I know people who know people who know people (yeah, I have some great, great friends) and I’m throwing this out there just to see what the early reaction is.

You know how they are working on the “re-branding” of everything to do with the HOTH, right? Maybe new colours, maybe a new logo, maybe all kinds of things different for the 2015-16 season.

Well, how about this:

Black and gold.

Now, I’m not suggesting it’s a done deal and a lot of different people and companies are coming up with a lot of different looks and styles but I was told on the weekend that black and gold is definitely something being considered.

Good? Bad? Indifferent?

My immediate reaction was, as the kids say, “meh” because it’s not a colour scheme that makes me sit up and take notice and because I don’t really see anything wrong with the way things are right now.

And I would suggest that if one of Tim Leiweke’s great plans is to have the Raptors become “Canada’s team” that going away from red and white doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

But black and gold are cliché and they are in vogue and they a radical change from the, let’s see, purple, red, white, black, camouflage, blue and I’m sure there are others that we’ve been subjected to over the years.

To repeat: This is by no means a done deal and there is still time for them to tinker and change and do whatever they have in this grandiose to re-invent the organization.

But I’ll throw this out there once again, knowing full well I’ll bring it up every time we talk about this “re-brand.”

The best change they can make is go from losing franchise to winning; colours and logos and brands be damned. They want good things for the franchise? Win games.

I understand completely that marketing is big and that selling t-shirts and jerseys and jackets and whatever is important and it’s a way to line the pockets of the organization, the league and by extension the players who share in the Basketball Related Income that funds the salary portion of the collective bargaining agreement.

But the big picture? The big picture is success on the court.

And if you’re looking at away-from-the-game tweaks that help in different ways, here are two:

Fix the utter mess that is the TV and radio schedules, where there are too many channels, too many voices, too many looks; there is no consistency and if you want fans outside of the city to glom on to the team, putting it somewhere that’s consistent would be a good idea.

They could also spend some time suggesting that they plan to, you know, try and win. The subliminal message from upper management that they wouldn’t mind taking a few giant steps back instead of trying to make incremental moves up makes no sense to me.

Colours? Big whoop. Re-branding? Yawn.

Red, black and white? Fine with me. Black and gold? Might look good, might not; won’t matter a whit if they’re 25-57.

What do you think?

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A flight this afternoon and a return in 2014?

Yeah, this works.

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I’m reading yesterday about this political extremist Cruz from Texas wanting to renounce or get out of his Canadian citizenship and there’s only one logical reaction:

How can we expedite it and don’t let the 49 th parallel hit you on the ass on way out.

As Super Dad used to say: Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?

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Wish there was some HOTH news but it was a down day yesterday before it gets crazy starting this week.

In all the years around this organization, I cannot remember a New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day back-to-back and that just starts it.

There are 18 games between now and the end of January and when Dwane warned us to buckle up and make sure the points plans were in order, he was speaking the truth.

That’s an awful lot of games to jam into a month and since there is only one break of two days off between games from now until the all-star break, it doesn’t seem like we’ll have to do a lot of searching for good off-day stories, either.

But the one thing it’s not going to allow for is very much practice time and I imagine that worries the coaching staff more than anything. Even when things are going well, bad habits have a tendency to pop up and without having a lot of gym days to work on them, they could linger and fester and that would be troubling.

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Okay, I’ll check with the Tall Foreheads to see what they think but need to check with some of you, too.

With an 8 p.m. East start on New Year’s Eve is an IGBT worth it?

Let me know somehow, would you? Doesn’t make a lot of difference to me but if enough of you could use a night off for whatever revelry you have planned, I could coast and deal with what I am sure will be wacky holiday deadlines.

We will, however, be around for the Thursday noon chat again; been a while and I miss it a little bit.

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We all know that the money pro athletes make is crazily disproportionate to (a) worth and (b) reality and (c) sense, right?

And I know that the money tossed at players in the league I cover skews that even more but when I read about the Pucks Dude Who Is Married To the Actress who is going to make $7 million a year for seven years, I really can’t work up a lot of outrage. Or even a little bit of concern.

Look, we all know the dollars make no sense and maybe it’s wildly different in the hockey world but no contract is ever untradeable and if a guy can get that kind of coin, do you expect him to say no?

And if the team figures it can afford it and still be able to make moves, who’s to say they won’t?

The days of getting all worked up over contracts are gone, I’d suggest. You roll with it, fix it if it becomes a problem and move on.

Right?

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