BringHomeTheCup!

It's an inside joke, I wouldn't expect anyone else to understand the last paragraph.....

That's awesome....according to NHL.com, it's only on VS in the states...

Is anyone else upset that FSN didn't carry the first two games? And from the looks of it, they don't have tonights game either. This drives me nuts. I've got Dish Network, and in order for me to watch the games, I'd have to upgrade my package, they want an extra $10 a month for a bunch of usless channels. The only time I would ever want VS is when the Wings are on. WTF!!!!!

Clearly offsides made a joke about Ozzie being in the top 10, I followed suit. What's the problem?

You are right, he does belong in the top 10. But only if the list is 'Top Ten Goalies Who Wore Number 30 For The Detroit Red Wings Between 1989 And 2007', even at that, he would be a squeaker at 10.

Everyone who said something about Ozzie being too high was giving an example. When you give an example, the idea is to relate to your audience. This is Let's Go WINGSanyone else see where I am going with that?

I haven't followed much Preds hockey, except for the end of hte season and the games they played the Wings. However, a reputation isn't just assigned, it's earned. Nashville has a team rep of being dirty. It doesn't matter if Shea meant to throw the elbow or not, it was a dirty hit. Although given Shea's history, as someone else pointed out only 60 PIMs this year, I would like to know how tall he is as well as the player who he hit. And I would like to see more angles. This is just for my own decision making process, and by no means do I think it would justify or explain the hit in any manner. I think it's time we all started to look past the players here. With so many of the players acting and playing in the manner that the Preds do, especially a guy like Shea, it is coming from somewhere else. That somewhere else is Barry Trotz. There is no other explanation, Trotz is telling his players to play this style of hockey. Now I'm not saying that he told Tootoo to sucker punch Robidas, but I am saying he allows and expects his players to play like that. If Tootoo didn't put a dirty hit on Modano, the Robidas punch would never have happened. It's the coaching, and something should be done about it.

OUCH!!! I play both roller and ice hockey. During roller hockey, unless it's a league game or a tourney, I don't even wear a helmet. When I play ice, regardless if it's a league game or just pickup, I wear a haffie.

Hah, I don't know how I could have overlooked them, especially Vezina! Personally, I'd place Dom in the top 20-25 of all-time, no higher.

4th best eve?! Who is running this poll? That is ridiculos. Parrent, Sawchuck, Broduer, Roy, Fuhr, Plante, Hall, Esposito, Worsley, Thompsn, Hainsworth....need I go on? Hasek might be one of the top 10, but that's pushing it.

The bottom line is this, wearing a haffie is a choice players make. Mandating haffies, IMO, won't happen. Using the arguement that all these freak accidents would be prevented by wearing haffies is just silly. In reality, wearing a haffie protects your eyes, and that's about it. Haffies range in size from the sliver that Sid wears, to the windshield from an '89 Buick that Heatly wear. So if you mandate haffies, is there going to also be a size mandation? Both for too small and too big? Haffies are a great way to protect your eyes, but they also cause a lot of unnecessary injuries, that cannot be argued. Like I said before, in Yzerma's case, a haffie would have helped, but it Koivu's case, it just made it worse. Before the NHL could mandate such facial protection, I think they would have to find a way to eliminate the Koivu type injuries. If anything would be mandated in the near future (10-15 years) it would be the full cage. There is no way that the NHLPA would approve haffies being mandated, and for that matter, full cages. Wearing a haffie is a players choice. Someone said it before, it's a comfort level thing. If you aren't comfortable playing with it, then you won't play well with it. And you can same the same about not being comfortable playing without one. As I have said before, the respect between players for each other just isn't there like it once was. Do you think Bobby Orr would have ever thought about getting his stick up around Gordie Howe's face? No, he wouldn't have. Why? First, he respected Howe as a player and as a person. Secondly, he knew if his stick got up too high, he would have to pay a price, and fight. That's the great thing about hockey, things can be settled on the ice. No other sport will let it's players take care of things the way hockey does. You can't possibly sit here, and tell me that you think McCarty fighting Lemieux wasn't necessary. The second time the two fought, it was Lemieux who needed to prove something. Hockey is a great sport, the greatest of them all. It's slowly getting ruined by Bettman. The instigator rule is foolish. It does nothing for the game, except hurt it. The same way mandation of haffies would hurt the game: it would allow players to take more liberties without any real consequence.

