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According to The Morning Call reporter JOHN L. MICEK, it was just before midnight, at 11:45 P.M. to be precise, that Governor Tom Corbett signed the general appropriation bill — “the key component of the $ 27.66 billion state budget” — into actual Commonwealth of Pennsylvania law.

What Micek did not mention, because he probably has very few, if any, subscription-paying readers in upstate New York, was that the Governor of Pennsylvania, with his signature, also issued a death sentence to poor ole’, caught-in-the-crossfire DAX, the official mascot of the American Hockey League’s Adirondack Phantoms.

AHL mascots do not have access to ACLU lawyers, unlike illegal aliens, er, ah, undocumented persons. Disgraced Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department is unlikely to do much to have President Obama declare a Federal pardon or anything of the sort. Maybe if Dax had been a well-connected Solyndra executive or something …

We are talking Dead Mascot walking, Yo! A textbook Man-caused Disaster — Dax gets the axe. Who’s gonna tell the children that it was all done for the development and progress of Chairman Pawlowski’s record-smashing $ 158.0 million dollar Palace of Sport?

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“SOCCER DENYING IMPOVERISHED CITY SHOWS STADIUM RISK : MUNI CREDIT”

by Romy Varghese … 6/21/2012 … www.bloomberg.com

Chester, Pennsylvania, the state’s oldest city and where 35 percent of residents live in poverty, has found that hosting an 18,500 Major League Soccer stadium doesn’t guarantee economic success.

Four years ago, former social-sciences professor John Linder questioned why promoters wanted to “bring soccer to a basketball town.” As mayor since January, he’s been trying to make the $ 122.0 million PPL Park, financed mostly with county and state funds, generate enough money to meet the city’s costs.

Linder, 64, who taught at Delaware County Community College in Media, Pennsylvania, may levy parking and amusement fees on mostly out-of-town fans. (The mayor) also wants Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union to make a $ 500,000 payment in lieu of taxes it missed in 2010. The team says its negotiating the fee.

“What they’re paying doesn’t cover our expenses,” Linder said in a telephone interview. “I have to mandate to my citizens that we preserve to get the best bang for our buck.”

From Glendale, Arizona, to Harrison, New Jersey, officials have learned that promises of economic gains tied to sports venues can fizzle, burdening taxpayers. At least $ 10.0 billion in municipal debt backs venues for professional sports, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

In Chester, 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of Philadelphia, public funds covered about 71 percent fo the cost of the stadium for the Union, which is in ninth place in the league’s 10-team Eastern Conference. Related residential projects and a convention center haven’t been built, leaving the city of 34,000 in a program for distressed communities that it entered in 1995. Chester’s poverty rate is almost triple the state average.

The team has created 650 jobs at the stadium and has donated to community organziations, Nick Sakiewicz, the Union’s chief executive officer and operating partner, said yesterday.

“It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars that we’re kicking back in the city,” Sakiewicz said in a telephone interview. He said further development, stalled by the recession, is now hung up because of the mayor’s fees proposals. “No one wants to build in an uncertain tax climate,” Sakiewicz said. He said the team would look for alternatives to hiring city police if that’s a burden on the community.

Investors have been penalized. Surrounding Delaware County sold $ 28.6 million in general-obligation debt in 2009 to help cover the stadium’s cost. Bonds maturing in July 2039 traded yesterday at an average yield of almost 3.5 percent, or about 0.4 percentage point above AAA debt, Bloomberg Valuation data show. When the securities were issued in January 2009, they yielded about the same as top-grade bonds. The bonds have a AA rating from Standard & Poor’s, third-highest.

The county in 2010 raided its hotel-occupancy tax to 3.0 percent from 2.0 percent to help pay off the debt.

“Stadiums tend to not be good neighbors at developing the areas around them,” said Victor Matheson, who teaches sports economics at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. People are often “grasping at straws” when they turn to such venues in hopes of spurring economic gains in depressed communities, he said.

Communities from Minneapolis to Santa Clara, California, in California’s Silicon Valley, are betting that investing public dollars in facilities for professional sports teams will unlock economic fields of dreams. Yet in places such as Glendale, jobs are being cut to help cover costs.

Glendale, home to the National Hockey League’s Phoenix Coyotes, fired 49 workers in May and on June 12 raised the city sales tax by 0.7 percentage point. Combined with county and state changes, the total levy is 10.2 percent, among the highest rates in the United States. The move followed passage of a 20-year, $ 324.0 million dollar lease accord for a potential Coyotes buyer, including yearly payments to the team of as much as $ 20.0 million dollars to help run the arena.

Chester, whose high school boys’ basketball team has won eight state championships, has been trying to rebound from the departure of shipbuilding and maufacturing industries.

The stadium was proposed as an anchor in a $ 500.0 million dollar development plan. It was projected to generate $ 69.0 million dollars a year in economic activity, producing $ 19.0 million in annual tax revenue, according to a 2008 application for a state grant.

Pennsylvania provided $ 45.5 million dollars for the project, said Steven Kratz, a spokesman for the state Community and Economic Development Department. The Delaware River Port Authority, which collects tolls on Philadelphia-area bridges and trains, kicked in $ 10.0 million dollars. PPL Park opened in 2010.

