GMRwings1983

Personally, if someone didn't want me anymore, I'd waive my no-trade clause and play somewhere else. That's probably not true, but I hope Ericsson feels that way.

I guess Gleason is a big fan of taking early vacations come April. Best of luck in his future endeavors.

Who are you calling a pansy? Who's your favorite figure skater? I've always wanted to know.

Seems like the enthusiasm for this game wanes every year. For me personally, I used to love the ASG when I was a kid, but now it’s become too repetitive and boring. Maybe a lot of it has to do with the shootout, simply because 10 or 15 years ago, the skills competition was the only place where you could see star players taking staged penalty shot situations. Now it happens all the time because of the shootout. Also, maybe these are just my impressions, but it appears that star players miss this game more frequently now than they used to. This year especially, about half of what I deem the 10 best players in hockey aren’t even in this game. And the older guys who have played in many ASG don’t seem as excited to go back there nowadays than in the past. For instance, guys like Lidstrom and Selanne are healthy but decided to skip the game. So what are your opinions on the game and the skills contest? Should the league scrap the whole thing? Should they go back to a North America vs. The World format? Does the skills competition need improvement? Should they have an annual Canada vs. United States game instead of the ASG? Should they make the game have meaning somehow? Or would you keep it the way it is?

At least it wasn't McCarty who said it.

Link was a defenseman. In all seriousness, I don't know what Holland/Babcock's definition of a "heavy" winger is. After all, this is the team that gave us phrases like "team toughness" and "our powerplay is our enforcer", although the latter may have been a LGW created phrase (I don't remember anymore).

How "heavy" are we talking about?

That seems to be the consensus so far. I guess we all grew out of it.

Especially when goalies are doing the fastest skater. Then you know it's a joke.

I thought you were like in your 30's. And now you're finally old enough for us to legally hit on you.

The good news is there aren't enough Blue Jackets fans to stuff the ballots and vote 4 or 5 of their players into the game.

The Hawks will be our biggest competitor during the trade deadline. Another original 6 team, with a younger core and a great future in terms of Cup contention. Holland will have to be brash to outwit their GM.

And Gaborik is reportedly not doing the fastest skater challenge. I thought he could challenge Mike Gartner's long standing record in that event. Maybe these guys just want the younger players to take these events.

They wouldn't take it even if Giordano is taken off the list. I'm sure he wasn't being serious with that trade offer, though. It would be scary if that was actually true.

Believe it or not, that's what they started doing here with baseball several years ago. There was a lot of bitching at first, but it seems to have died down. I still think it's crazy.

I didn't mean straight up. We'd have to throw in other things as well. Some options to throw around: Cleary, Tatar, Nyqvist, draft picks, one of Holland's Cup rings, Mursak, etc.

So is there a way to make it matter? In MLB, winning the ASG means home field advantage for that league in the World Series. I think that's pushing it too far and its ridiculous, but it seems to have worked and players take that game seriously. Can't the NHL come up with something to make players care about the game more?

And you'll probably get the same response. Actually, I didn't mention it earlier, but he's another guy who shouldn't really be in this card set. He's hardly a legendary enforcer. He's not even a heavy right now. The only current players I'd put in this boxset would be Chris Simon and maybe MacIntyre.

No one mentioned Ericsson. Probably because no one would take him for that contract.

Saw on NHL network today that Datsyuk apparently won't be in the breakaway relay. Is he just being shy about this? He'd be the whole reason to watch that event.

He would be our Weber killer.

Agreed. That honor goes to Aaron Downey in my book.