I don’t always negotiate escrow percentages or recommend an Executive Director, but when I do …

So it’s been a while now. Time to look at the NHLPA’s firing of Paul Kelly with a cooler head, and the advantage of perspective.

(Pause to consider, hand thoughtfully rubbing chin.)

Verdict: They’re still a bunch of idiots.

Kelly was a good man, the right man for the job, and the result of a extensive search only two years ago that actually made the NHLPA look like a pragmatic, intelligently run organization. But Eric Lindros, Ian Penny, union hard-ass Buzz Hargrove and their cohorts made short work of that impression.

The players are back to looking like they have no clue.

Most interesting candidates

Personally, we’re stumping for the Bonnie Lindros as Executive Director campaign. She could run the NHLPA the way she ran the Flyers back when Eric was in town.

Or, how about The Most Interesting Man In The World?

“I don’t always negotiate escrow percentages, but when I do…”

Upping the ante

Get set for a week of flying figures down in Phoenix, where Jim Balsillie has already tried to buy off the Glendale arena folks with a $50 million "offer." Of course, that also allows him to play games there while the National Hockey League inevitably appeals the judge’s decision should they lose.

And if the relocation fee charged by the NHL exceeds $15 million — which it undoubtedly will — then the price comes off Glendale’s take, dollar for dollar, to a minimum of $40 million.

Glendale pumped nearly $200 million into a rink, got a 30-year lease with a buy-out clause that exceeds $700 million, and put it all down on paper in a lease document that is patterned after other stadium/arena leases that have held up under the scrutiny of the court. Don’t think they’ll be salivating this morning after this development, another smoke and mirrors development that now puts the ball in the NHL’s court.

Balsillie pumped his offer up to $242.5 million on Sunday night. The NHL will no doubt have to raise their ante as well.

As predicted, if Balsillie doesn’t get this team, he’ll make sure that whoever does thoroughly regrets their victory.

Judge R.T. Procrastinator

All that guarantees is that there will be something else to appeal when or if Judge Redfield T. Baum ever gets off the seat of his robe and makes a decision down in Phoenix. Talk about a procrastinator. Next time your wife says to hurry up building that deck, just drop the old T. Baum on her.

This guy never gets anything done, and this past weekend he had the filings delivered to the gatehouse at his place up in Flagstaff, Ariz. Presumably, he read them in the hot tub, or between shots in a golf cart.

By the way, didn’t they say when this whole thing started that bankruptcy court was supposed to work swiftly? And that the highest bidder — i.e. Balsillie — was going to have a huge edge, because bankruptcy court was all about getting the most money for the creditors?

Well, maybe the people who told us that with such conviction were a little hopeful. Funny, weren’t many of those national writers the same ones who promised us the Buffalo Bills would be playing out of Toronto by now?

A little hopeful on that count as well, it turns out.

Dropping their bigger balls

We were beginning to worry about our old Canadian Football League, the source of so many one-of-a-kind stories over the years.

The officials hadn’t botched a game in some time, and with their war room in Toronto and video replays from more than two angles, we were starting to wonder if the charming slapstick element of the league had disappeared.

But alas, the result of the Montreal-B.C. game was completely altered by a blown call — in the war room, no less — and all is right again in the CFL.

It’s a complex position the CFL finds itself in, but we suspect most of you are like us. The more the CFL starts to look like the NFL, the less we like it.

Ba-dump-dah (cymbal crash)

The best line of all through the Pacman Jones soap opera in Winnipeg appeared in USA Today: “Pacman Jones goes to Canada. Somebody must have convinced him the North Pole was a strip club.”

We wondered if the Winnipeg Blue Bombers could find a way to plumb the depths of stupidity even further than when they settled on Mike Kelly as a head coach. It took nearly half a season, but they found a way with Pacman, then miraculously discovered that perhaps he wouldn’t be a positive influence and walked away.