Shootaround

Welcome to Aqsaq, what is, to my admittedly limited knowledge, Nunavut's first blog dedicated exclusively to basketball. We're going to have guest writers, analysis, and as much local content as possible. We're also going to make fun of the Knicks a lot. Man I wish Isiah Thomas was still coaching them.

We have real jobs, believe it or not, so things are going to be slow around here until at least one of the ongoing election campaigns ends. And hell, regular season doesn't start for three weeks anyway.

So in the meantime, here's a placeholder until we can get some real content. From Janurary 10, 2008, adapted from and reprinted courtesy of inflatable elvis.

After years of sucking, the New Orleans Hornets are close to the top of the NBA's Western Conference standings. Chris Paul is the second most exciting new point guard in the league (after Utah's Deron Williams, IMHO), and Tyson Chandler is destroying people in the post.

But owner George Shinn is running, admittedly, a business and given that state and local governments in the Gulf Coast region are trying to rebuild actual important things like levies, roads, and schools, means they have limited time or money to bail out a moribund franchise that struggles to draw even 12,000 people per game. And of course, when daily survival in the Crescent City is hard enough, and the local economy is in tatters, the notion of public support for pro sports there (or anywhere, for that matter), is obscene.

That had AOL blogger Tom Ziller writing about the lineup of potential new homes for the Hornets: "Where to? Mayors/prospective NBA owners of Kansas City, Anaheim, San Jose, Las Vegas, Nunavut... start your engines."

Insert that record scratching sound here. What? This is how rumours start, and given how little southerners know about the place, anything is possible. So I corrected the record.

"While it's nice to see Nunavut mentioned as a possible home to the Hornets, it's worth pointing out that Nunavut is a territory, not a city.

It's a little known fact that the capital, Iqaluit...has just broken ground on a $250 million 19,000 seat state-of-the-art arena, for which it needs an anchor tenant. Unfortunately, this is a hockey town, and I will be the only person who would go."

That last bit isn't true. I can think of three or four other people who would go. As for the teamless arena, that's actually Kansas City's current problem. And of course, even with their bad attendance the Hornets still put roughly twice Iqaluit's population into the New Orleans Arena every night.

Ziller, showing a classy populist touch, but not realizing he's been had, responds:

"Hope you get your tenant, mate. Lovely country up there, I hear. Heading to Alaska in the spring. Maybe the D-League can stick a squad in Anchorage? Thanks for commenting."

That would be cool, though it won't help Iqalummiut, who need a decent rink that isn't sinking into the tundra, never mind a luxury First Air Centre. But none of this is Tom's fault, and I am genuinely impressed he took the time to write, seeing as he likely gets notes from dozens of crackpots daily. And he's right, it is beautiful country up here.

Basically, I'm an asshole.