Under the project agreement, the team is supposed to provide $ 500,000 a year in payments in lieu of taxes, Linder said. Chester has only received the money for 2011, he said.

Sakiewicz, the team’s chief executive, said he’ll make this year’s payment if the city will send a bill for the money. He said it is negotiating an agreement for the 2010 obligation.

Linder said he’ll send a bill for the 2012 payment, if that’s what it will take to get the funds. No bill was needed before the team sent its 2011 payment, he said by telephone.

Harrison, New Jersey, home of the soccer league’s New York Red Bulls, sued the team for money it says is due. A tax-court judge in Newark ruled that the team owed Harrison property taxes that went unpaid in 2010 and 2011.

Chester has to pay expenses related to policing its venue, which has averaged 18,400 fans per Union game this year. Income taxes paid by residents working at the stadium on game days are sparse, the mayor said. If proposed parking and amusement fees, or some other revenue alternatives, aren’t set up, fire services may be curtailed, he said.

“I wish there would have been better monitoring built in” to ensure costs were covered, Linder said about the stadium deal.

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The major announcement that Pennsylvania state lawmakers are currently ‘working’ to elminate the contentious Earned Income Tax from the notorious – if not unconstitutional – Neighborhood Improvement Zone Law makes a curious mind want to know why the suburban EIT was deemed ‘absoulutely essential’ for at least a couple of acrimonious months in the first place?

Whatever. The bottom line is that a last-minute deal to re-configure the NIZ (again) will be struck and included as part of embattled Governor Tom Corbett’s proposed $ 27.7 billion dollar budget for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that will be voted on by state legislators later this summer. Somewhere in there lay the funding keys to Chairman Pawlowski’s transformative $ 220.0 million dollar Palace of Sport complex here in the audacious City With No Spending Limits which will, according to the The Morning Call, locate “the most expensive minor league arena ever built.”

And that’s another story altogether – so on immediately to the status of the short-lived Adirondack Phantoms of the American Hockey League, then.

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The conclusion of the 2012/13 AHL campaign is all but certain to bring down the curtain once and for all on the ill-fated Adirondack Phantoms. It is believed far and wide that, with the suburban EIT tax monies being left untouched in the ‘new’ NIZ legislation, the 19 different townships and one school district will, ‘finally’, withdraw all the lawsuits pending in the Commonwealth Court. That would clear the way for the new Allentown Neighborhood Improvement Zone Development Authority to sell the bonds which would raise the needed revenue so that construction on the record-smashing Palace of Sport can resume in earnest again.

And that spells the end of AHL ice hockey in Glens Falls, New York, if only for the time being. Adirondack supporters, of course, have every reason to try and rally the troops in the hopes that a strong showing at the box office might, someday, lure another minor league club to the Glens Falls Civic Center. The Phantoms averaged 4,631 spectators per contest last season in a facility which lists 4,806 fixed seats with the additional ability to host up to a couple of thousand more people in standing-room-only areas as the official capacity.

As it stands now, 68 different cities in both Canada and the United States have played host to an AHL team in the storied circuit which recently completed its 76th season.

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“ALLENTOWN HOCKEY ARENA PROJECT – LEHIGH VALLEY LEGISLATORS WANT ARENA FUNDING LAW CHANGED”

by Matt Assad and Steve Kraus … The Morning Call … 6/15/2012

Fearing that Allentown’s hockey arena could be headed for a two-year court battle, some Lehigh Valley legislators with suburban constituents are lobbying for a change in the embattle state law that funds the project. A half a dozen Republican lawmakers want Senator Pat Browne, R-Lehigh – who authored the arena law to remove the use of earned income tax (EIT) collections of other communities outside the city to help build the arena. It is those collections that prompted 18 Valley municipalities and one school district, many represented by the six lawmakers, to challenge the law in Commonwealth Court, bring the downtown arena project to a halt.

For now, Browne still has faith that negotiations can settle the lawsuit by municipalities that are challenging the Neighborhood Improvement Zone that helps fund Allentown’s $ 220.0 million dollar arena project.

Changing the law, he said, would not be easy.

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“Yes, House Republicans have for weeks, even months, been asking that changes be made in the statute, but I’m not ready to go there yet,” Browne said. “I’m trying to find a solution, and right now, I still think that it’s at the negotiating table.”

State Representatives Justin Simmons, Ryan Mackenzie, Marcia Hahn, Joe Emerick, Gary Day and Julie Harhat have made overtures to Brown about finding a way to end the stalemate. The drumbeat for Brown to change the law has peaked because the best chance to do it appears to be this month, when the state (of Pennsylvania) is scheduled to pass its annual budget. A companion bill amending the state’s fiscal code, due by June 30, often includes other statutes and changes loaded into the bill by legislative leaders.

Allentown’s 130-acre Neighborhood Improvement Zone was created in the 2009 fiscal code bill, and when it was tweaked last year, the fiscal code was used again. Separate legislation can be also pushed through in June as part of the horse trading that accompanies budget negotiations. Once lawmakers depart for the summer, it could be months before any changes could even be considered. With the budget bill a must-pass piece of legislation, it can be the best vehicle for local legislation.

