Got a chance to listen to Cliff on the Watter’s show. I have to say, it is a pleasure listening to the silver fox as compared to either JFJ or JPR. I think the guys is sincere, he listens to the question and gives straight answers. I also believe he has the McCabe situation dealt with already, but something else has to happen first. More below, or listen for yourself….

Anyways here are the tidbits from Cliff Fletcher with Greg Brady and Bill Watters:

Watters still believes Burke coming soon

Cliff on McCabe: Discussion are on going with Ian Pulver – he believes the situation can probably be resolved in early Sept.

Watters says to Cliff even if Cliff gets a list of 5 teams, Watters thinks it is still possible no deal will be made, as the teams listed may not want McCabe.
Cliff: I am not going to get into that. Bryan needs to decide first and foremost if he wants to play- and i believe he does. I believe he will feel that it will be in his best interest to move on from Toronto. Then we have to do what we can to make sure it is satisfactory to him. I am fairly confident we can do that, both parties will be happy and we will move on. Nothing will happen in the next 2-3 weeks but it will well before training camp.

Watters presses again, What are obstacles if you don’t resolve it by then, you don’t invite McCabe to training camp and you still DO pay him?

Cliff responds: I have no idea, we don’t operate that way, at least I don’t anyway. I have been in the business too long to get into a situation like that. Bryan is a good person, he was a good Maple Leaf and there will be resolution in some form.

Watters asks, yet again, If you are unable to agree will he be playing for the Leafs on opening night?
Cliff responds: yes, I have never operated that way.

Brady asks, that given the lack of interest in McCabe in February, has Bryan’s value decreased?
Cliff responds: No, in February, Bryan said he didn’t want to move, so we didn’t bang our heads against the wall. At that time teams were concerned about his health as he was just back from an injury. That isn’t the case now so his value has gone up.

On an unrelated question, I believe about Sundin, Cliff says, “We just need a few more weeks and then there will be no more issues with McCabe after that”

Watter then asks is there a scenario where both Sundin and McCabe are in the opening night lineup?
Cliff responds: I guess anything is possible and we have loads of cap room if needed.

Cliff responds to a question about Jonas Frogren: We liked him in the World Championships in Quebec, he doesn’t get into trouble in his own end and based on our play of late he will be a big help.

Cliff gets asked about a rotating captain and responds that he thinks it can work, but if Sundin is back its a moot issue as he will be captain

Watters then says he is beginning to think that Sundin will be back.
Cliff responds: I look into my crystal ball every am and still there is nothing there.

Cliff then debunks Eklunds theory on a no movement clause holding this up by stating that he has never talked about anything other then an annual salary with JP Barry, and that should Sundin want to come back those issues will all have to be negotiated. He adds that he talked to JP Barry last week, that the rumors of Mats not training are BS, he is training as usual and he started to skate today.

On numerous occasions Cliff said he thinks this will be resolved in 2-3 weeks. You have to wonder why then? What is he not saying? Does an interested team need to dump salary? Is there another shoe that has to drop first? Something is up, Cliff knows something, he seemed to convinced that in 2-3 weeks this will be resolved.

The more I listened to the interview the more comfortable I became with the notion that Cilff is the right guy for the time being. After what Leaf fans have been through, I get the impression he has a plan. Even more so, I am more convinced that Berger is off his rocker on the McCabe issue. Cliff has dealt with and will continue to do so in a professional manner. Problem for Howies is nothing left to bitch about.

If you want to listen to the interview you can do so here flecther with wilbur and brady

You would think that with the hockey world watching and likely loving the mess that is/was the Maple Leafs, teams would be using John Ferguson Jr.’s model for building a team as the defacto how not to build a team. I mean, when you look at the aptly named Muskoka 6, you would think that only in extreme cases would a GM dole out a no trade clause. One would also think that a seasoned GM would be much smarter then the relatively new ex GM JFJ.

Having said that, did I miss the press release where the New York Rangers hired JFJ? Larry Brooks in his weekly Rangers/NHL article points out that the Rangers have gone against team policy and doled out a couple of them:

“Somehow, $8M over two years wasn’t enough to get Markus Naslund to agree to come to New York, so what did Sather do? The GM gave Naslund, who will be 35 at the end of the month and is coming off two consecutive disappointing seasons in Vancouver, a full no-move clause.

Brutal.”

Brooks is bang on. If JFJ taught us on thing it’s that NTC/NMC are the death of a franchise. They should only be given out in extremely rare circumstances. We have seen through the collective bargaining process that the teams and GM’s need protection from themselves, perhaps the number of NT/NM clauses should be collectively bargained down to 1 per team (with current ones obviously grandfathered.)

So here we are in July 2008 and one would think that ordering merchandise over the internet would be pretty easy. I know here in Canada things are a tad more difficult then in the US of A, but still…… I have to share my two most recent shopping examples. We are moving offices at work and I had to purchase some furniture and a couple of pieces of electronics. Should be simple enough to order from two national retailers, IKEA (sweedish for common sense!) and Future Shop/Best Buy right? No such luck.

The IKEA story. I went to the IKEA website and suffered through the impossible task of actually putting together an order. Imagine my reaction when the nifty computer said I have completed my order without paying for my items. A tiny little note on my receipt informed me that they do not accept payment for internet orders that someone would be calling me within 48 hours to complete my transaction. How bizarre i thought…. Of course 48 hours passed and no call came. So I called the 888 number provided on my receipt and the story got worse. I was told I could pay for my order (how nice!) but, shipment would take 6-8 weeks. When I asked how that was possible, I was told that all shipments come from the Quebec office! When I asked if they could trasnfer the order to one of their several stores in the GTA, I was told simply “no”. So in the end I had to endure a morning at IKEA and do everything on site.

The footnote to the story was that same day delivery cost $55 but next day delivery was $65. When I told them I wanted same day delivery they told me that the delivery would come between 4 and 10pm! What a great shopping experience…Thanks IKEA.

Now my friends at Future Shop/Bestbuy. Same story, I wanted to buy a TV online and have it delivered. This time I called the store. Confirmed that I can’t do what I want to online but that I could do so online. I went to the store, picked out the TV and then was told that they can’t deliver the TV I wanted because the central warehouse is sold out of the model I want!

Amazing stuff from 2 relatively large Canadian retailers…. Its time for e-commerce to really get easy. We have a long way to go.