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I've actually been planning on doing this for a couple weeks — after reading this book on vacation — but it seems pretty well-timed with all that's going on in Toronto right now. 

It's possible you've already heard about the book given it's a bestseller here in Canada and the promotional side of things is in full swing, but for the uninitiated, it's called Leafs AbomiNation: The dismayed fan's handbook to why the Leafs stink and how they can rise again and it's written by two respected local sportswriters, Dave Feschuk from the Toronto Star and my colleague, Mike Grange, from The Globe and Mail.

And while the packaging may look a bit jokey with the fan in a paper bag mask and the $19.67 price, this is a serious book with some nice investigative work and in-depth coverage of just why the Leafs are where they are. It's a smarter book than it looks. Feschuk and Grange do things like go on a scouting trip with former general manager John Ferguson, meet with some of the pension plan suits (who own a majority share in the team) to get their perspective on turning a profit on the franchise, and talk to some disgruntled former employees like Craig Button who reveal some of the dysfunction in the organization (and why the Leafs missed out on Fabian Brunnstrom).

If you're interested in the mess that is the Leafs, it's good stuff, and that more than anything is why I wanted to pick Mike's brain on the book a bit more. What follows is a (somewhat lengthy) conversation we had a couple days ago about Leafs AbomiNation:

What was the genesis for the book? What was it that made you and Dave decide to do this topic?

MG: It was him who suggested that there could be a book along these lines. We were kicking around a couple of other ideas, and he wanted to know what I thought of that one, and I thought it was pretty good. And I think I was able to bring something to it just being a citizen of this city sort of thing — I've covered [Leafs owners] MLSE, mainly through the Raptors, for a long time, and have some insights there that I thought would help the book out.

But the short answer is that I think it is just time [for a book like this]. You've got this incredible cultural force that people just can't stop talking or thinking about and yet the rewards are kind of sparse by most standards. And it was interesting to dig behind that a little bit.

As a neutral observer, it has been bizarre the last five years because the story with the Leafs hasn't so much been what's happened on the ice — that hasn't been that interesting or exciting other than 'they're bad' — the story's been these sort of machinations of a pension plan and the effect that's had on ownership and how the team is run. It's really a unique situation in pro sports, or at least certainly in hockey.

MG: What really jumps out at me — and a lot of it is even after we've written the book, you keep talking about it and thinking about it — is that in a way, it's a combination of two forces. Entertainment generally has become a much more significant consumer product than it was even 20 years ago, and sports as entertainment — well, it's officially entertainment. There always was that, but now it really is marketed and sold and commodified just as you would movies or anything else. And I think that trend is really accelerated in Toronto. You've got the explosion of sports media, the 24-hour sports universe, and that combined with an ownership group, the majority of which, maybe all of which with the exception of Larry Tanenbaum, is solely devoted to the return on investment. That [ROI] is the absolute guiding force for the [Ontario] Teachers' Pension Plan in this investment.

And so I think for Leafs fans, you get caught up in this cultural sort of shift where the team you grew up loving and following through thick and thin has really become a brand in the truest sense and they're owned by a company that is really only interested in — although they can say otherwise — what kind of return can they get for this brand. The fans in a way are a little bit complicit, but they're also sort of sucked up in this vortex — and what are you going to do, you're a fan? You don't really have a choice but to keep following this team you've grown up with and now you find yourself watching a bad hockey team and spending gazillions of dollars to do it.

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Back in February, I took what was my first trip to Nashville to see a little hockey and meet a few of the locals, mainly to get a sense of (a) what was happening with the NHL there in the wake of a near-relocation and (b) the market's viability in the future. To this point, I've written four parts of a six-part series on the trip, which are available here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 (an interview with Steve Sullivan).

Consider what follows the long-awaited Part 5.

In a lot of ways, there's something very, very different about how Nashville operates as an NHL market. The hockey community is a small one, loud but proud as they say, and that situation can often bring those way up the food chain right down to the everyday fan's level.

