Hockey starts Oct 5th!

[Tulenyre]

http://www.nhl.com/schedules/index.html

Go Caps!

[Drax]

What's "hokey?"

Oh! Hockey!

...

And there's my answer. :lowlol:

[Zyzzyx]

Aw man... I thought we got rid of that game.

[Serani]

I thought so, too. I mean, I'm good for football and I can even put up with baseball. But hockey's only good if you're IN the arena and around here, base tickets are $85+.

Uh, no.

So, it can happily GO AWAY.

[Yuglooc]

$85? Sheesh! Tickets for one (randomly selected) Los Angeles Kings game ranged from $24.50 to $350+. I didn't bother checking the detailed price structure. I suspect that the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim has similar prices.

[Tulenyre]

I thought so, too. I mean, I'm good for football and I can even put up with baseball. But hockey's only good if you're IN the arena and around here, base tickets are $85+.

Uh, no.

So, it can happily GO AWAY.

Caps range from 10$ to 85$.

[Erudite]

Hockey owns. Of course, if my hometown team was the Penguins, I might be bitter as well. :lowrazz: ;) :lowlol:


Gawd, we Red Wing fans are spoiled. :lowcool:

[Caranthir]

Pro hockey sucks. It's all about college hockey.


Go Fighting Sioux!

[Draknor]

Anything but football for me. I just found out the Vikings are trying to get a deal to put a stadium in my county, and are expecting the public to pay $280 million, or about 40%. The Vikings are paying 40%, with the state picking up the $115 million infrastructure improvement costs.

It's going to raise our sales tax by .75 of a percentage point. Furthermore, apparently they've managed to fix things so that it doesn't go to a public vote.

It'll have to go past legislators, of course, but I'm really not happy with the Vikings right now.

So, with that said, Go Wild! (yeah, well, one can always hope for a miracle :lowsmile: )

[Aananla]

Anything but football for me. I just found out the Vikings are trying to get a deal to put a stadium in my county, and are expecting the public to pay $280 million, or about 40%. The Vikings are paying 40%, with the state picking up the $115 million infrastructure improvement costs.

It's going to raise our sales tax by .75 of a percentage point. Furthermore, apparently they've managed to fix things so that it doesn't go to a public vote.

It'll have to go past legislators, of course, but I'm really not happy with the Vikings right now.

So, with that said, Go Wild! (yeah, well, one can always hope for a miracle :lowsmile: )

Sounds like you're getting a bargain. We bought the whole damn thing. :roll:

[Zyzzyx]

Durn spoiled football teams. (and baseball, and others) I can't say with 100% certainty, but I don't think you usually see cities and taxpayers taking the burden for a new racetrack. But then, we don't get new racetracks very often, they're usually being closed, not built. <grumble grumble>

Hmm, thinking about it though, last 'new' track I can think of at the moment is California Speedway down in Fontana. Might have to look about and see what the costs were for it and how they were spread around, if at all.

[drathos]

to make matters worse for me, nhl games are no longer covered on espn and abc.. instead, comcast got the tv rights and it's being shown on oln (?!) which i don't get since my local cable service is from adelphia. :lowmad:

so now the only hockey games i'll be able to watch are the occasional caps game on whatever local channel shows their away games.. this royally sucks for a wings fan who may be missing yzerman's farewell tour.. ;(

[DirkDarkBlade]

If it helps XM Radio announced they are carrying the NHL games this year. If you get an XM Radio you'll be able to listen to the games at least. (I know it would be better to be able to watch them). I used to really like hockey. Went to some of the Atlanta Flames games...then they moved...never really got into hockey after that. I think we have a new team here now, but I'm not sure.

[Caranthir]

The Thrashers? (Can't really remember for sure - I don't pay that much attention to pro hockey)

I'm curious to see if The Great One will turn out to be an Isiah-Thomas-type-legend-turned-coach or a Larry-Legend-type-legend-turned-coach.

