Thin Ice

Money, Politics and the Demise of an NHL Franchise

Jim Silver

Thousands of Winnipegers rallied on the streets while corporate businessmen fought each other behind closed doors. Information was manipulated. Arms were twisted. Politicians capitulated. Adults wept on open-line radio shows. Children broke open their piggy banks. This was the campaign to keep the NHL’s Jets from leaving Winnipeg. The book is about hockey, but it is not about The Game. It is about the business of hockey and how changes in this business are threatening the games survival in Canada. And while the story is set in Winnipeg it is not about a single city. Given the new corporate-driven, continental business of NHL hockey, this story will almost certainly be played out in other Canadian cities. “Jim Silver has done all of us who love the game of hockey an enormous favour. For too many years, Canadians have let the myth of the game shroud the reality of the business. While we think of frozen ponds, what really counts is revenue streams. And his examination of the southward course that stream is taking is a cautionary tale for us all.”–Roy MacGregor, sports writer, Ottawa Citizen and author of Road Games: A Year in the Life of the NHL

Contents

• Foreword (David Whitson)
• Introduction 
• The Business of NHL Hockey 
• On the Margins: Pro Hockey in Winnipeg 
• To Build or Not to Build* Heroes
• White Nights and the Kids: A Resurrection Story
• Save Our Jets...and Shift the Risks
• The Spirit of Manitoba
• Conclusion
• Afterword (John Loxley)

About the Author

Professor Silver’s research interests are in inner-city, poverty-related and community development issues. His most recent book is In Their Own Voices: Urban Aboriginal Community Development. Among other books, he is the co-author of Building a Better World: An Introduction to Trade Unionism in Canada, a revised, second edition of which will appear in 2008; and editor of Solutions that Work: Fighting Poverty in Winnipeg. He is co-editor of Doing Community Economic Development, scheduled for release in 2007. Some other recent publications include the following monographs, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba and available for free download from their website: Unearthing Resistance: Aboriginal Women in the Lord Selkirk Park Housing Developments; Safety and Security Issues in Winnipeg’s Inner City Communities: Bridging the Community-Police Divide (co-authored with Elizabeth Comack); North End Winnipeg’s Lord Selkirk Park Public Housing Development: History, Comparative Context, Prospects; and Gentrification in West Broadway? Contested Space in a Winnipeg Inner City Neighbourhood.

Professor Silver did an M.A. in Political Science at Carleton University, and completed a Ph.D. in Politics at Sussex University in 1981. He started teaching on a full-time basis at the UW in 1982. He was the recipient of the UW’s Robson Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1985, the UW’s Atchison Award for Community Service and the Joe Zuken Citizen Activist Award in 1997, and is the 2007 recipient of the UW’s Erica and Arnold Rogers Award for Excellence in Research. 

Professor Silver is a Professor and Co-Director of the UW’s new Urban and Inner-City Studies program.

Excerpt

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