Displaying items by tag: New Orleans Pelicans

It might be time for patriotic Americans to discover a new favorite sport, professional hockey. Unlike other professional athletes, hockey players have refused to show disrespect toward the National Anthem.

At exhibition games this week, all players with the New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers stood for the National Anthem.

Likewise, for last night’s start of the season, all the players with the Dallas Stars and the Nashville Predators stood for the National Anthem.

Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry probably misspoke when he called the current turmoil surrounding the team “a dumpster fire.” I think that was a subconscious urge to say “DEMPSter Fire” after the club terminated the tortuous nine-year reign of GM Dell Demps. The team is in flames fed by the fact that generational star Anthony Davis wants out, the team has failed to reach the playoffs on a regular basis which is probably because they have failed to acquire – and keep - a solid supporting cast. That perfectly describes the series of curious decisions, dead-end trades and pure bad luck that Demps presided over. 

We're all familiar with "Build it, They will come"

That's exactly what New Orleans and Louisiana did to attract the New Orleans Saints and later the New Orleans Pelicans.

But, what if? What if we, the State of Louisiana, stopped funding our beloved professional football and basketball teams's existence in these parts, in what some might call, pro sports "pay to play"?

Familiar with "Fund us, or we will go"?

 

As I readied for my Facebook Live discussion with Kathy Finn, the author of the unauthorized biography of the life of Tom Benson, many questions jammed through my mind, that i wanted to know the answers to and which i suspected, our audience would also.

Just who was Tom Benson? How did he become a billionaire and one of the richest persons in the United States? Why did he purchase the New Orleans Saints? The New Orleans Pelicans? What qualities did he possess that launched his remarkable success, coming from such a humble background? Given Benson's reported lack of knowledge about football, how did he fit in with the other NFL owners?