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But to get a law changed into the fiscal code amendment, Browne would have to get the endorsement of House and Senate Republican leaders. It’s even possible, if the budget vote is close, that he would also need the endorsement of top Democrats in each chamber. And even if he gets support from all of those, Governor Tom Corbett would have to agree to include the change in his budget.

All of that is made even more difficult now that the Neighborhood Improvement Zone has become a public issue. The law, itself, and the changes enacted last year largely flew under the radar. Since Hanover (Northampton County) and Bethlehem townships filed their lawsuit, arguing that is unlawful for Allentown to keep the earned income taxes of township residents who work in the zone to help pay for the arena, 16 other municipalities and one school district have joined the fight. In addition, the Pennsylvania State Association of Townships Supervisors, which represents 1,455 townships, has joined the lawsuit.

“There are alot of moving parts,” Browne said. “Making legislation is not easy.”

Simmons and Harhart said Browne has been approached individually and by a group to change the Neighborhood Improvement Zone law. But both say they have not approached their leaders and have received no commitment of support from outside the Valley.

“We’re moving in a direction that we hope can lead to a legislative solution,” Simmons said.

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That solution would likely inovlve at least two changes. One would eliminate earned income tax collections from people who live outside Allentown. Under the city’s unique taxing zone, all state and local taxes – except real estate taxes – in the zone can be used to help pay for the $ 220.0 million dollar arena complex.

The municipalities sued, arguing that it is unconstitutional for the city to use their income tax collections without their permission. The city has since proposed a deal to return all the EIT colllections, but municipal lawyers have rejected the offer, saing the law must be changed.

A report released last week estimated that $ 2.3 million in EIT is collected each year in the Neighborhood Improvement Zone. This law change would mean that the money is simply returned to the municipalities, as it was every year before the NIZ was created. However, the EIT collections for improvement zone workers who live in the city – amounting to about $ 432,000 a year – could be used for the arena.

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A second issue would seek to change the part of the improvement zone legislation that appears to be written solely for Allentown. In their lawsuit, municipalities argue that making the NIZ district available only to “third-class cities with populations between 106,000 and 107,000 as counted in the 2000 U.S. Census” is a violation of the state’s constitution’s prohibition of special legislation.

Browne says the law passes constitutional muster, but tinkering with those two areas would render the lawsuit moot, thus allowing the city to get the financing it needs to continue the project.

Without a law change, or a settlement with the municipalities, the first hearing for the Commonwealth Court case on the issue isn’t scheduled until September.

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BROADCAST RESPONSE from RADIO FREE ALLENTOWN :

“Another fabulous rah-rah piece, then, from the compliant and dedicated Comrade-columnists over at Pravda, er, ah, The Morning Call, obviously desperate to rally whatever scattered shards of public support that can be scraped together. The Morning Call’s building, coincidentally enough, just so happens to be located in the controversial and (soon-to-be-found?) unconstitutional Neighborhood Improvement Zone — for those who may not be aware of such. Make no mistake, the journalistic integrity and objectivity of the local Fourth Estate here in the People’s Democratic City With No Spending Limits has been on prominent, albeit disgraceful, display all throughout this acrimonious and drawn out struggle to build the transformative, if phenomenally expensive, $ 220.0 million dollar Palace of Sport.

For example, does The Morning Call ever question the wisdom of Chairman Pawlowski’s bulldozer-like and consequential decision to just go forth and dig up an entire square city block in the heart of the downtown area WITHOUT FIRST having made sure all the necessary financial ducks were lined up properly beforehand or was all of City Hall’s attention pre-occupied with effectively seizing the private property of powerless small business owners on Hamilton Street via Eminent Domain?

The Morning Call HAS lamented, in revealing and stark contrast, that it is difficult not only to attract the interest of potential investors but actually sell the financial instruments, themselves, to secure the requisite money for the spectacular Palace of Sport with a scary, if not potential game-changing lawsuit, pending in the Commonwealth Court.”

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“THEY WANT THE HOLE” … by Jon Geeting

“There’s a certain class of middle-aged white guy who doesn’t care about the massive practical consequences real people would suffer if the Lehigh Valley’s biggest city gets stuck with a giant hole because it’s about Teh Principle! (spelling error copied correctly, please refer to original source cited below)

How dare they take 10 cents a year from me to help those brown people.

Assholes.”

http://www.jongeeting.net/?p=6533

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Adirondack Phantoms goaltender MICHAEL LEIGHTON (49) pauses to listen to the arguments being presented as the unconstitutionality of the notorious NIZ Legislation and widely-unpopular EIT tax theft is passionately debated at length during a break in the action at an alphabet-filled American Hockey League game earlier this past 2011/12 season.
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(AP) East Berlin

Several high-ranking officials inside the Kremlin in Moscow have confirmed that heroic Chairman Pawlowski is, indeed, furious about the massive hole in his metropolis downtown. But all is not lost just yet as several rumors continue to circulate that the feared NIZ Cheerleader Warriors have been equipped with the standard Democrat Party playbook — including all the traditonal, powerful weapons — and have been strategically sent on their way. According to one highly-reliable but very sensitive intelligence scource, scapegoats are wanted and will be found for the public executions that are allegedly to be held in the People’s Democratic City With No (Spending?) Limits this summer.