Case in point, owner David Freeman, a self-made millionaire who now leads the Predators local ownership group as they attempt to rebuild what was one of the league's most at-risk franchises only a short time ago.

The photo above is a bit out of focus, but what it is is a shot of Freeman himself shaking hands with fans in Section 303 (where the Predators hardcores reside) and handing out free drink tickets before a game — something that sort of redefines the term "hands on approach" when it comes to professional sports ownership. (My thanks to Paul Nicholson for the picture.)

I ran into something similar soon after I got back from Nashville, as after publishing Part 1: The Rise of Hockey in Tennessee, Freeman sent me a brief email with some kind words on the post. More recently, I connected with him for a Q&A on life as a new NHL owner in one of the league's fledgling markets.

A few things to keep in mind: (1) Some of the seemingly obvious connections between the Predators and what's happening in Phoenix were off-limits given owners are not supposed to speak out on the Coyotes situation, (2) No Boots questions and (3) Freeman is a local, someone who is relatively new to hockey but a big sports fan in general.

He has a reputation as a pretty quiet, guarded individual, and I didn't expect going in to get all of the answers I asked for. Nonetheless, we do manage to cover some interesting territory.

Q. It was fairly well publicized in Nashville that when you bought the team, you had only attended a few games and weren't a hardcore fan — what has it been like coming to the game as an adult and a fan of other sports (basketball, football, etc.)? Is there something in particular you've come to enjoy about hockey?

Freeman: I've got a tremendous amount of respect for the skill and physical sacrifice of the players — I really enjoy the game. In comparison to other sports, the most compelling aspect is the speed of the game itself.

Q. It seems to me after visiting the city that one of the real challenges for the ownership group will be to get fans out to games who are, like you were, more comfortable with other sports and relatively unfamiliar with hockey. Have you focused on wooing these fans to the team the past two years? Can you compete with the Titans more during the NFL season?

Freeman: Honestly, I don't think we can woo too many adult fans away from their childhood favourites. I'm an exception — but that doesn't count. Our focus is on the kids. We must grow our own fan base from a young age. Hockey is an easy game for kids in Nashville to love because our arena is an "entertainment overload." It will take another decade, but the Habs have been around for 10 decades and we just finished our first. For example, we might convert one out of [every] 20 additional middle-aged football fans, and at great cost, but we think we can get one out of two kids if we can get in front of them directly at an impressionable age.

Q. Since something like that may take, as you say, a decade or more to pay off, should we conclude that you and the ownership group plan on being around to benefit from that plan?

Freeman: Yes, we plan to be around long term.

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I very seldom formally interview people in the media, especially for this site, but in this case I'll make an exception. For anyone who has been following the Phoenix Coyotes saga closely, news anchor and reporter with the NBC affiliate 12 News Brahm Resnik has been one of the best sources, on Twitter from the courtroom and online.

One of the key things that separates him from all of the other local media is that (a) he's a huge hockey fan and (b) he grew up in Montreal and graduated from McGill University before moving to the U.S. for graduate school and his journalism career. He also spent time living in Chicago and has followed White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf's dealings to an extent.

So, as someone who has lived and worked in the Phoenix area for about 10 years and covered bankruptcy proceedings many times over, he has a good handle on both sides of what's happening here.

The first thing I'll ask you is how long do you think there's been a problem with the Coyotes and how long have you been paying attention to this as as real business issue?

Resnik: When I moved here in 2000, almost from the very first day, we were paying attention to it. That's when you had Richard Burke who wanted to sell and Steve Ellman who apparently wanted to buy, and that for me was Day 1 on the Coyotes, the whole Ellman saga when they used Glendale to get a pretty nice deal on the arena.

