Clean my room
Work on my novel revision
Exercise
Fix blog errors
Oh, and save the Atlanta Thrashers organization from their neglectful overlords.
That last one might be a doosie. But for those of you who don't know, The Atlanta Spirit Group, an at one time 9-person group of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and obscenely rich men who ventured out to by the Atlanta Thrashers, Atlanta Hawks, and the operating rights to Phillips Arena, recently admitted that they'd been trying to sell my favorite hockey team for the past 6 years, after denying that rumor profusely.
For quite some time Thrashers fans at Phillips Arena have been subject to scores of Quebecois sporting the now defunct Nordiques jerseys, hoping to snag up a struggling team to add to their collection of hockey memorabilia. The people of Hamilton, Ontario also were hoping to get their frigid Canadian paws on my Thrashers, while all the while, the now 7-man Imperial Senate, I mean Atlanta Spirit, LLC said, "No, we don't want to sell. We don't want to relocate. We want to bring championships to Atlanta and build the Hawks and... what's that other team's name?"
The two main co-conspirators even sent the fans of the Hawks and Thrashers this letter saying things that we now know they didn't mean. Things like "our goals remain the same as when we bought these teams: to bring Stanley Cups and NBA Championships to the fans in Atlanta" and "We dream of being a part of the crowd and the city that rallies with pride around the excitement that comes with being a part of the hometown team" and " have a great New Year". After claiming they didn't want to sell for so long, we suddenly find out on 21 January 2011 that not only did they want to sell the Thrashers, they never wanted the team at all, and they bought the Thrashers simply because they were a "packaged deal" or "easy flip." Talk about a slap to the balls.
It basically read like a form letter, you know: "Dear so-and-so. We really appreciate your support of insert team name here and hope for continued support of insert team name here in the future. I've many times seriously wondered if the Atlanta Spirit realized they own a hockey team. I'm not a basketball fan, but I think they've, for the most part, put far more effort into the Atlanta Hawks than the Atlanta Thrashers. After all, there were never any rumors of the Hawks being sold. Some of the owners went to several Hawks games, not so much the Thrashers, games though.
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| Three of the Thrashers' caretakers (left to right): Ed Peskowitz, Michael Gearon and Bruce Levenson at a Hawks game, not Thrashers. (Curtis Compton) |
Think of it this way: the Atlanta Hawks would be the favorite child, the one who gets a car on their 16th birthday, and the college fund, while the Thrashers would be the neglected child who's lucky to get dinner every night. Or you could think of it like you're going on vacation, you leave your house to the care of dear friends, people you'd trust with anything, and you come back to find your home completely trashed. The Atlanta Spirit has taken a team with a tremendous amount of potential, and made sure that they were run right into the ground.
But despite the negligence and fraud that I firmly believe the Atlanta Spirit could and perhaps should be charged with in a legal setting, my Thrashers have improved, slightly, despite having the odds stacked tremendously against them.
So to save my beloved Atlanta Thrashers from their negligent overlords, I have devised several plans. Some are as far-fetched as winning the lottery and buying them myself and asking Oprah for the money. Others are much more plausible like getting the fans involved in helping to overthrow the establishment. Hey, it worked in the French Revolution. The Thrashers could be a publicly-owned team like the Green Bay Packers, or they could be turned over to be run by the NHL like the Phoenix Coyotes. I think the NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is on the team's and fan's sides and would love to see hockey thrive in Atlanta, as would the fans. But the thing is we need to get the fans involved, that is if there are any fans left after the Atlanta Spirit has tried their darndest to drive them away.
Bottom line is: The Atlanta Spirit, LLC is a group of Imperial Senators, and I think it's high time they were impeached. Or at least got their name changed to something more reflective of their "business tactics".
Sources include: Jeff Schultz, Bill Tiller (Rawhide), and Kristi E. Swartz