It is thought that calculated shootings in public will both eliminate all isolated, underground dissent as well as simultaneously boost the sagging morale of the $ 220.0 million dollar Palace of Sport’s proponents as they patiently wait until the appropriate funding can somehow be found so as to allow transformative construction to finally resume progress again in earnest.

ERICH MIELKE reporting

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Well, sports fans, it certainly has been quite the entertaining and spell-binding saga (read : public relations disaster), then. This action-packed drama perhaps better identified as the authoritarian and heavy-handed, albeit noble, struggle of CHARIMAN PAWLOWSKI — clearly bucking for HERO of the PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC CITY OF ALLENTOWN or something — to effectively, if not ruthlessly, crush any and all principled opposition to (Big Government-funded) Development and Progress as outlined by the “popular visionary”. A veritable high-stakes, if not necessarily transparent, bench-clearing brawl rages unabated all across the vast Lehigh Valley as a defiant City Hall strives to damn the lawsuit involving 19 local municipalities — convinced of the notorious NEIGHBORHOOD IMPROVEMENT ZONE law’s lack of constitutionality — ahead and courageously persevere with the construction of the transformative, if not spectacularly expensive, $ 220.0 million dollar PALACE OF SPORT.

Readers may note that the price tag of the proposed HAMILTON STREET TAJ MAHAL FOR ICE HOCKEY has increased signifcantly by $ 60.0 million dollars since this particular blog last reported on the fast-moving situation back in March — then again, cost overruns are to be expected with this sort of massive spending project and the Chairman would probably prefer to avoid any and all “hysteria”, as stated over and over and over again by (handpicked?) pro-NIZ spokesman MIKE “Advanced Vocabularies R Us” FLECK on the notorious “NIZ Debate” hosted by local television station WFMZ-TV Channel 69.

Any plans the BROOKS BROTHERS, the undoubtedly anxious powerbrokers who own the American Hockey League’s Adirondack (N.Y.) Phantoms and saw construction in downtown Allentown screech to a virtual stop as a result of continued funding that just plain is not there at present some time ago, may or may not have to systematically raise ticket prices across the board to offset the additional $ 60.0 million dollars added to the final bill for Chairman Pawlowski’s Palace of Sport have not been reported by Pravda, er, ah, The Morning Call.

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Meanwhile, here in the City With No Spending Limits, useful Comrade-columnist BILL WHITE has been diligently cranking out the Propaganda pieces for the local City Hall mouthpiece that most everyday folks would rationally as well as routinely identify as fishwrap all the while cheap-shotting the well-prepared, mild-mannered NIZ Debate participant, long-time local city activist as well as award-winning blogger MICHAEL MOLOVINSKY, with undeserved labels of “dour” and “misguided”. This from some clearly professional sock puppet (fashioning the obvious agenda) whose two greatest literary claims to fame are ‘stuffing his face at Musikfest’ and ‘staring at the pretty lights in the Parkway’. That to blatantly steal from others who have long ago noted their astute observations elsewhere.

“Governments rarely break even by shelling out handouts to sports franchises, says CHRISTOPHER BORICK, an associate professor of political science at Muhlenberg College who has researched sports financing and stadium construction. ‘You’d be hard pressed to show … that it’s worth the investment. The numbers don’t add up.’” —— “EXPLAIN IT TO ME! : WHY ARE WE FINANCING STADIUMS?” by KRISTINA GOSTOMSKI, published on April 22, 2009 by THE MORNING CALL.

Some in the People’s Democratic City and elsewhere would like to see the snarky Comrade-columnist pontificate on the above referenced material printed by the very same “newspaper” that pays his (handsome?) salary more often, as compared to blatantly swinging his highly-opinionated stick at a respectable senior citizen legitimately concerned with matters in his life-long hometown community.

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However, the worst of the worst that the NIZ Cheerleader-Warriors particularly seem to revel in delivering with an unbridled passion and zest is traditionally reserved for the local blogger sometimes referred to as The Pope, on account of his proven track record of not-to-be-sneezed-at attendance figures.

Oftentimes, these nasty high sticking incidents can be viewed with the comments posted over at the blog formerly known as “LEHIGH VALLEY INDEPENDENT”. There, the serial character assasin sometimes known by his native American moniker, DANCES ON THE GRAVES OF DEAD GUYS, and his tag-team partner, the curiously and strictly anonymous FUTURE DOWNTOWN ARENA ATTENDEE, routinely assault the name of BERNIE O’HARE with calculating and deliberate low blows that would cause even the frolicking HANSON BROTHERS to blush like embarrassed little schoolgirls. Mere mention of that terrifying tandem and somewhere up there in heaven, former Soviet Union national team star VALERY KHARLAMOV is scurrying about frantically seeking protection for his tender ankles cast in nothing less than solid steel!

