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The Obligatory Ice Hockey Thread


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Weird...I'm confused as to why toronto is even trying anymore. Sure, they could make the playoffs, but for the good of their team, would they even benefit off doing so? Them making the playoffs pretty much equals a bye for the flyers/capitals in the first round...

 

do it for the experience. with kaberle gone, there's no single player in the team that's been in the playoffs as a leaf

 

oh and i think leafs can beat washington, not likely but it won't be a wash. series is 1:2 advantage caps, but that's before the upgrade in net

 

Woot Minny beat NYR to get back in the West. Damn it's a tight race.

 

You're welcome TOR, from Minny :shades:

 

haha yeah, just wish the canes-sabres game didn't go into OT.

 

btw wild is in toronto on the 22nd

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Weird...I'm confused as to why toronto is even trying anymore. Sure, they could make the playoffs, but for the good of their team, would they even benefit off doing so? Them making the playoffs pretty much equals a bye for the flyers/capitals in the first round...

 

Because it's every team's goal to make the playoffs? They have no first round pick this year, so tanking won't help (well they have two but not their own).

 

No! Because of BONUS clauses in their contracts! Silly gooses! :rolleyes: :mrgreen:

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Maybe they're still trying because then Boston gets a later pick? They already got #2 last year, why give them another good one this year? Plus, you never know what will happen once the Playoffs begin. I don't think we'll get past the first round, but it could happen.

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Yeah, doubt we'd get past the first round. Hell, even making the playoffs is going to be tight...

 

That said, I'm glad they're not giving up.

 

EDIT: And NJ is seven points out of a playoff spot. Ridiculous. Thank God we only play them once more...

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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Meh...should be interesting come playoff time, seeing as aside from washington, we're still unsure about who's gonna end up where playoff-spot wise. I'd love to see a was vs njd first round though...hell, if jersey wins and faces the rangers, then I may just watch the entire damn playoffs. As for the west: I'd may as well make a chipotle-style prediction. Chicago will get eliminated in the first round. Oh, and san jose will probably represent the west in the cup final, unless vancouver manages to pull off a miracle.

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Are Winnipeg's NHL prayers about to be answered?

By STEPHEN BRUNT

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Legal battle in Phoenix could pave the way big league hockey returning to Manitoba

 

The National Hockey League must understand now that it no longer has a dog in this fight.

 

City of Glendale, Ariz., v. Goldwater Institute? Doesn't really matter. They will be battling that one out, to the enrichment of many a lawyer, long after big-league hockey has disappeared from the Valley of the Sun.

 

As you may know by now, reports circulated over the weekend that Glendale is preparing to sue the conservative advocacy group for astronomical sums in alleged damages, accusing it of conspiring to kill the municipal bond issue with which Glendale hoped to pay Matthew Hulsizer to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes and keep them in the Jobing.com arena.

 

Step back even a few inches and the absurdity of this situation is obvious.

 

There is no groundswell of public opinion in Arizona one way or another over the fate of the hockey team, or the fate of Glendale's ill-advised decision to go all in on the value of professional sports to the community. Even if Goldwater was in the business of partisan electoral politics - which, strictly speaking, it is not - there would be precious little for it to gain here.

 

So why, or with whom, Goldwater might conspire to push a moribund hockey team out of Arizona and into Manitoba remains a puzzle. As in most instances, the simpler explanation makes more sense: Obsessed as it is with government waste and what it perceives to be misspent tax dollars, Goldwater objected to a handout that it argues violates the "gift clause" statute in the state constitution.

 

From day one, Goldwater has been suggesting as much, watching from the sidelines, waiting for the arena lease to actually be signed. But still the Glendale politicians, who must be right up there with the most obtuse in North America, opted to gamble that there would be no 11th-hour intervention. They had legal opinions to back up their claim that the arrangement with Hulsizer was legal, although if you read the actual bond offering, you learn that those opinions are predicated on the veracity of consultants' reports about potential parking revenues. But the politicians' core belief must have been that when push came to shove and a deal seemed imminent, Goldwater would simply walk away.

 

That's a bad bet to make when you're playing against zealots.

 

So all that's left is the bleating, and some fabricated estimates of the economic impact of losing the Coyotes. ($500-million? Come on. Even the folks in the business of spinning crazy numbers to try to justify crazy public investment in sport with bogus multiplier effects would have a hard time coming up with a number like that based on a hockey team that plays 41 sparsely attended regular-season home games a year.)

 

The lawsuit, if it is indeed ever filed, is going to take time, and it's going to be messy, and neither time nor mess are things the NHL governors can tolerate any longer without having to again reach into their own pockets. So anywhere NHL hockey was being played this past weekend, the chatter among reporters and agents and team officials was that the announcement of the Coyotes' relocation to Winnipeg was both inevitable and imminent.

 

Perhaps there's one last twist remaining, though right now, it is hard to imagine what that might be.

 

In any case, let's skip straight to the next stage, which will be the apportioning of blame.

 

Glendale? It'll obviously blame the evil Goldwater Institute. The Goldwater Institute? It'll blame Glendale for going against state law.

 

The NHL? Given all the tall tales spun by commissioner Gary Bettman over the past three years, there are plenty of options, plenty of potential scapegoats, but here's betting the league ignores the current mess and the current players and lays this whole thing at the feet of poor old Jerry Moyes, who took the Coyotes into bankruptcy, and by extension, at the feet of Jim Balsillie, going all the way back to the aborted Pittsburgh Penguins sale.

