Corporatization, Rumors, and Good Ol' City Government

It appeared that closure was almost here. The Sharks contract to take over the OIC was complete, with just the issue of how much money is needed to repair OIC's suffering physical plant. The Sharks were to take over the Oakland Ice Center on July 1, take 4 weeks to perform necessary maintenance, then return to operations. There were some issues with all of that, no doubt, but the limbo the rink is in would come to an end.

Not so fast!

For reasons of city politics that I'm not privy to, the City removed the final vote to approve the contract for the Sharks from the June 5 agenda. Of course, one of the reasons was the additional $1/2 million the Sharks wanted to fix the rink of all that ails it before they were willing to execute . . .

In place of the Sharks performing the maintenance, it appears the City found its own contractor to fix the ice, with the current rink "management," Iceoplex "managing" the maintenance operations. The current plan is for Rink Services, an independent contractor, to melt down, repair, and rebuild each sheet of ice independently over July and August. (Link). All the while, Iceoplex continues to "manage" the rink.

The big question in the sky? What's going on with the Sharks? Did their request for more money kill the deal?

And as usual, no word from the folks at OIC. None. And the current hockey schedule only goes through the end of June . . .

Summer Hockey

14 guys say they'll play . . . 10 follow through . . . 11 say they'll be at the next game . . . 8 show up.

Ahhh . . . summer hockey!

Defense Training Video

There are three things to learn from this video:
(1) Not all Canadians are great hockey players;
(2) Beginner Adult Rec-Hockey is really slow;
(3) This is a pretty good description of basic zone defense (which my present team -- me included -- has been sucking at).

Without further ado . . .



And finally, my apologies for not posting in over two months . . . what can I say? Off season, followed by summer hockey.