Fortunately for those on the side of Truth, Justice and the American Way of Private Investment Capitalism, the well-equipped O’Hare is not only of Irish descent — but thick-skinned as a result of extensive experience gleaned manning the chain gang at little league youth football games.

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Chairman Pawlowski certainly has himself a very real problem in that this country is just NOT the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. American professional ice hockey teams are just NOT run by all-powerful state institutions such as the Army or, perhaps, a Ministry of Interior that oversees, among other things, the nation’s secret police. And, here in the United States, the athletic facilities for these privately-owned professional sports teams — whether state of the art or in a complete state of disrepair — are just NOT exclusively bought and paid for by in-the-tank politicians expanding their own personal power while bankrupting the sovereign State!

Molovinsky has been laboring for quite some time to document many, if not all, of the misplaced priorities Chairman Pawlowski and his all-Democrat Rubber Stamp Council of Apparatchiks have displayed again and again with respect to infrastructure and quality of life issues here in the once proud All-American City of Allentown. Most recently, the blogger rumored to be banned from all computers down at City Hall has re-visited the on-going concerns with respect to that vital link to the southside of town, the 55-year-old 15th Street Bridge, as well as the battered, 184-year-old old stone structure a quarter of a mile away, the heritage-filled Schreiber’s Bridge. Molovinsky has also lamented upon the the mounting crisis with respect to the public swimming pool situation in the City With No Spending Limits.

City Hall recently unveiled a typically ambitious, elaborate plan including a brand new Cedar Beach Pool, renovations to three other city pools, the conversion of Irving Pool to a “modern splash park” as well as the closing of Fountain Pool permanently. “That drew concerns among the public and council members alike, particularly the idea of a pool being closed in one of the poorer parts of the city while a more affluent neighborhood gets a destination splash park,” wrote COLIN MCEVOY of the EASTON EXPRESS TIMES without mentioning that Cedar Beach Pool, of course, would already be located in the wealthiest section of Allentown. Although it was revealed this “Swimming Towards The Future” program was estimated to cost $ 11.0 million dollars or thereabouts, naturally, it was not made exactly clear from what sources all THIS money is going to come from.

Chairman Pawlowski already has enough problems of his own with a monsterous hole the size of an entire square city block downtown on Hamilton Street, though. There is a joke making the rounds currently that a new swimming pool for inner-city residents does, indeed, now exist at the corner of 8th and Linden. Admission is thought to be free for the public even if proper bathing attire is required and the new facility actually did cost taxpayers a casual $ 35.0 million dollars or so to ‘construct’.

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SENATOR PAT BROWNE was not consulted before production of this article took place. Partly because the GOOD BIG RINO, to quote a well-known, local radio personality, never bothered to huddle with this blog before hustling through the now-radioactive NIZ legislation and fair is fair. Mostly, truth be told, because these sorts of headlines, “Senator Pat Browne’s Wife Hired By Firms To Benefit From Hockey Arena Legislation”, as written by Colin McEvoy when the scandal first broke back in late January, just won’t do.

Not in my city. Not in my United States of America. Not on MY shift.

“Walk right up to the Tiger. Spit in his eye. Then shoot him.” —— HERB BROOKS, coach of 1980 United States Olympic gold medal ice hockey squad.

The NIZ is unconstitutional. It needs to go. Immediately.

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SCOTT KRAUS, THE MORNING CALL
“ALLENTOWN MAYOR TAKES ON SUBURBAN CRITICS OF ARENA”
March 7, 2012 (front page)

A feisty Allentown Mayor (Chairman) ED PAWLOWSKI on Wednesday chided critics of a special zone that redirects STATE and LOCAL TAX DOLLARS, including some suburban residents’ earned income taxes, to finance a downtown hockey arena ($ 160.0 million dollar PALACE OF SPORT).

“Over the past several weeks there have been many attempts to divide the Lehigh Valley and have this battle between suburbs and city,” (Chairman) Pawlowski stated at a breakfast meeting hosted by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. “This is ridiculous.”

The city has taken a beating recently from leaders of some neighboring communities who question why earned income taxes paid for by their residents who work in the city’s 130-acre Neighborhood Improvement Zone should be diverted from suburban budgets.

“For those who continue to try to divide us, I’m going to tell you right now you will not succeed,” (Chairman) Pawlowski said.

“Because those of us who have worked together to get this far will not let you stop us.”

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OPEN LETTER TO CHAIRMAN PAWLOWSKI :

Comrade Chairman,

In one half hour, perhaps less, I could do more to make your magnificent PALACE OF SPORT the most recognizable and well-known minor league ice hockey arena in all the world than YOU ever could in half a lifetime.

(No, I’m not talking about the expensive, out-of-town consultants you could hire at taxpayer expense … I’m talking YOU, personally, Bully Boy)

As it stands now, your expensive, Pennsylvania taxpayer-funded project here in Allentown might already be halfway to the well-deserved title of the planet’s most notorious.

