I think Fark sums it up best – “Tentative NHL labor deal reached. Tens of fans overjoyed”.
Good luck players and owners, you’ll need it after a year of showing everyone just how much you really cared about the game. I know I won’t spend a dime on tickets, parking, satellite packages, concession stands, or anything with an NHL logo on it this season. I suspect there are others—mostly in the U.S.— who will probably feel the same way. Maybe you can get a deal with NBC, the same folks who bring us Arena Football, to help spearhead the new-look that’s been promised every year for as long as I can remember.
Woo… umm… hoo.
I’ll watch it. Knowing today was the likely day of the announcement I wore my Flyers cap into work today.
I then promptly checked 2 engineers into their cubicle walls, and took a hockey stick and slashed some guy in the ankle.
Kev, I know you’re angry at them, I am too, but 20 games in, do you think you’ll feel differently?
There is a long road ahead, and it falls on Mr. Crosby to try to save this game.
We’ll see if it happens. The death of the NHL would be a damn shame.
I don’t think I’ll feel differently, as I doubt very much the style of the game will change. I’ve been fairly critical of the game itself of late, mainly because it’s only entertaining in the playoffs where you have to play to win.
The regular season is a joke. If you want to make it mean something, you need to reduce, not increase (as has been proposed), the number of teams that make it.
The officiating also needs to be cut and dry. None of this we’ll call it for the first 50 minutes of the game (or the regular season), and then chuck the rulebook out.
The elimination of the red-line, check-up offsides, and smaller goalie equipment are good ideas, but I don’t think they’ll help until the attitude of coaches and owners change.
I loved the old-style playoffs where the elimination round was 5 games. Change the number of teams who get in to 12, give the top four teams a first round bye, make the first round a best of five, and then it’ll get interesting. Finally, get back to the two games, two days – none of this game, day off, game shit. It’ll never fly, because playoffs is where owners make most money, and reducing teams reduces revenue opportunity, so they won’t do it.
I won’t say I won’t feel differently, but I’m pretty sure that I won’t, and as long as the Leafs have Quinn, they’ll just be a bunch of suck-holes I don’t want to watch, anyways. I won’t even talk about the bunch of chokers we have at home 🙂
Until the playoff system changes, the regular season will be a joke. As long as the regular season is a joke, then the NHL is, too, and I won’t watch. That 1-0 trap, hook, and grind fest I saw the last season between the two “top” teams in the league at the time made me realise how the quality of the product has gone out the window in favour of profit. Until they prove they care about quality again, my entertainment time and money will be spent elsewhere.
I understand you gripes about the clutch and grab league the NHL has become. I honestly think that they’ll remedy this. Will the lack of a red line help? I doubt it. I sincerely doubt it. Smaller goalie equipment? That will help a little bit, but frankly I’m of the opinion that goalies are just simply better than they used to be. Brodeur probably will have the least changes to his equipment.
The Leafs are in trouble. They are aging, and I just don’t think they have it. And if Tampa Bay could put it together, who’s to say Ottawa can’t?
Although if the Flyers had 6 healthy defensemen, then I think that series is different. Kudos to Sami for playing D.
I agree that the regular season is too long but at some point you have to say these are the changes and we have to stick with them. I’m a big baseball nut and part of the appeal of baseball is the comparison of statistics both past and present, and how they compare, how you can weight the stats to count for dead-ball, steroids, etc…
In hockey, there isn’t the statistical nature, and I think that’s a shame. Baseball = 162. Football = 16. Basketball = 81. If hockey changes it, then they better stick with it.
Hockey needs a better product on the ice, they know they need increased scoring. All they need is to reduce the damn obstruction. Higher scores means less statisical chances of a tie. Less ties means we don’t have to think about how to make overtime exciting, we don’t have to change it to 4 on 4, 3 on 3, or have shootouts.
I just don’t like shootouts in the NHL because it takes a very much a team game and reduces it to your best 5 offense guys against the other teams and how good your and their goalie is.
I need a Stanley Cup in my life, and as much as it pains me to say it, Clarke has finally got a team that can do it. Carter and Richards are like a dream come true.
I’m of the opinion that the regular season is a joke not JUST because of how many teams go in, but the lack of entertainment value of the games themselves.
It remains to be seen. And since you are closer, please ensure that the Flyers ping pong ball appears number 1. I will buy you a beer if you can make this happen.
yehyeh’s shootout 5:
Roenick
Gagne
Handzus
Carter
uhhhhhhh…..ruh roh
> but 20 games in, do you think you’ll feel differently?
The first 20 games mean sweet fuck all in an 80+ game season. Usually the players are still remembering how to play again after a long summer on the golf course. I can only imagine how bad they’ll be in the first 20 games this year after having been golfing for over a year!
As usual, I probably won’t worry about hockey until the playoffs. I won’t have watched it in two years at that point, so who knows whether I will actually care.
Maybe you guys just need to find some decent teams to watch. You know, like the Canucks! 😉
As much as people (myself included) like to bitch about the game and how its being played, its something that I had missed terribly last year. It made for a really long winter out in Seattle, especially since the skiing conditions were absolutely horrible.
I’d rather watch a broken league than be subjected to reruns of bad Canadian TV and waiting to see what comes in the mail from Netflix to fill my saturday nights.
I was at the same point, and then, well. Calgary.
Best.
Playoffs.
Ever.
(okay. lacking a little in the last game.)