GMRwings1983

Your take on Downey and on enfocers has made me laugh out loud for a long time. Keep up the humor.

See my post at the top of the page for a response to this ridiculous post, or any other like it.

I was a Wings fan even before Lilja became an enforcer in the NHL. If he doesn't come back, Ericsson will have to step it up physically in his place. With this type of goaltending, though, there's only so much the defense can do.

Well, you made a pointless criticism of my post, so I thought I'd respond with a pointless restatement of what I had already said a million times on this forum. I don't think there's any meaning to these posts about how useless enforcers are.

I think you and I will both agree that Ozzie should definitely go.

This may go down as the most impressive regular season ever, considering what a great record this team has despite the s***ty goaltending.

I don't think two 8 goal games are going to help Lidstrom any in his chase for another Norris.

We need Downey to play goalie for us. Maybe he can actually enforce the puck from not going into the net, which Ozzie seems incapable of doing.

If we give up 8 goals in another game in next week, I think we should all go over to the Sharks forum and congratulate them on making it to their first Finals ever.

It's O.K. guys. Holland will do something at the deadline to improve this goalie situation.

I can't remember the last time the Wings gave up as many goals as tonight. But why should we panic. This team did win the Cup last season after all. That means our play last year in the playoffs will immediately carry over into this year's playoffs, regardless of the regular season, right?

Did these bums forget last Saturday's game? That's two pathetic showings in one week. I thought Babcock would have gotten to them after that game.

When should Shelley fight, since you seem to think that guys like him shouldn't exist in the league?

You totally misread my post. I didn't say that every team we had with an enforcer on it won the Cup, I'm just saying that we never won one without it, and you know what genius, I'm right. You can't disprove it, because there's nothing to disprove. It's a factual post on my part. Maybe if we won the Cup in one of these seasons when we didn't have toughness, or if we do it this year, then my argument will be wrong. So far, you're wrong.

It takes much skill to be a brain surgeon too. Does that make it a sport also? Baseball is not a sport, it's just a game, much like bowling and golf.

If Shelley just got off the ice, Laraque may have grabbed some other player and beat the s*** out of them. You know nothing about enforcing to be telling anyone what Shelley should and shouldn't have done. This is just the viewpoint of a hockey fan who hates watching fights and enforcers, and believes them to be useless. I don't think anyone in the NHL would agree with your assessment of this issue, or else there wouldn't be any enforcers at all in the game.

The bottom line is that in all those seasons we didn't win Cups. I'm not saying that having enforcers in the lineup will win us Cups every year, I'm just saying that all 4 Cups came in seasons where we had more toughness than in other seasons where we didn't. Now try disproving that. I actually thought about using a different word that rhymes, but I decided not to. No surprise that it was the only thing out of my post that you noticed.

You're forgetting that in all the seasons when this team had more toughness in the regular season, they won the Cup. In my opinion that had a big part to do with this teams toughness last year in the playoffs. In prior years, the team tanked come playoff time, because they dressed a soft lineup of euro wussies only in the regular season.

WTF are you talking about? Lilja did more than well against Neil, Souray and Boll, all of whom are better fighters than Weber in my book. You make it sound like Hudler decided to all of a sudden drop the gloves with Boogaard. Either you don't like Lilja, or you think Weber is some kind of enforcing god, who is way better than any of Lilja's other opponents. Anything can happen when those gloves come off.

Why don't Jeter go suck off his buddy A-Roid and shut his little man hole up. Fact is that baseball is the most boring game ever invented. Also, it turns out that the best players cheat and the best teams cheat also (since there's no salary cap). If the game was fast and exciting, maybe those things wouldn't matter, but it's not. Baseball is like religion in America. People follow it blindly without asking any questions or bothering to judge it for themselves. And for you foreign members who are fortunate enough never to have attended a baseball game, if you go to a game, believe me that isn't any more exciting than what it is on TV. All you'll get out of it is a tan or a mosquito bite, depending on what time of the day you go.

Good thing Shea Weber has never been hurt in a fight...............oh wait, nevermind.

It's better than your philosophy of duck and cover. What would that have done for the Sharks, except make them look like *******?

That's what I always say, but very few people here understand that, even though it was a big part of the team's eventual growth last year when it came to physicality. Because the Wings have had soft teams for many seasons now, the fans have embraced this team's softness, not realizing that it hasn't resulted in anything but an early playoff defeat in seasons where we didn't dress a tough guy during the regular season and playoffs. It's like trying to argue with people that the grass is green. They just don't get it and have no argument for why the majority of the NHL dresses enforcers, if they happen to be so useless. I know people here always ***** that it isn't so cut and dry, but I don't care. The majority of LGW (with a few exceptions) is anti-enforcer. I'm tired of them saying that they're not, and then writing pages about how useless Downey is and about how obsolete enforcers are the new NHL (even though every other team has one), and about how fighters are all useless goons. If fans here don't understand that part of the game at all, then theyr'e not knowledgeable hockey fans. I'm tired of people bashing enforcers, and then writing a quick disclaimer about they're not anti-enforcer. Damn hypocrites.

It's too damn long a list to make. And playing 4 minutes a night isn't going to help his chances of scoring either. BTW, Chris Neil isn't an enforcer. He's more of a light heavy who throws with heavies, but usually loses to them. You obviously either have something against Downey, or you don't know s*** about enforcers around the league in general, which is evidenced by calling Chris Neil an enforcer. I suppose you think Lucic is an enforcer too? Fact is, Downey isn't that less talented than most of the tough guys in the league, and I think most posters here would agree with me on that one fact. You're in the minority on this Opie.

Once again I can't agree with you. I don't think Downey is that much worse as a player than most of the enforcers in the league. There are plenty of goons who suit up nightly with limited skills. You just have unrealistic expectations of what an enforcer should be. Most teams are content with their tough guys not scoring, and every team has a few healthy scratches per night that are way more talented than the enforcer who's taking those player roster spots. If Downey is only capable of fighting (which is true), he's no different than most of the enforcers in the NHL.