Always remember, Comrade Chairman, that the ultimate objective is to sell ME tickets to see YOUR minor league heavyweights throwing haymakers on Hamilton Street. In contrast, have a look around here and notice I am not sellling you (or anyone else) anything. That has a certain, particular relevance that you may or may not wish to take under advisement next time you are in the mood to issue another front-page lecture to the uncooperative public at large.

I am really just not liking you or your attitude very much these days and that is the way it is. And it is your problem, to be certain, as compared to mine. You can also rest assured, Comrade Chairman, that I am far from the only one who feels this way, either.

Sincerely,

Comrade Not Buying Your Bullshit

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Toronto Maple Leafs center MIKHAIL GRABOVSKI (84), who has represented the national team of Belarus six times at the annual IIHF World Championships (37 ga, 14 go, 33 pts) but missed the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver a few seasons back due to injury, beats Montreal Canadiens goaltender CAREY PRICE (31) for a second time late in the third period of a very traditional, not to mention exciting, “Hockey Night In Canada” clash at the Bell Centre in the predominantly French-speaking Province of Quebec. (Christinne Muschi / Reuters)
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The roots of such a fantastic rivalry stretch all the way back to 1759 after originating on a plateau just outside Quebec City famously known to history as “the Plains of Abraham”. In the half century leading up until the National Hockey League’s great Expansion in the summer of 1967, the confrontations on ice between the MONTREAL CANADIENS and their traditional arch-enemy, the TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS, cemented in stone forever its status as the circuit’s ultimate clash of rivals. Still to this day, even if many things about the NHL have changed along the way as holy shrines like the Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens are no longer in use and iconic voices such as Foster Hewitt have gone, there is nothing quite like “HOCKEY NIGHT IN CANADA”.

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Promising, young Montreal Canadiens defenseman P. K. SUBBAN (76), the former second round pick at the 2007 NHL Draft who twice won the gold medal with Canada at the annual IIHF World Junior Championships and was named to the tournament All-Star team in 2009, slams into Toronto Maple Leafs center MIKHAIL GRABOVSKI (84), a native of Potsdam in what was then the Soviet puppet state known as the German Democratic Republic, with a clean shoulder check along the boards at the Bell Centre. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman MIKE KOMISAREK (8), the native New Yorker who was a first round pick coming out of the University of Michigan by Le Habs more than a decade ago, delivers a devastating blow to Montreal Canadiens’ Swedish import ANDREAS ENQVIST (63), the 24-year-old former IF Djurgarden Stockholm right wing who is still leading the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs in scoring despite his recent promotion, in full view of Le Habs’ newly-acquired enforcer BRAD STAUBITZ (25) during the National Hockey League contest at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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Montreal Canadiens pugilist BRAD STAUBITZ (25), the 27-year-old journeyman from Alberta who has scored just 15 goals while amassing 1,172 penalty minutes in seven seasons as a professional in both the AHL and NHL, and Toronto Maple Leafs tough guy MIKE BROWN, the American-made, University of Michigan product who has piled up 969 penalty minutes in his seven years of pro hockey to date, discuss the relative merits of Chairman Pawlowski’s spectacular $ 160.0 million dollar Palace of Sport for the People’s Democratic City of Allentown while tied up during the “Hockey Night In Canada” clash at the Bell Centre. (Christinne Muschi / Reuters)
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Two goals inside the final eight and a half minutes from Belarusian forward MIKHAIL GRAVOSKI and 21 saves from Swedish goaltender JONAS GUSTAVSSON powered the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs to a noteworthy, come-from-behind 3-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.

Obviously inspired by the arrival of brand new head coach RANDY CARLYLE, the Maple Leafs snapped a six-game losing streak to record just a second win in their last 12 National Hockey League contests. Nevertheless, Toronto still stand in twelfth place in the Eastern Confernece standings and remain three points off pace for the post-season playoffs. Whether or not Carlyle, who steered the Anaheim Ducks to the Stanley Cup title in 2007, can lead a late charge in Ontario remains to be seen.