[DirkDarkBlade]

Thrashers, yeah thats them. i've got one of their jersey's but I haven't been to a game yet. I thought they were on strike/lockout or something. I take it that is all over and settled now?

[VagabondCat]

Y'all are all crazy! Blues are gonna wipe the ice with your teams!!!
I can't wait!!! I almost was able to go the first preseason game yesterday, but had to work late.
Oh yeah I know you all might think I've dissappeared... and you're right I have.. but its for a good reason. I found a girl.. and she thinks I'm cute. Who would have thunk?

[Queed]

What's that smell? It's somewhere between ultimate suckage and total lewzination...


... oh wait, it's just Red Wings Fans. :mrgreen:



HAha, I'm just kidding guys. We always enjoy a nice, friendly chance to knock you out of the playoffs. :lowrazz:


GO AVS!

[drathos]

oh ya.. go avs? they've got joe sakic and .. uh.. nope.. guess that's it.. forsberg's gone to philly, blake isn't good enough to hold the defense together, and they've been questionable in goal since roy (read: Wah!) retired.. tho i must say, i don't miss roy at all. the man had an ego that would fill any 3 arenas.. tanguay and hejduk will probably do well if they're on sakic's line, but that leaves the avs with 3 questionable lines to fill..

i've always been a player fan more than a team fan, so i can honestly say i like and respect sakic, but i see the avs having a few problems this year (kinda like madano in dallas the last couple years).

and you have to admit that the wings-avs rivalry has cooled down since claude lemieux left..

personally, i wanna see how the devils adapt to the retirement of scott stevens. i could hear the sigh of relief from all the opposing forwards when he announced his retirement. :lowlol:

[Erudite]

Life is good in Red Wing land, with both Zetterberg and Datsyuk resigning in recent days. Salary cap or no, the Wings are gonna be dangerous. :lowrazz:

[Winduforce]

Go THrashers

[drathos]

the wings are pretty strong everywhere.. not quite as deep as they used to be, but still strong. they get dinged on goaltending, but osgood and legace have proven their worth to the team by way of stanley cup wins. personally, i hope legace gets the nod as the #1 goalie.

[Queed]

I'm just excited because it's been... years... since I've watched hockey. I honestly don't know how we'll do anymore. But, the avs have been good to me ever since they showed up, and Roy's last game is neatly blocked from my memory.

[DinbinFanfoom]

I'm just excited because it's been... years... since I've watched hockey. I honestly don't know how we'll do anymore. But, the avs have been good to me ever since they showed up, and Roy's last game is neatly blocked from my memory. Roy got a lot of flak (much of it earned) but his record attests to the fact that he's certainly been one of the best goalies in NHL history. Hockey goalies are a quirky, volitile, superstitious and often arrogant lot, it's pretty much expected. It's gotta be one of the toughest roles to play in any major sport. TONS of pressure.

[drathos]

Roy got a lot of flak (much of it earned) but his record attests to the fact that he's certainly been one of the best goalies in NHL history.
imho, you can't really compare players of today against those in the past. the game has changed so much that there is no way to say who was better. dryden and esposito didn't have the trap and the clutching and hooking d that's been stifling offense for years. hell, gretzky wouldn't have the numbers he did playing in todays game. i believe he probably would have lead the league still, but there's no way he'd put up the kind of numbers that he had in edmonton (4 200+ point seasons).

theoretically, the rule changes in place for the new season should open the game up for more offense, but we'll see just how long the crackdown on obstruction lasts. the last 4 seasons they said they were gonna crack down on obstruction, then the officials started backing off after a couple months. oh, and watch goalie equipment start to grow again in a couple years.. :roll:

[DinbinFanfoom]

Meh, it's hard to say how A would perform in year B. There's no doubt in my mind that Roy carried the Canadiens to their last two Stanley's, though. I don't think you can say someone of the 50's or 60's is necessarily better simply because the game was "harder" then. A lot of stuff changed, and not just affecting one facet of play.