I think the original sin here was Steve Ellman. I don't know how the NHL found him as an owner; his struggles to get financing were enormous, enormous, and even today if you talk to investment bankers, they still wonder how he did it and all kinds of questions about that. So this has been a struggle from Day 1 with this team. Pre-Jerry Moyes. This goes back almost 10 years, and I've been following it that long, and not just the team but the associated development (Westgate City Center) around the arena.

The arena is connected to Westgate, which is a struggling entertainment/retail complex next door. Westgate was the only reason that Steve Ellman wanted this team. He was using the arena to get the land there, as a way to pay for Westgate, essentially.

What a lot of people forget is that Steve Ellman put this team up for sale almost as soon as he moved into the arena.

Can you talk just a little bit more about Westgate — what is it exactly?

Resnik: All the land out there is former farmland, and it's really remarkable what they've build out there, a world-class football stadium, the arena, Westgate, shopping, retail. Westgate is an outdoor complex, mainly restaurants and bars, entertainment, because you always want entertainment near sports venues. There's a big movie theatre there, modest retail. They thought it was going to be a big retail centre but the problem is, when there are no games or concerts going on, there's nobody there. There's just nobody there. When there are some games going on, it's packed, and you really can't survive that way as a business. Several have failed. It's struggling, it's really struggling.

They also built a pretty nice hotel right next to there... Glendale again subsidized that. Out of desert farmland, you have what is a pretty spectacular location. It's spectacular to the eye, but if you looked at the books, you wouldn't be that impressed.

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I'd called him about something else — just a quick question, really — but he had a few things to say and I didn't mind listening in.

Aaron Downey's nothing if not a personable guy.

Mostly, he talked about fighting. After all, that's pretty much what he's done the last 18 years, beginning in Junior C in Ontario with the Grand Valley Harvesters and working his way up to Junior B, the OHL, through the Maritime Junior A League, the ECHL and finally in the AHL. Then, after two ECHL seasons with 300+ PIM and two AHL ones with 400+, he played his first NHL game at age 25 with the Boston Bruins in 1999-00.

Now, he's played in parts of nine NHL seasons, 243 games total, and has 18 points, 494 PIM and a Stanley Cup ring. He's never averaged more than 6:43 a game in ice time and, approaching 35, currently plays with the Grand Rapids Griffins in the minors.

He's a fighter.

And even though some say enforcers are going the way of the dodo given new rules likely coming in next season, Downey said he's not worried about his job security.

In fact, I had to tell him the crackdown on staged fights was coming.

"I always thought those were stupid anyways," he said. "You know, you can write that, I don't really care. I think premeditated fights are ridiculous, for one.

"The reason I made the NHL is I was aggressive, I was able to go in there and hammer guys on the fore-check, you know? Bring energy. In order to slow me down, they usually had to send somebody out there. And I would answer the bell."

According to hockeyfights.com, Downey's answered it exactly 46 times in his NHL career, including a marathon bout with Cam Janssen this season during a stint with the Red Wings.

Downey, like Don Cherry, argues fighting has to remain something that comes up during the heat of the moment.

"Why, right off the start of the game, do two heavyweights have to go right off the bat?" he asked. "Are they going to set the stage for the game? I personally don't think it does. But I tell you what, what sets the stage is when a guy goes out there, has a lot of energy on the fore-check, hammers one of your defencemen — now we're talking. Now it's game on, right?

"I'll use [Ian] White from Toronto for example, back when I played for Montreal, remember that night? — it was one of the best games of my life — Toronto came to town and they had to beat us, but we won, we put them out of the playoffs, that was the night Kovalev elbowed Tucker, do you remember?"

I say I do, but I'm unsure.

"What a game that was," Downey said. "Two fights that were in there, they were two good fights for a reason, they weren't premeditated. Two teams had good sport, good blood, good spirit.

"It was one of those games that was just awesome. It wasn't a blowout, and it was just two teams battling. I think that's when fighting is acceptable, but I can't accept something that's just right off the start of the game and has no bearing at all or not even a sweat broken."

And those are the ones they're attempting to get rid of, I offer.