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Newly-appointed head coach RANDY CARLYLE, who appeared in 1,055 National Hockey League contests over the course of his distinguished 17-year playing career, was originally selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs in the second round (# 30 overall) of the 1976 National Hockey League Draft. A brief controversy ensued after the Cincinnati Stingers of the rival World Hockey Association claimed the former Sudbury Wolves defenseman had signed a contract to play at Riverfront Coliseum but the matter was quickly settled. Carlyle only spent two years in the Toronto organization shuttling back and forth between the Maple Leafs and the Dallas Black Hawks of the old Central Hockey League before being traded to the Pittsburgh Penquins in the summer of 1978. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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RANDY CARLYLE (25) accomplished an amazing feat by winning the James B. Norris Trophy as the National Hockey League’s best defenseman while performing for the sub-par, still Mario Lemieux-less Pittsburgh Penquins in 1981. The native of Azilda, Ontario, was involved in a strange case on his only national team apperance for Canada at the 1989 IIHF World Championships in Stockholm, Sweden, after he failed a drugs test following the round-robin match with West Germany. In the wake of disgraced Canadian Olympic track athlete Ben Johnson’s scandal, the unfortunate Carlyle, now skating in the NHL with the Winnipeg Jets, temporarily suffered a loss of face at home and all across Europe but was quickly exhonorated when the B Sample proved to be clean as a whistle even if the International Ice Hockey Federation never did publically apologize to the player. (Richard B. Shaver / Pittsburgh Penquins photo)
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Montreal Canadiens goaltender CAREY PRICE (31) kicks aside the angled shot from Toronto Maple Leafs winger NIKOLAI KULEMIN, the one-time Metallurg Magnitogorsk forward who has represented Russia four times at the IIHF World Championships (34 ga, 7 go, 13 pts), as Le Habs rookie blueliner ALEXEI EMELIN (74), the 25-year-old who won three domestic crowns with Ak Bars Kazan and appeared with Russia at the IIHF World Championships three times (27 ga, 2 go, 5 pts) before crossing the Atlantic Ocean this past summer, looks to shield his countryman from the rebound during the National Hockey League contest at the Bell Centre in the iconic French-Canadian city of Montreal. (Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender JONAS GUSTAVSSON, the former AIK Stockholm and BK Farjestad Karlstad netminder who twice earned a bronze medal with Sweden at the annual IIHF World Championships and also appeared in one game for Tre Kronor at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, focuses on the puck while flat on his back between the pipes during the “Hockey Night In Canada” clash at the Bell Centre in the Province of Quebec.(Richard Wolowicz / Getty Images)
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The preceeding presentation was underwritten (most likely without the prior consent of Chairman Pawlowski and / or the Rubber Stamp Council of Apparatchiks) by :

THE PROGRESSIVE FOUNDATION FOR A MORE SPECTACULAR AND TRANSFORMATIONAL $ 160.0 MILLION DOLLAR PALACE OF SPORT

Unselfishly helping the global community at large warm to as well as better understand the cultural and historcial intricacies of ice hockey.

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“This project will bring in somewhere between 1 million and 2.5 million visitors a year.” … Mayor ED PAWLOWSKI quoted in The Morning Call, “Mayor : Arena Equals ‘A New Allentown’”, May 17, 2011

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“OPEN LETTER TO THE BROOKS GROUP” at THE HORN AND BELL : VOICE OF THE NOISE NATION” … February 26, 2012

http://noisenation.wordpress.com

The author Kramskorner writes, “DON’T – Count on concerts to fill the arena. I’m sure you’ll get some but with the area festivals (Musikfest, Allentown Fair, Mayfair) and other venues (Sands/Arts Quest, State Theater, Stabler, even Penn’s Peak) you’ll have plenty of competition for acts.”

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The seating capacity for ice hockey at the magnificent Palace of Sport has well been advertised at 8,500. Given that there are eighty games in an American Hockey League season at present and each club plays 40 games per year on home ice, the maximum number of spectators that the Phantoms could draw to the impending ice hockey house on Hamilton Street in Allentown would, therefore, be 340,000. This figure would still leave Mayor Pawlowski a considerable 660,000 people short of the lower end of his projection and an eye-popping 2,160,000 people less than the loftier of the Mayor’s very own goals stated publically.

That, of course, dangerously assumes that Pawlowski’s Pucksters will be able to sell-out each and every exciting, fight-filled minor league ice hockey match scheduled to take place at the magnificence and splendor that is the Pennsylvania taxpayer-funded, $ 160.0 million dollar Palace of Sport.

These numerical realities only make the unsolicited public advice of Noise Nation’s Kramskorner to the owners of the AHL Phantoms hockey club, the Brooks Group, all the more interesting … especially given the comment on the article in question by the Palace of Sport’s most high-profile Cheerleader, FUTURE DOWNTOWN ARENA ATTENDEE, who says :

“I agree with all your points.”

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Which can only raise the following question … If FDAA agrees with Kramskorner in that the Brooks Group should not count on concerts to fill the spectacular, $ 160.0 million dollar Palace of Sport … and there are only 40 exciting, fight-filled matches in any given minor league hockey season … exactly how in the hell is Chairman Pawlowski ever going to reach his stated (pipe dream?) goal of 2.5 million people attending the Palace of Sport in one year?

Arena football, professional lacrosse or, good heavens, even Major Indoor Soccer League … yeah, okay, good luck with that, then!

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If all goes according to plan, it should not be too long (2013-14 season, actually) before the BABY BROAD STREET BULLIES start trading haymakers with their ready and willing American Hockey League adversaries before the legions of ice hockey fans swarming all over a revitalized Hamilton Street in CHAIRMAN PAWLOWSKI’s soon-to-be spectacular as well as ‘transformational’ $ 160.0 million dollar, Pennsylvania taxpayer-funded PALACE of SPORT.
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PHILADELPHIA FLYERS – American Hockey League
Year-by-Year, Season Penalty Minute Leaders
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67/68 … 189 … Rosaire PAIEMENT ……. Quebec Aces
68/69 … 122 … Rosaire PAIEMENT ……. Quebec Aces
69/70 … 242 … Rosaire PAIEMENT ……. Quebec Aces
70/71 … 382 … Dave SCHULTZ ………… Quebec Aces
71/72 … 392 … Dave SCHULTZ ………… Richmond Robins
72/73 … 133 … Orest KINDRACHUK …… Richmond Robins
73/74 … 163 … Jack MCILHARGEY ……. Richmond Robins
74/75 … 316 … Jack MCILHARGEY ……. Richmond Robins
75/76 … 302 … Steve SHORT ………….. Richmond Robins
76/77 … 144 … Dave HYNEK …………… Springfield Indians
77/78 … 159 … Frank BATHE ………….. Maine Mariners
78/79 … 320 … Glen COCHRANE ……… Maine Mariners