[Erudite]

A lot of stuff changed, and not just affecting one facet of play.

Yeah, like the size of the goalie's pads. Roy used to look like the Michelin man after an all-you-can-eat buffet binge when he skated onto the ice. :lowrazz: ;)

[Erudite]

Woohoo! GO WINGS!


:twisted:

[Lycos]

Woohoo! GO WINGS!

Yummmmmmmmm! Wings! :D

[DinbinFanfoom]

Canadiens > Bruins. Woot! :smile:

[EricStratton]

Not that I care much but the Caps won! Yay! :lowlol:

[DirkDarkBlade]

I found the Atlanta game on TV while playing...but Atlanta lost. Of course the Braves lost too...not a good day for Atlanta Sports. I only hope tonight's football game goes better! (I hope the Braves win too, but this is post season).

[Tulenyre]

Not that I care much but the Caps won! Yay! :lowlol:

Halpern and Ovechkn for the win!

[Sitsonsix]

I'm reeling in shock here. I mean, first my Bengals...and then my Oilers open the season with a win against the Av's?!

*pinches self*

[RJO]

LETS GO RED WINGS.....................

[Erudite]

Gah. Did anybody else watch the Red Wings-Predators game last night? Absolutely the most surreal thing I've ever seen during a televised sporting event.

Wings defensemen Jiri Fischer had a seizure on the bench - he just collapsed. I was watching the game with Mel, and all of the sudden all the Wings players were calling the officials over. Nobody knew what was going on for a few minutes, but you could see the team doctors roll a player over and start CPR on him before the network cut to a commercial. Apparently his heart stopped for about 45 seconds, and they had to use the defibrallator to restart it. They cancelled the remainder of the game, and he was reported as breathing on his own, stable and responsive at the hospital.

Still, very scary to see happen in real time, even on television. :(

[Lycos]

Gah. Did anybody else watch the Red Wings-Predators game last night? Absolutely the most surreal thing I've ever seen during a televised sporting event.

Wings defensemen Jiri Fischer had a seizure on the bench - he just collapsed. I was watching the game with Mel, and all of the sudden all the Wings players were calling the officials over. Nobody knew what was going on for a few minutes, but you could see the team doctors roll a player over and start CPR on him before the network cut to a commercial. Apparently his heart stopped for about 45 seconds, and they had to use the defibrallator to restart it. They cancelled the remainder of the game, and he was reported as breathing on his own, stable and responsive at the hospital.

Still, very scary to see happen in real time, even on television. :(

I was just telling a co-worker here that it is even more scary because you don't expect that to happen to an athelete. Those are the guys that make us look like girly men! And when they keel over you have to wonder about your own health in some fashion.

[GravenStone]

Saw a report about that online last night. They said that they'd discovered an "abnormality" in his heart during a routine physical a year or two ago, but that he'd passed a stress test so no one was terribly worried. I suspect that "anomaly" is about to be revisited, in spades.

[drathos]

i read about it (glad he's doing better), but i don't get to watch hockey anymore.. the deal the nhl signed with comcast is terrible.. if you don't have comcast as a carrier, odds are that you don't get to see televised games (aside from the local coverage). comcast has f**ked it up so bad that several carriers are completely dropping oln and sueing comcast since comcast won't include the hockey games in their feed.

i've managed to see 3 games this season. caps on openning day (ironically on comcast sports net), and 2 games on oln when i was in delaware for business. both games (a month apart) were pitt-philly snooze fests and the coverage was horrible. oln needs new cameramen and commentators. especially new commentators. they spent 90% of the game talking about non-hockey stuff and there was no play-by-play at all. one goal was score and replayed without any reaction from the commentators, they just kept their inane conversation going.. :mad!: as much as barry melrose annoyed me, the nhl needs to get itself back on espn if they want to have a prayer of getting back their fanbase..

not that it'll make any difference to me as i don't even get oln.. :roll:

*grumbles while going to check last night's scores*