Yzerman played a different style that superstars today do, or even other superstars of his day. His most problematic injusry did not come from a bone crunching hit in the corner, but rather a knee meeting post hit. Sure, Yzerman got beat up, but you never saw Gretz, or Mario dropping down to block a shot. Fighting needs to be in the game for a few reasons. One, to help police the players. Hockey is the only sport in which every player has a weapon, the stick. If fighting were taken out of the game, players such are Claude Lemieux and Ville Neminem (sp?) would take liberties with their sticks on the superstars. Fighting keeps this in line. If you don't think so, than I might suggest you start watching hockey at the NHL level. Two, sometimes, the only way to get your team going in the playoffs or regular season, is with a fight. When two enforces square off, it gets both teams pumped up. Third, and finally, the fans love it, and so do the players. I highly doubt any NHL player would argue that fighting isn't an integral part of the game. You can't use Yzerman's eye injury as an argument for the mandation of visors. It is irrelevent. Just like it would be pointless to use the Koivu eye injury to aruge for the outlaw of visors. Both injuries were freak accidents. In Yzerman's case, yeah a visor would have prevented the injury. But in Koivu's case, while the lack of a visor may not have fully prevented the injury, it most certianly would have cut down on the severity. And as for redesigning the visor rather than the helmet, how would you suggest to do this? How could you possibly still provide ample eye protecton, while not cutting down on the periffial vision, and temple protection? You can't do it. The way the helmet is designed forces you to mount the visor in the manner you see. This mounting method is obviously the best way to go in order to keep the visor attached to the helmet, and is also the safest for the player. Like Jagr68 said, it comes down to respect. Players today just don't have the respect for each other that they did way back when. In the helmetless days you would never have seen Draper get run face first into the boards (btw, a visor in that senario would just have made things worse.) by Claude the Turtle. Ask a vet like Cheli, or an old timer like Gordie, players just don't respect each other or the game like they used to. It's sad really. As for Cherry's comments about head injuries, and the disagreement that Bowman and the crew you listed would have. I think you are talking about two different types of injuries. Cherry is speaking of the injuries caused by players wearing helmets. Just like mandating visors would case, the mandation of helmets caused a drop in respect for other players, and a subsequent rise in unnecessary injuries. Yeah, sure, the elbow to the head was only a concussion, and not severe brain damage because of the helmet. But if no one was wearing the helmet to begin with, the elbow wouldn't have be up there in the first place. It's like saying that since the invention of the automobile, auto accident deaths have increased 100%. So lets make everyone wear seatbelts. Yeah, seatbelts can prevent injury, but if people weren't driving cars in the first place, there would be no need for the seatbelts. I'm not sure what junior level you are speaking of, possibly the farm team for Calgary? However, ever minor hockey league, from juior c to the ncaa, to qmjhl requires players to wear at least visors, if a player is under 18, a full cage is required. The Wings farm team in Grand Rapids, plays in the AHL, facial protection is not mandatory.

First, the way the helmet is designed, you can't wrap a haffie past the temple as the poster suggested, this is why you would need to reshape the helmet. However, have you ever tried to look through a concaved piece of glass? It isn't the same, it distorts to view. Yzerman was always protected. He never took a hard hit without the hitter paying the price. But you are right, Gretz didn't have to put up with it as much as Stevie did. Some of that had to do with him being Gretz. But my point still stands, imagine the punishment Stevie would have had to endure if it weren't for the bash brothers? Fighting, at the NHL level is extremely integral to the game. What I said in my post was FULL CAGES would kill fighting, not facial protection. Why full cages would stave off fighting simply have to do with the referees and linesmen. They would have more opportunity to break up a fight if the players were forced to take off the helmets to fight. Sure, every now and again you'd see two guys square off with them on, but that isn't a fight. The reason helmets would come off before a fight is this. The fighters in the NHL aren't stupid. They aren't going to punch a metal cage with their bare fist. And punching the cage with a glove doesn't really do anything. Lastly, as I said in the first post. Haffies create just as many cuts as they prevent. Anyone who has worn one can attest to this. You go into the boards, and your helmet gets pushed down, or up, and boom, you are bleeding. Mandating haffies isn't the answer. If you want to mandate something, tell players they can't wear them, save for medical reasons alla Beard.

LOVE IT!!!!!!!! It's great to see a guy with the heart and passion Stevie played with. If the Wings advance to the finals and win the cup, there is no doubt he gets serious MVP consideration.