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79/80 … 269 … Glen COCHRANE ………. Maine Mariners
80/81 … 255 … Don GILLEN …………….. Maine Mariners
81/82 … 101 … Gordie CLARK ………….. Maine Mariners
82/83 … 418 … Dave BROWN …………… Maine Mariners
83/84 … 185 … Perry PELENSKY ……….. Springfield Indians
84/85 … 173 … Joe PATERSON …………. Hershey Bears
85/86 … 436 … Steve MARTINSON ……… Hershey Bears
86/87 … 122 … Mitch LAMOUREUX ……… Hershey Bears
87/88 … 210 … Jeff CHYCHRUN ………….. Hershey Bears
88/89 … 262 … Mike STOTHERS ………… Hershey Bears

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89/90 … 193 … John STEVENS ………….. Hershey Bears
90/91 … 234 … Mike STOTHERS ………… Hershey Bears
91/92 … 186 … Bill ARMSTRONG ……….. Hershey Bears
92/93 … 205 … Bill ARMSTRONG ……….. Hershey Bears
93/94 … 266 … Tracy EGELAND ………… Herhsey Bears
94/95 … 287 … Clayton NORRIS …………. Hershey Bears
95/96 … 163 … Clayton NORRIS …………. Hershey Bears
96/97 … 254 … Frank BIALOWAS ………… Philadelphia Phantoms
97/98 … 259 … Frank BIALOWAS ………… Philadelphia Phantoms
98/99 … 242 … Francis BELANGER ……… Philadelphia Phantoms

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99/00 … 416 … Francis LESSARD ………. Philadelphia Phantoms
00/01 … 330 … Francis LESSARD ………. Philadelphia Phantoms
01/02 … 313 … Pete VANDERMEER ……. Philadelphia Phantoms
02/03 … 335 … Pete VANDERMEER ……. Philadelphia Phantoms
03/04 … 398 … Pete VANDERMEER ……. Philadelphia Phantoms
04/05 … 280 … Riley COTE ……………… Philadelphia Phantoms
05/06 … 265 … Josh GRATTON ………… Philadelphia Phantoms
06/07 … 199 … Triston GRANT …………. Philadelphia Phantoms
07/08 … 181 … Triston GRANT …………. Philadelphia Phantoms
08/09 … 263 … Matt CLACKSON ……….. Philadelphia Phantoms
09/10 … 174 … Matt CLACKSON ……….. Adirondack Phantoms
10/11 … 331 … Zac RINALDO …………… Adriondack Phantoms

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Albany Devils’ Russian right wing VLADIMIR ZHARKOV, who was chosen from CSKA Moscow in the third round pick (# 77 overall) by the New Jersey Devils in the 2006 National Hockey League Draft, covers up in a fetal position to protect himself from further damage at the hands of the Adirondack Phantoms duo of left wing ERIC WELLWOOD (22) and defenseman DAN JANCEVSKI (5) during the American Hockey League game on January 16, 2012, at the Times Union Center in the capital city of New York state. (Philip Kamrass/Times Union)
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In other exciting PALACE of SPORT NEWS this week, local blogger Michael Molovinsky analyzes some business transactions involving the so-called “Neighborhood Improvement Zone” with his piece :

“ALLENTOWN ARENA ZONE BARONS PUSH CIGARETTES”

http://molovinskyonallentown.blogspot.com

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Meanwhile, the Blogosphere Battle over the fundamental wisdom of Government getting involved in the risky business of financing sports stadiums, particularly at a time when The Morning Call runs thought-provoking headlines decrying the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s budget as being the victim of a $ 500.0 million dollar shortfall, continues to be fought, as evidenced by the comments found on local blogger Bernie O’Hare’s piece :

“SIXTEEN QUESTIONS FOR ALLENTOWN’s NIZ WIZ”

http://lehighvalleyramblings.blogspot.com

“GET OFF THIS BANDWAGON AND LET THE THING BE BUILT … YOUR CRYING ABOUT POSSIBLE JOBS AND EIT … STOP WASTING OUR TIME” … anon 3:20 pm

“3:31 — You probably don’t even live in A-town … so stop your bellyaching, and YOUR tax money isn’t paying for shit in Allentown … SO STOP YOUR PISSING AND MOANING” … anon 3:54 pm

Yes, indeed. There can be no question about it. The genuine bad blood and heartfelt ill-will are in abundance as the Cheerleaders do everything humanly possible to see to it that all opposition to the spectacular Palace of Sport is effectively silenced once and for all!