union drone

Damn, you beat me to it.

My friends and I couldn't believe our eyes and busted out laughing at Wayne's little temper tantrum after Dats third period game winning goal. We joked that it would probably appear as a re-dubbed, re-mixed, or re-edited internet phenom in a matter of hours. Does anyone have a link to a video of "the irate one" losing his temper? I kinda feel sorry for the guy, but I can't help but laugh! Also, any thoughts about Wayne's little blow up?

Yes, but we expect blow ups from certain coaches. If I see Keenan do what Gretzky did, I would chuckle a bit and promptly forget about it. What makes Gretzky different is that he always looks like he is trying so hard to maintain his composure... like he has an image to maintain and wants to appear cool under pressure. In the seconds leading up to his outburst, you could see his face contort in disgust as he was trying to hold back, but couldn't. Keenan or Crawford would just start yelling at the slightest provocation, without the little personal drama that played out on Gretzky's face.

Normally, I don't think much of this kind of stuff... but in this case it was Wayne Gretzky, the camera was directly centered on him, and judging from what I saw on the jumbo flat screen TV at the bar, he looked truly pissed off. I guess the big screen made it larger than life... Wayne =

Yes, but if you re-arrange the letters in Satan, you get Santa!

I seem to remember him saying that the Wings would win in '97 only after the Wings were up 3-0!!! ...and it was only grudgingly, with lots of teasing from John Saunders.

Jeez, you're a total homer and a poor sport. Do you really expect to win the cup every year? If championships are 'all that matters', you should move to NYC and become a Yankees fan, because you are every bit as bad as they are! I love the Wings and, yes, I would love for them to win the cup. But, as fans, we should be thankful that we have an organization that is committed to winning and puts out a competitive team every year. Most teams and most fans (in any sport) could only dream of the kind of success that the Wings have had for the past 16 years.

It never fails... every year someone predicts doom and gloom for the 'aging' wings, yet it never materializes. My personal favorite is Allan Muir's predictions for the last three years: 05-06: Doom and Gloom is imminent, due to aging vets 06-07: Core gone, Wings barely make playoffs, if at all 07-08: Detroit Red Wings = Jason Voorhees of professional sports. Nothing seems to kill them. They always seem to come back stronger than ever.

Thanks!! For some reason, the game doesn't normally show up on the European servers. I need to enter it manually for it to load.

Sopcast channel, anyone??

It is not the presence of Europeans that causes fans to not identify with the team, but rather the lack of a North American superstar. If the Wings had one North American player of high stature who is at the prime of his game on a team where everyone else is Euro, we wouldn't be even mentioning this. But in reality, this is maybe only 10% of the Wings attendance problems. The state economy, the current success of other Detroit teams, high ticket prices, and the silly schedule are also big parts of the problem.

Well, coming into the season an aging Hasek was slated to be our starter and only real option in goal. Osgood was considered to be a backup who could be called upon to play more in a time of need. Hasek has been questionable all season, and is only now starting to play close to expectations. So yeah, goaltending is still an issue...it's just that Osgood has stood on his head while Hasek was in his funk. I still think that Hasek needs a few more solid games before I consider him 100%. Most of the world outside Michigan still look at Hasek as being our workhorse.

C'mon he's just a graduate of the school of broadcast journalism cosmetology... he finished second in his class behind Larry Murphy. :puke: :fro:

What sopcast channel are people using? Channel 38611 is utter crap.

It was kinda working, but the channel went offline a few minutes ago. Even when it was working the feed was terrible.

I've never been much of a Blake fan, but I do think that a veteran top-4 d-man wouldn't be a bad pickup, especially if he is sound defensively and has decent puck handling ability (i.e. won't cough it up at inopportune times, makes smart first passes out of our end). Hmmm... I wonder if Larry "Hair" Murphy still has anything left in the tank. Beware the Hair!

Well, we all know that Bobs tend to be lazy and suck. I would hire Jack.

I think that Babs is thinking of Hudler as a PP specialist and sniper who is a defensive liability 5-on-5. He is small and not particularly fast, and so far hasn't really shown any defensive upside. Hence, he plays on the second powerplay unit and on the fourth line.

I don't doubt that Zubov is a quality player and that he has been a bright spot for the Stars. It is also true that stats don't always tell the whole story. At the same time, however, plus-minus is one of the better indicators of a players' two way performance. The limitation of plus-minus is that a good two way player can have a mediocre +/- score because the team is doing lousy as a whole, so I understand where you are coming from. On the other hand, if Ribeiro is +9 on a lackluster Dallas team, he must be doing something right, depite all the flack he gets for his defensive abilities. Modano's play thus far and his demotion to the 4th line seems to indicate that his -9 rating is well deserved. Ultimately, despite a few uncharacteristic mistakes that he has made this year, I don't think that there is (yet) any defenseman who could rightfully claim to be better all-around than Lidstrom. There might be a few that could challenge him, but I don't see any that could say that they are better. Zubov would have to continue his scoring pace AND have a career year defensively to get there. Just my humble opinion... Edit: P.S. I should probably watch more Stars games to say for sure what the situation is. Zubov has been known to be pretty questionable at times defensively. Maybe he is elevating his game this year.

Zubov better than Nick this year?! By what measure? They have similar offensive stats, and Nick is FAR better defensively than Zubov. Case in point: Nick is +14, Zubov is +1. Even if Nick doesn't score any points, he's still extremely valuable. If Zubov doesn't score, he isn't worth all that much...except maybe as a decoy.

I seem to remember last year at mid-season some sports writers were having their midway awards speculation. Lidstrom was actually getting some love in the Hart predictions. If Lids had been as dominant in the second half as he was in the first, he might have been a finalist. Of course, there is a certain 19 year old that would have won it anyway.

Damn, you had to cut off the prices...I was kinda wondering what a 3-way and 4-way goes for these days. I might want to get in on some of that!!!

Speaking of SJ's new logo, who here does NOT like the bit of teal that they added to the shark's head?? For me at least, I thought that their old logo was pretty classic...no need to change it. That bit of teal (and the other small changes as well) is a step in the wrong direction.

I think that there are two factors to consider in understanding the order: 1) The personality and/or public perception of each of the players. The quiet, serious, more professor-like, lead by example types will naturally be seen as more suitable for GM. Yzerman and Francis both fit this mold more than the others. Hull least fits this mold. 2) Yzerman's recent success with managing the Canadian national team obviously scores him some major points. Especially when he caught some criticism early on by naming Doan as team captain, and showed up his critics by winning.

It took a game against the Huskies for Modano to get back on track and break the scoring record.