Best site for hockey news and info, www.tsn.ca/nhl also, for trade rumors, signings and such, www.spectorshockey.net

Have you ever tried playing without a haffie, then putting one on and playing with it? It IS a HUGE difference. Any player who has done this will agree. And what do you mean 'if the visor curves around the temple'? Have you even seen a hockey helmet? Or a haffie? They don't work that way. In order to make your idea of 'curving the visor around the temple' work, you'd have to redesign the helmet, and there would be no way around losing the protection to the temple that the hemlet provides. If you had ever played hockey at any remotely high level, you would know that players in fact DO have the time to use common sense, and the players policing themselves DOES work. It's not a utopian idea. How many times did Gretzky get hit hard in his career? That's right. Why? Because he had McSorley to protect him. In the same fashion in which Gretz was protected by McSorley, if there were no instigator penalty, players could protect themselves against stick work. It worked for decades, before the first helmet was worn by a player, and long before the first haffie was worn. Mandating full cages would just further the recent rise in stick work. Look at the NCAA, watch a game and count the sticks to the face. It is brutal. Although, I'm sure Bettman loves the idea of mandating full cages, it would virtually eliminate fighting from the game, without him taking it out. It's brilliant! Just keep it up Bettman, pretty soon instead of expansion of 2 teams, you'll be talking about contraction of 20 teams.

I think the reason Shanny was more of a fan favorite than Sergei was simply because he has more camera presence than Sergei. Sergei is, for the most part, a quiet guy who likes his own space. Shanny loves the spotlight, and I don't think he has ever turned down an interveiw. If we were to have a guy like A.O. and a guy like Modano on the team, I firmly believe A.O. would be more of a fan favorite than Modano for the same reasons Shanny was moreso than Sergei. It has more to do with the person rather than his nationality.

The NHLPA would have to approve any changes to the equipment rules, i.e. the size of a goaltenders pads. You can sit here and say that wearing a haffie would cut down on eye injuries, but I think it would add to them. Something not yet said in this thread is that if all players were to wear haffies, there would be less concern about hitting each other in the eyes/face and sticks would come up more. Just like when Gary 'I am trying to destroy hockey' Bettman decided to add the instigator penalty to reduce fighting. This is directly related to the incline in eye injuries. One more tidbit. How many players back in the early days, when they didn't wear helmets, had to deal with these unecessary eye injuries? VERY few. If anything, I'd say take haffies out of the game, and you will see players start to watch their sticks more. Of course that isn't going to happen, but it's just an example. BTW, I'm not the only one who thinks that way. I borrowed the idea from Mick. He was talking about it earlier in the season when someone got sticked in the face. The bottom line is that the players are responsible for what happens on the ice. Did Conroy intend to hit Homer? No, that's a ridiculous notion. However, Conroy obviously did not take enough catuion with his stick. If he had, Homer wouldn't be out.

Watch the replay, unless the haffie he would have been wearing were to come down past his chin, Conroy's stick in all likelyhood, would have still hit Homer. In such case, Homer might as well have been wearing a full cage. Hell, if a mandatory haffie is such a good idea, why not just make a full cage mandatory just like in college hockey?

From what I hear, there is blood on his eye, if it were to be disturbed, it could effect his vision forever.

The Tigers are putting fresh air out there. They were soooo terrible for sooooo long, it was a bandwagon thing. Still is. Did you see the shirt Zumaya was sporting late in the season, 'I was a Tiger fan BEFORE 2006'.

Speaking from experience, going to a haffie from nothing isn't easy. It really cuts down on your periffial vision. Also, there are a lot of unnecessary cuts that come from wearing a haffie. When a player is checked into the boards, and his helmet flys backwards, it's really easy to get cut. I understand the protection side of wearing a haffie, I do wear one. However, there is a lot to be said for being able to see the ice curface without one. I don't think that wearing a haffie would have helped Homer, as the angle the stick hit him, it looked to me like it still would have hurt him. Even worse, a haffie may have redirected the blade into his eye. On the flip side, a haffie most definatly would have saved Stevie from that awful eye injury he suffered. A NHL owner can't demand his players to wear haffies, it would violate terms of the CBA. The NHL could make it a mandation, but it would first have to pass throught the NHLPA, which I highly doubt it would.

Here is something I just thought about. The Wings are competing with the Pistons who are in the playoffs, as well as the hot ticket in town, the Tigers. How much of an impact does that have?

I would strongly disagree. I don't identify with Modano because he is from Livonia. I identify with Pav because he is wearing the winged wheel. When Fedorov was here, (even still) I loved watching him carry the puck up the ice, weaving in and out of traffic with ease. I think if there is a lack of identification with the current Wings, it isn't because of their nationality, rather it's because they haven't really done anything since 2002. I gauruntee if the Wings had made it past the second round more than once since 2002, you'd see more people in the seats, as there would still be a buzz around the Wings. That buzz would make the Wings playoff games more of a place to be, and you'd get the people who can afford to drop the $300-$500 on a night of hockey, filling the stands. I belive moreso than anything, we have seen the bandwagon fans jump ship to the Tigers. That, coupled with the high cost of the games, and awful economy are killing the attendance at the Joe. Anyone know where I can win some tickets?

It's nice to see Oil Can find a home. My favorite Easter Confrence team is the Leafs, he played well for them last year, hopefully for his sake, he can keep it up.