"I can see them doing that," Downey said. "I'm a fighter and I'm saying that, too."

That said, he's not for eliminating his role altogether.

"I'm in the States right now, and you know one of the No. 1 things on TV, in prime hours when families [are watching], is ultimate fighting. You've got guys down on their backs and they haven't submitted yet and the guy's pounding him with left and right flurries, blood flying everywhere. Is that the message you want to send your kids?

"They've got people complaining about an ice hockey fight? Common!

"You don't need to change these rules. What we've got to do is just create awareness that this is a heckuva sport we're playing here. You know what, it's the only sport that's left that there's gladiator Roman times still in the sport and bare knuckle fighting and we should be proud of that for crying out loud. We're talking about real men here."

I've written about fighting for years, mostly as an "objective" observer, and even talked to a few enforcers in that time. They don't all have the same take on their role — or at least in what they reveal to guys like me. Some admit to loathing it, some cope with drugs or alcohol and some simply embrace it because it's all they've known.

Downey says they're gladiators, taking beatings in a ring to entertain the masses, and he's just fine with that. At the end of the night, he gets to leave the fight behind.

"You think, back in the time, when these guys went into the arenas and theatres, some of those guys didn't leave, they were dead. They used swords and shields and everything. Hmmph.

"At least we're in a sport now where it's a great sport, it's fast, exciting, there's play-making abilities, and its hard hitting, guys are skating up to 25 miles an hour, there's great goaltending. And you know what, in the same token, I don't care who you are, you can ask around, there's always guys, in the back of their mind, thinking they're going to have to fight, whether you're a No. 1 line guy or a fourth-line guy. That's what makes hockey beautiful."

Many don't agree with him, but then again many do, and most hockey fans stand and cheer the blood sport when they're on hand to see it in person. I've written plenty of pieces talking about the dangers of fighting and the need to protect players, but here's the words right from a man in the trenches, fighting for a living and loving it.

A "real" man. A gladiator.

There aren't many better stories in the NHL this season than Steve Sullivan.

Sidelined for nearly two years with crippling back pain, he finally made his return to the Predators lineup on Jan. 10, 2009, and played just over 12 minutes in a 4-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. Nearly three months later, Sullivan has scored nine goals and has 24 points in 34 games, respectable totals for a player who, at age 34, spent ages in a back brace unable to do much of anything.

More importantly, since his return to Nashville's lineup, the Preds are 20-11-5 and right back in the thick of the playoff race.

I had a chance to chat with Steve on the weekend, and I told him a bit about my recent trip to Nashville and the series on hockey in Tennessee that has been appearing here ever since. As someone who has lived in the city for five years now, he has some great insights into Nashville as a hockey market and what life as a Predator is really like.

We get to some of the most interesting bits toward the end of the discussion, so if you don't have the stomach for the uncut version, scroll to the end.

Q. When you got traded to Nashville [from Chicago in February of 2004] how much did you know about the city and what playing there would be like?

Sullivan: I had no clue. I had no expectations, I didn't know very much of Nashville. Being in the same division [while he was with the Blackhawks], we really didn't stay [in the city] overnight. I mean, I knew it was a very countryish downtown with honky tonk bars, and the history they have with the Ryman Theatre and stuff, but besides that, I had no idea what to expect when I was coming here.

Q. So maybe you can tell me, what surprised you about the hockey part of Nashville?

Sullivan: Surprised me? We've got probably the most passionate fans in the league, honestly. I wish that our numbers were bigger, I wish we had a bigger group of them, but you know, we don't have very much corporate support. But I think the "Joe the Fan" types, I think we could rival anybody in the league. Our fans are extremely passionate.

Being here in Nashville, I've had a lot of my friends from my hometown, from Canada, come up and they say the atmosphere here is just outstanding to come watch a game. It's not sit on your hands and just watch 60 minutes of hockey. Our hockey operations crew do an outstanding job of entertaining you through the 2.5 hours you're going to be in the rink.

