PapaLasagna – The commercial was out in ’84, again on and off through the second half of the 80′s and once again for a bit in the 90′s, so it did span some time. I am not sure of it being on the cover of the catalog, but I do know there were ads in magazines that had pics from the commercial. Unfortunately being disconnected from Canada in the winter gave me a limited view of where it was advertised up there. If you find a catalog with it on the cover, let me know.

p.s. “Joff-a”? I’d never heard it pronounced anything other than “Joe-fa”. And speaking of Jofa, I’m obliged to pass on it’s meaning, according to urban dictionary:

JOFA comes from the hockey equipment which has nice equipment but a bad helmet. Used to describe a girl, who has a nice body but an ugly face.

Oakland threw a whole bunch of money at the old Coloseum to bring it up to standards; teams will go where the money is. Uncle Gary needs to be convinced that it’s in the league’s best interests; while his goal has been to sell hockey in non-hockey markets (c.f. attempts to win a Cup with the chosen Sid, expansion into sunbelt cities), it’s borne odd fruit. It’s as strange that there’s no pro football in LA (outside of the odd claims for USC) as there are pro hockey teams in places without naturally frozen water. The failure of hockey marketing comes not from needlessly obscure rules (any follower of American football minutiae would be able to pick up the game) or senseless violence (ditto NASCAR) but a failure to spark youth imaginations down here — it’s not mindless hero worship we need, necessarily, but an emphasis on the speed and beauty of the game.

Completely on a different tack, I wonder what the Albert photo would look like having gone through Poladroid.

Interesting coincidence about the Raiders decision in the ’84 Sports Illustrated I linked to. I know that case is definitely one that played a very large role in Judge Baum’s ruling, (discussed earlier < a href="http://heroesinrehab.ca/blog/2009/06/16/the-balsillie-nhl-coyotes-bankruptcy-ruling/">here). As for the criteria you mentioned, I’m not so sure that all of the factors mentioned are an enormous slam dunk. I think it’s clear that the present management has dug the Coyote into a hole, but in terms of population base, and economic potential (setting aside, for the moment, the current disproportionate recessionary effects in Phoenix) and quality of facilities, the ‘Yotes have an argument to make, one that would be bolstered by questions of “location continuity”. Obviously, there’s a massive cash cow in the southern Ontario hockey market waiting to be tapped (that’s why Balsillie is going through all this costly grief), and the per capita number of hockey fans is astronomically higher here (I think they call that “market penetration”) but I’m not one of those guys who says hockey could never work in Phoenix. But that’s a rambling for another day, I guess…

@PapaLasagna: There was only one Albert commercial; or, at least, only one each in English and French. The one you remember is embedded in my first post on the subject.

By the way, I found the link to the Sports Illustrated article particularly timely. Your link goes to page two of the article but I decided to check out what was on page one. Lo and behold there is a lead story about the US Supreme Court refusing to hear the appeal by the NFL of the movement of the Oakland team to Los Angeles by Al Davis.

Indeed, the article says “The lower-court decision that the Supreme Court let stand last week doesn’t prevent a professional league from having a say in franchise relocation; it merely holds that the NFL’s specific rule that franchise moves be approved by a three-fourths vote of its 28 teams is unreasonable. The court implied that the league would be on more solid legal ground if it established objective guidelines governing relocation that took into account such factors as population, economic projections, quality of facilities, fan loyalty and “location continuity.”"
Hmmm! Mr Bettman and the NHL take note: Objective guidelines? Population, economics, fans, location continuity. Sounds like Hamilton might qualify under such criteria but Phoenix?…not so much.
What do you think?