue in posting about Halifax's professional basketball team: the Rainmen. I bought front-row season tickets on the day they became available because I remember going to AHL hockey games with my Dad and I wanted to give a similar experience to our kids. So far, the Rainmen are 7-9, after a poor 1-7 start. They are playing catch up, but the good news is that they are one a small number of financially viable teams in the apparently shady league, so by virtue of still being around at the end of the season, they may be guaranteed a playoff berth! The next few posts will be my comments on another fan's blog. I have a lot to say on that website, so I figure I may as well put my content on my on blog too.