Q. You're from Timmins, correct?

Sullivan: Correct.

Q. So, as someone who grew up in a small Canadian city, isn't it sort of incredible to think about it — they drop this team in the middle of Tennessee, and all of a sudden this fan base springs up, and really loves the game. Do you have any sense of why that has happened or why people have embraced hockey so much there?

Sullivan: I think they've got a lot of, I don't know the right word to use, a lot of people that have come from other places. We've got a couple motor plants here so we've got some people from Detroit, from Michigan, we've got people from a lot of other parts of the country. So I think that's where our core base started is with people that have moved here from the Northeast of the U.S. and it just built.

To be honest with you, I really think that the fan base starts with youth hockey, and if you can get children involved with youth hockey, then they want to go watch NHL games. And they take parents to go watch the games. And I think that our game is a live game, you have to watch it live. Once you get to a couple games, you get hooked. That's what we're trying to do here — we're trying to get as many people to the rink when we play and try to give them the best product we can because we think that it can work here.

Q. I was actually going to ask you about that — I have a friend down in Nashville and he said that his son plays with your son in the minor hockey system. I'm curious: What's minor hockey like in Nashville? What's it been like for your son playing there?

Sullivan: It's actually been great. We have a few former professional hockey players here, and we've got Tim McAllister who is from the Kingston area who runs the program out in the Franklin area where my son plays his minor hockey. It's a great program. We've had a really good friend of mine who I played junior with, Joe Van Volsen, from the Oshawa area, he brought his team team down for a tournament last year — as a matter of fact, my brother's team would have been here the same time you were here —

Q. Oh?

Sullivan: For that 8-0 game [against Detroit]. Anyway, they come down [to play Nashville teams], they fare okay — but I mean they don't crush the competition. So, I mean, the hockey here is pretty good. I think that the numbers keep growing. For the last couple years, the novice program had four teams, this year it had six, so the game is growing and that's a positive sign. If you can continue to grow the youth hockey here, that shows it's catching on.

My son first went to school and was the only player when he came here in first grade, and now he's got at least 10 of his buddies that are playing hockey because of him. It's definitely growing.

Q. How about away from the hockey, what's it like living in Nashville? Do you enjoy living there, do you think it's somewhere you could stay long-term? [He thinks I'm implying he's old and settling down]

Sullivan: (laugh) Obviously, you know, my contract's up at the end of the year, so we're going to go wherever we need to that's going to best fit our family. To stay here or not, that's still up in the air, but we do really enjoy it. It's a great place to raise a family, the southern hospitality is outstanding. You can't meet any nicer people. We've met some great friends away from the game of hockey, and absolutely it's a place that, if it works out, I could settle down for a long time here.

The weather's perfect, too — you get to see the four seasons, you don't get any snow, but you see the changing of the seasons, and good summers for golf for myself, warm summers. The winters aren't that bad. But it's not like it's summer all the time. That's great for us.

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One of the great things we've seen sprout up on the blogosphere in the past year or so is a whole bunch of foreign-language translations that have given us quite a bit more insight into (mainly) the NHL's Russian-born players.

Who knew, for example, that Viktor Kozlov was anywhere near this interesting?

The language barrier plays a role in making some European NHL players more inaccessible to North American reporters than others, something I've argued in the past that leads to them being labelled "enigmas," so it's great to hear them speak their minds more eloquently — and freely — in their mother tongues. 

By way of Japers' Rink contributer Tuvan Hillbilly, what follows is a translation of a recent Sport Express interview of Thrashers star Ilya Kovalchuk conducted by Russian reporter Slava Malamud. Among other things, he talks about his friendship with Dany Heatley, the Russians' eye on the Olympics next February and his long-term future in Atlanta.

There's also this great line, which I'm hoping will turn into the NHL's next catch phrase: "You can't be an amoeba when you play hockey." 

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