 

It's a good story. Easier to sell than the failure of NHL hockey in a sunbelt market. Easier to explain than how, in order to protect a territorial-rights clause in its own constitution that may or may not be legal, the NHL jumped through hoops to block a guy who would have overpaid for the Coyotes (or the Predators, or the Pens) and written Glendale a cheque for $50-million, all for the privilege of claiming a small slice of the world's best hockey market, currently the exclusive domain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, saving the league considerable expense and considerable embarrassment in the process.

 

No slight to Winnipeg, where many a prayer is about to be answered. But given all that's happened, all the damage done, does anyone really believe this is the better outcome?

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Very interested to see what happens with that...

 

Well - as the article points out. They had ample opportunity to move less viable organizations to Hamilton numerous times, and they've refused to do it (for various/obvious reasons).

 

Still - I'd rather see a team in the 'Peg than in the desert. :shades:

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I don't think MLSE would allow the league to move a team to Hamilton. Too close, would hurt the leafs a lot (they might actually have to charge a reasonable amt for tickets!).

 

I'd also prefer a team in Winnipeg...I wonder if anything will happen with QC?

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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Fffail. We really needed that win.

 

At least we got the point though. (And buff/njd both lost). I really hope Pacioretty is ok as well, that was brutal...

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I really hope Pacioretty is ok as well, that was brutal...

 

Nothing! Chara got nothing for that cheap shot?!?!?!

 

McSorley's stickwork on Brashear wasn't as bad as that!

:angry:

Don't make me laugh. McSorely's stick on brashear was a blatant attempt to injure.

 

If chara's hit had been in any other part of the rink nobody would have thought a thing of it.

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Still a brutal hit.

 

I don't think he intended to injure Pacioretty, because of what Pac did at the end of that other game. But no doubt that was a dangerous play, and the result was even worse. A suspension of ~5 games would have no problem with me.

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I would have a problem with it. There was literally nothing wrong with the hit (baring interference). If you start penalizing based on the result that makes players afraid to hit at all.

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That's precisely my point. It wouldn't have been a dangerous hit had it happened literally a tenth of a second later. It would have been a normal hit...and it was a normal hit.

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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Interesting...isles are hot, devils are hot, and the kings are slowly falling out of the playoff picture. I'd laugh if the islanders won 10 straight to end the season, seeing as during the past 3 years, they've lost 13, 12, 8, and 17 to end the seasons.

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That's precisely my point. It wouldn't have been a dangerous hit had it happened literally a tenth of a second later. It would have been a normal hit...and it was a normal hit.

Are you [bleep]ing kidding me? These guys know what they're doing on the ice, and where the glass wall starts even moreso. I don't care if it wouldn't have been a dirty hit "X" seconds before or after, its what he did that matters. A clean hit is VERY DEPENDENT on the circumstances... I could "clean hit" an old lady crossing the street, it doesn't make it right. Did you watch the replay? He didn't hit him, he deliberately shoved him into the starting glass wall 2-3 seconds after he dumped the puck.

 

The real problem I have with the hit is that it was totally unnecessary. But I guess that what happens when your [cabbage] team is losing 4-0 in the 2nd.

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That's precisely my point. It wouldn't have been a dangerous hit had it happened literally a tenth of a second later. It would have been a normal hit...and it was a normal hit.

I could "clean hit" an old lady crossing the street

 

I lol'd.

 

But yah, I agree with fastortoise, I mean, he got a 5 and game for it, so obviously it's not a "clean hit".

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That's precisely my point. It wouldn't have been a dangerous hit had it happened literally a tenth of a second later. It would have been a normal hit...and it was a normal hit.

Are you [bleep]ing kidding me? These guys know what they're doing on the ice, and where the glass wall starts even moreso. I don't care if it wouldn't have been a dirty hit "X" seconds before or after, its what he did that matters. A clean hit is VERY DEPENDENT on the circumstances... I could "clean hit" an old lady crossing the street, it doesn't make it right. Did you watch the replay? He didn't hit him, he deliberately shoved him into the starting glass wall 2-3 seconds after he dumped the puck.

 

The real problem I have with the hit is that it was totally unnecessary. But I guess that what happens when your [cabbage] team is losing 4-0 in the 2nd.

Lol typical habs fan reaction. He didn't shove his head, he finished his check, with his arm, like every player does. You expect that, when there's a guy about to get a breakaway blowing past, he's going to let up because he anticipates the small chance that the guy would go over the boards and the even smaller chance that he'd actually get hurt?

 

I don't remember this kind of reaction when Kostopolous creamed Van Ryn, for example.

 

The play was interference, yes - which is why I agree with the game misconduct at least. He got 5 and game for that, not because he was trying to injure him.

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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I'm not defending the result, I'm saying it was a mostly legal hit with an unfortunate ending. I actually quite like the habs(probably third or fourth fav team) and I don't like chara(battle of ontario). I just don't see the malicious intent habs fans so vehemently insist is obvious.

 

I agree with all the suspensions that have hit the leafs this season (two to mike brown) and I agree that komisarek should have (and was) thrown out of the game today.

 

You can't punish based on result - it simply isn't fair to anyone involved. I think the league has been overly lax on many occasions but this wasn't one of those.

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"It's not a rest for me, it's a rest for the weights." - Dom Mazzetti

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I'm not defending the result, I'm saying it was a mostly legal hit with an unfortunate ending.

28qtg6x.jpg

 

I also agree that the two hits you've mentioned are dirty, disgusting hits. The difference were the results, you're right. What I'm saying is that all hits like those (not based on results, based on malicious intent) should be punished with game suspensions, because the NHL has been letting them happen and now Pacioretty almost died from one.

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