Sport

Action time after summer of strife

Here's the good news: the training camps are upon us, which means the 2009-10 regular season is right around the corner.

Sam McCaig

September 15, 2009

Here's the good news: the training camps are upon us, which means the 2009-10 regular season is right around the corner. And for a league that suffered through a summer to forget, a fresh canvas, upon which to paint new hockey memories, cannot come fast enough. Let us rewind and recall what the NHL has endured since Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins treated fans to a thrilling victory in the seventh game over the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup final last June.

It should have been a great summer. The Penguins paraded the cup through downtown Pittsburgh in front of 500,000 fans. Crosby took the trophy to his hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia and got a hero's welcome. The New York Islanders, with the No 1 pick in the entry draft, selected John Tavares, a pure goal-scorer if there ever was one, to give hope to a moribund franchise. After making it to the Western Conference final, the Chicago Blackhawks followed up their return to relevance by signing the league's hottest free agent, Marian Hossa, to a long-term deal that signalled their intent to win the cup for the first time since 1961.

It was right around the time of Hossa's signing that the NHL's summer of love mutated. For starters, the Hawks failed to file some paperwork on time and some of their promising young stars went from restricted to unrestricted free agents. Chicago eventually got everyone under contract but not without forking out a lot more money than was needed. The general manager Dale Tallon took the fall, ostensibly because of the foul-up but more likely due a personality conflict with those above him.

Hossa's 12-year deal came under fire because of allegations that there were discussions whether the 30-year-old winger would retire after eight years into the pact. Such discussions would be in violation of the league's bylaws. It was later discovered Hossa needed shoulder surgery. There was back-and-forth over whether that fact had been disclosed during negotiations, and the Slovak will miss the first two months of the season.

Then, young Hawks star Patrick Kane and his cousin roughed up a taxi driver after a night out. The incident was initially reported to be about the cabbie's inability to cough up 20 cents in change but likely had more to do with the fact the driver locked the pair in the backseat when he thought they were going to run off without paying. And that is just what happened in Chicago. You want to talk Phoenix? Where to begin? How about, where will it end? The Coyotes have been losing money, so much so that owner Jerry Moyes put the team in a bankruptcy filing early in the summer in a bid to help Jim Balsillie buy the club.

The NHL did not want this, because it does not like the BlackBerry billionaire and does not appreciate the way he has tried to strong-arm his way into the owners' club. Balsillie has been trying to buy a team for years and makes no secret of his desire to relocate the team he buys to Hamilton, Ontario. The result has been battle after battle in court between the league and Balsillie, and it has been the top (yet, so boring) story of the off-season.

At least until the NHL Players' Association decided to fire executive director Paul Kelly in late August, after less than two years on the job. No official reason has been given yet. The NHLPA looks bad on this one but maybe the union is just trying to keep up with the league, and looking bad is an easy way to do it. Like we said at the start: The good news is, the regular season is right around the corner.

@Email:smccaig@thenational.ae

Cryopreservation: A timeline
  1. Keyhole surgery under general anaesthetic
  2. Ovarian tissue surgically removed
  3. Tissue processed in a high-tech facility
  4. Tissue re-implanted at a time of the patient’s choosing
  5. Full hormone production regained within 4-6 months
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Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others

Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.

As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.

Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.

“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”

Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.

“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”

Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.

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Pandemic Parenting

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

German intelligence warnings
  • 2002: "Hezbollah supporters feared becoming a target of security services because of the effects of [9/11] ... discussions on Hezbollah policy moved from mosques into smaller circles in private homes." Supporters in Germany: 800
  • 2013: "Financial and logistical support from Germany for Hezbollah in Lebanon supports the armed struggle against Israel ... Hezbollah supporters in Germany hold back from actions that would gain publicity." Supporters in Germany: 950
  • 2023: "It must be reckoned with that Hezbollah will continue to plan terrorist actions outside the Middle East against Israel or Israeli interests." Supporters in Germany: 1,250 

Source: Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution

SHAITTAN
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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions