StormJH1

I don't know about the schedule, but it's already been announced that Osgood will start in net.

Some of you guys are blaming equipment manufacturers for conspiracies and goalies for cheating, and I don't understand any of it. The NHL sets rules, the rules are what they are, and if they're cheating, they'll be caught! This isn't like a spitball or a corked bat, goalies stand out in the open for 60 minutes, I don't understand how you think these goalies are openly violating rules and getting away with it. I've played goalie extensively, and I can tell you, that while you want to be as big as possible in net, equipment that is too large seriously hinders your mobility, and can actually hurt your chances of stopping a puck. Even the size of the goal stick matters. You would assume that a bigger goal stick paddle means more stopped pucks, but I was finding that too much length on the paddle made the stick difficult to maneuver, and also created a hole between my right pad and the blocker in the butterfly.

No. The best business decision for the league was one that generated the most exposure for a league that borders on becoming a regional sport anyway. I'm not the least bit concerned if more people want to watch poker, paintball, or strongman competitions more than the NHL...ESPN has a lot of crap on their network as it is. But ESPN was willing to put hockey back on its network, as evidence by the fact they made any offer at all! Bettman should've swallowed his pride and agreed to ESPN's terms, whether it was 1 million dollars or 1 cent. Assuming that ESPN's post-lockout coverage would've been comparable to the pre-lockout coverage, the league would be in much better shape right now. Ratings aren't the only thing that matters...with ESPN you get score updates, SportsCenter coverage, and promos that remind casual fans that there's a thing known as the NHL and that there are games coming up. Unless you're a big bass fishing guy and VS. loyalist, casual fans get none of that right now. Even in markets where the local team does well (Detroit, Minnesota, etc.), the fans know practically nothing about the league as a whole. Compare that to the NFL, MLB, and NBA, where people are familiar with the stars of other teams, and will often take the time to watch out-of-market, nationally televised games. Vs. is rumored to draw about 150,000 - 200,000 viewers nationally for its Tuesday telecasts!

Hahaha, no kidding. Of course they wouldn't know the name of their first "franchise goaltender"...that was before it was "cool" to be a Mighty Ducks fan, you know, before they hack 'n slashed their way to a Stanley Cup.

Yeah, but the majority of those players traded either didn't make the playoffs, or went one and done. The Wings didn't go 3 rounds BECAUSE of Bertuzzi, but he was able to "amass" 3 goals because the team played so much longer. By the way, true impact players occasionally score 3 goals in one game, not over multiple playoff series.

I missed the rule that said you're only allowed a maximum of one power forward per team. Oh well. The problem with the Bertuzzi deal was more what we were GETTING than what we were giving up. You have to be pretty much blind homer to root for a piece of trash like Bertuzzi, who was never an honorable player (before or after he destroyed Steve Moore), not to mention a washed up goon who took stupid penalties in the playoffs. It was as if we reacquired "Maid" Derian Hatcher, slapped a #44 on him, and threw him in at forward. The Wings are going to lose some good prospects when they're in a position to win EVERY year, that's just the nature of the game. Unfortunately, with the salary cap, most of the fun is over, since you can't stay competitive unless you develop young talent that you can employ for cheap, in addition to big money guys like Lidstrom, Hank, and Datsyuk.

The reason, OsGOD, is because the economy is hurting EVERYWHERE, not only in Michigan. Even if you accept that Michiganders are hurting worse b/c of the auto industry, it's extremely simplistic to find two correlating trends, and assume that one must of caused the other. Particularly when you consider that as the economy has gotten worse, Tigers ticket sales have gone UP! Isn't there an equally potent argument, then, as people have less and less money to spend, they go to more and more Tiger games? Or are there other forces at work here, such as the fact that since 2002, the Pistons have been the most successful Detroit team, and Tigers suddenly became a draw where they were practically irrelevant before. No, nobody's going to Tigers games in the dead of winter...but overall interest (outside of posters on a board like LGW) is down, both because of their decreased market share in Detroit sports fans, and because the product itself is less dramatic than the all-star teams assembled year after year pre-lockout. Tickets should be cheaper, but people overpaid for tickets in the late 90's too. And by the way, the Michigan economy was never that good to begin with, only better than it is now. Look harder.

Yeah, frightening for the FIVE games they're actually in the lineup together, due to injuries!

I see this as practically irrelevant. I'm not sure what the whole point of making a triumphant return to the NHL is if CuJo is only interested in the teams where he has the least chance of ever seeing the ice. This reeks of a Scottie Pippen or Reggie Miller style "un-retirement".

That acquisition has Kyle Calder written all over it.

I used to HATE Emrick and I've only started to "tolerate" him a little recently. He's not even half as good as many of the local teams (Daniels/Redmond included), and I liked both of ESPN's teams (Thorne/Clement and Dave Strader) better back when they were doing games. Emrick's knowledge of the game seems alright, but his timing is terrible and he is prone to those nonsensical rants you were referring to. He gets caught up in a conversation and then notices a goal has been scored 2-4 seconds after you see it on TV, and then he tries to cover with a "Whoooooaaaa! Scores!"

And, by the way, if the question were: Which U.S. fanbase has had the best hockey fans over the past 15 years, my answer is "Detroit," hands down. I love this club, and this organization. Growing up watching so many great Wings teams makes following the Wild or any other club feel like JV hockey. There's just something less professional, and less entertaining about everyone else, and that's not just homerism. But Wild fans care about their team right now, they're showing up, and the whole city deserves the recognition it's getting. Name another expansion team since the early 90's that you can definitively say made the NHL better. Atlanta? Columbus? Nashville? Florida? You'd probably have to go back to Tampa Bay, Anaheim, or Ottawa, and even those 3 teams were disasters for long periods of time.

You're right that the North Stars attendance was down following the '91 Cup loss to Pittsburgh, but that was a smaller, older building, and it's not like every team that has attendance issues automatically collapses and gets sold. The owner was in the middle of a PR crisis and had a sexual harassment suit filed against him. He wanted a fresh start and he wanted to get out of Minnesota, where he was becoming very unpopular. In any event, this whole "Hockeytown" thing isn't meant to be a lifetime achievement award. Just as it wouldn't be fair to hold the Dead Wings era against Detroit fans today, it's pretty much irrelevant what happened with the North Stars (a completely different franchise) almost 20 years ago. The SI author (Michael Farber) said that some of the Philadelphia Flyers reps believed they should win the award because the team was terrible in the early 90's and they still sold out or came close to it for most of those games. But again, not a lifetime acheivement award...

Minnesota doesn't want to call themselves Hockeytown--it was Sports Illustrated and some other columnists (Yahoo!) that came out and said "You know, Detroit calls itself 'Hockeytown', but we should really give that title to a different city". The SI author's name is Michael Farber, I heard a 20-minute interview with him on Minnesota AM radio. He strongly considered Buffalo and Philadelphia too, but ended up with St. Paul b/c of the Wild, the excellent facility (which he considers the best rink in hockey), and the culture of hockey throughout the state. I don't think Minnesotans actually care what Detroit wants to call itself, and people here have HUGE respect for the Red Wings, since many fans made the Wings their adopted team after the North Stars left in '93. What the Wild really want is to get out of the Central Division and get back their traditional rivalries with teams like Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis. I went to a Wings/Wild game and 30% of the fans were Red Wings fans, and not all of them were Detroit transplants! Some of them were native Minnesotans who just like the Red Wings, and have been fans of the sport their whole lives. But the Wild have a pretty rabid fanbase of their own too... The USA hockey program in Ann Arbor is great, and a lot of Minnesota kids actually go out to that program and then come back to play for the Gophers or at other levels. The high school hockey programs here really are the heart of what makes MN a great hockey state...Sidney Crosby played at Shattuck-St. Mary's in 02-03, which is kinda like a high school/hockey academy. It's a different type of hockey fan here, and I didn't get that at first. In Detroit, everything is kinda funneled through the Red Wings, but in Minnesota, there's a lot more "options" to choose from. The Gophers have a full Fox Sports Net contract, and every one of their games is televised with the same broadcast style you'd see for a Twins or Tigers game on FSN.

Without going into too much detail, I don't live in Detroit anymore because my fiance and I wanted to find good jobs, and because we wanted to live near a nicer downtown. I've still got love for Detroit and Detroiters, I just decided that it would be best for me to live and work somewhere else, and the Twin Cities are great. As for why they named St. Paul and not the Twin Cities, I don't know. The North Stars actually played in Bloomington, which is the suburb where the Mall of America now is, not Minneapolis. The lot where the North Stars played is now an IKEA, just like the Mall is built out of the stadium that used to house the Twins and Vikings. The Wild play in St. Paul, but since the two downtowns are practically one downtown area, it would've made more sense to refer to the Twin Cities. St. Paul itself is notorious around here for being a place of business that has absolutely no night life, as contrasted with Minneapolis which is much more metropolitan. However, the Wild have prompted a bit of a resurgance for that city, and there is a healthy bar district that has sprung up b/c of Wild games and other concerts events in the XCel Energy Center, which is a great facility. The real problem Detroit has is one that people are even more reluctant to talk about, and it's not just a sports one. There's a serious disconnect between downtown and suburb, and a lot of suburbanites would avoid Detroit completely if they could. When the product is so good that they can't help themselves, they show up to games, as was the case in the late-90's, or this past year with the Tigers. That's why outsiders view Detroit as a bandwagon city, which I think is unfair, because ALL cities are bandwagon. The decision to go downtown is just more complicated for Detroiters, who simaltaneously love and hate the place they live, but get mad if anyone else expresses the latter sentiment

This topic has been discussed, but it doesn't get discussed as much as the other factors because it's a sensitive subject. Ken Holland was asked about the team's "Europeanness" being a factor, and he said that it "may be the case," but he thought that the fans being spoiled by high-profile names in the pre-salary cap era was a bigger factor. Look, it's not accurate to make a flat statement that the Wings are suffering because Detroiters don't find European players as appealing. Look no further than Sergei Fedorov in the 90's to determine that it isn't true. Part of Fedorov's appeal and marketability was that he WAS different and exotic. Still, Fedorov was quoted as saying that if his name was "Sam Jones", people would look at his numbers and have no question that he's a superstar. While this comment revealed some of the arrogance about Sergei that Detroit fans didn't appreciate (coupled with the 1998 contract dispute), it's really hard to disagree with that. If you don't believe me, answer this question: Should Sergei's #91 be retired on the Red Wings? Sergei is the 4th all-time Red Wings scorer, and his PPG average (over 1) destroys Brendan Shanahan's (0.88), but you'll find as many or more people who think that Shanahan is more worthy of that honor than Fedorov. I agree more with Holland's take, but I do think that a team with European leadership (and leaders without a whole lot of charisma, at that, when you look at guys like Datsyuk and Lidstrom) will suffer to some degree. When things are going well, as with Sergei, the European thing doesn't seem to matter. But the second a European struggles, or displays stubbornness of any kind, the U.S. will turn on that player much quicker than they would with a North American. The attitudes on this board towards Fedorov, and more recently, toward Grigorenko, a car accident victim who became public enemy #1 before ever pulling on a Wings jersey b/c of his stance on the "pay my contract/return to Russia" deal, are evidence of that fact.

I am a native Detroiter, born and raised, and still a loyal Wings fan, though I now live in the Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota. I argue with people here all the time about which state has the better fans, but recently, I've been forced to admit that Minnesota does have the better fans now and better prospects for the future. Detroit shouldn't have to take down their slogan or anything b/c it is what it is: a marketing slogan. What Yahoo! and SI have publicly acknowledged is what every Wings fan knows in their heart: You can't be the example for an NHL fan base in America when you can't even come close to filling your arena for critical regular season home games and even in the later rounds of the playoffs. The Wild have sold out practically every game in their existence, and they will continue to do so. One poster here said that "there aren't any other good teams in Minnesota," but that simply isn't true. The Vikings are HUGE here, and they occupy a greater market share than the Lions ever will. The T-Wolves are down now, but when they're competitive, they get more bandwagon coverage from local media than the Wild do. And the Twins have a very strong following, and are certainly higher profile than the Wild in this market. The State of Hockey slogan here goes much deeper than the Wild and the NHL. If you didn't live here, you wouldn't even understand that the level of interest in the Golden Gophers and even the friggin High School Hockey tournament is stronger than the interest that half of NHL cities have in their pro franchise. Not to mention that people here actually PLAY the sport, and that high school hockey in Minnesota has some of the religious qualities that high school football does in Texas. The North Stars left this state two decades ago because of the legal troubles of their owner. That's not an indictment on the fans, they didn't have anything to do with it. Yes, the Wings are a storied Original Six franchise, but they also play in a dumpy building downtown, and people are apparently tired of seeing them play live. (Don't even bring up the whole argument about the economy...the Tigers are playing 81 home games this year, and I'd be stunned if their attendance doesn't increase again). I love the Wings and they're a better team to watch. And it's a great fan base. But this poll is about "what have you done with me lately," a concept Wings fans understand pretty well. This fanbase is spoiled and pouting right now because we don't have Hall of Famers on our 4th line anymore. It's a shame that we have the best team in hockey, and our attendance is an embarassment. Minnesotans understand the game on a deeper level than many of the bandwagon Detroit fans, and they are deserving of this recognition. Maybe if more people outside this message board appreciated what they have, and if the Wings build a better facility, Detroit will take the title back in a few years. I try to explain to people here in Minnesota that the "Hockeytown" slogan is not meant as a slam on other cities, but rather a celebration of Detroit and it's appreciation of the Wings. But the Wings have had that slogan for over a decade...you have to ask yourself, "Why is it coming into question NOW?" You didn't have multiple national media outlets calling out Detroit in the late 90's, or even in 2002, calling for them to give up that self-imposed title. The attendance is the easiest variable to measure, but it's the loss of energy that's the biggest concern. Rather than apologize for our fanbase, I think that people like the LGW'ers should be the ones who are the MOST angry. I moved to Minnesota, and do everything I can to watch Wings games on Vs. or NBC, and it makes me sick to see a half-empty building, or call my friends back home to find out that they don't really care about the team anymore. Instead of making fun of St. Paul, or calling Michael Farber an idiot, why not go to a game? Or take someone you know to their first hockey game?

Bettman should be worried about protecting his league, but he's talking out of both sides of his ass if he's talking about promoting the game abroad through regular season games in London, while simaltaneously pulling the NHL's best talent out of the international setting that would generate the most international exposure. I've loved all 3 Olympic hockey tournaments with NHL players in them. I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as an amateur athlete in the Olympics anymore. Not since the Dream Team and the thousands of dollars all of these individual sports stars have in marketing deals before they've ever done a thing in the public eye. And you can't pretend like the Olympics are this big fiesta of patriotism and "who's the best" without sending the best your country has to offer. The Czech Republic winning in '98 set the tone that doomed the NHL in the Olympics. Face it: If Canada or the U.S. dominated every year, North American fans would be all over the Olympics. But since we found out that (surprise!) European countries might be able to field better teams than us, suddenly, we don't want to play anymore. Shocking. Watching entire Olympic hockey games on MSNBC was far more interesting than any regular season NHL game, or even most playoff games. Even if your team isn't the one winning the Gold. I found myself invested in several of the teams because of my knowledge of the individual players--I rooted for Sweden because of Lidstrom, Holmstrom, etc., and I even rooted for Slovakia b/c I live in MN and enjoy watching the Wild with Gaborik and Demitra. The World Cup is okay, but it's in July, and really, nobody cares. Leave the Olympics how they were...if you're so interested in watching collegiate players represent your country, why doesn't the World Junior Championships have better ratings? Totally agree w/ haroldsnepsts. The fact that most of you are siding with Gary Bettman should be your first indication that you couldbe wrong.

Yzerman is better than Sakic, and I don't even have to argue it b/c that view would be so unanimous throughout hockey, that it's not worth legitimizing the argument. However, Sakic is a great player, and it's possible that he is as important to Denver fans as Yzerman was to Detroiters. That's where some of the "confusion" might come in. I never considered Sakic part of the whole Blood Bath/Rivalry in the late 90's, any more than an Avs fan would have any reason to hate Stevie Y, other than out of blind homerism. Both were great players, and carried themselves with class. Yzerman played at an elite level for a long time, but even his numbers don't tell the whole story, because IMO, he became a winner when his teams became better and he evolved into the great two-way player and Selke finalist that Sakic has never been.

I live in Minnesota--the Wild have no interest in moving Boogard mid-season, but if the Wings dumped Franzen for him, they'd be nuts. You don't need to trade for goons, they should be readily available for a pro-rated $500k as FA's or waivers.

Yeah, I don't know how I feel about that. The GM's post-lockout surprised me--the whole point of the salary cap was to suppress player salaries and make the sport more financially viable, but you look at some of the deals for Briere, Drury, Dustin Penner, Brad Richards, Bryan McCabe, and Zdeno Chara, I really don't know if that is happening. I like trades and trade rumors, but the NFL seems to do just fine with practically no in-season trading of any significance. I suppose Burke has a point, but I don't like the idea that you can still be paying "dead money" on a high-priced star you traded away, and yet not have that money count against the cap. I would think having a shared cap responsibility would grant teams flexibility in trades, but it undermines the cap to offer that type of loophole.

The Wings wont be in a position to claim him, but SOMEBODY should, he's arguably the best backup netminder in the league, and he's been a starter in the playoffs before and for siginicant stretches of time. I don't think he could overhaul a poor defense and make them a winner, but he'd be an excellent building block in the right situation.

There is an analogy there, not between the types of fan bases, obviously, but between the arc of popularity, overexposure, and decline. The NHL did it on a much smaller scale, but the pattern is the same. And much like the NHL, NASCAR fans are likely to blame the influx of foreign drivers as part of the reason for the decline (just as NHL fans complain that a league with a largely European face can't compete with more "American" sports). Look, as racing goes, NASCAR never was high quality racing. Whatever driving skill is required to pass someone and move from 3rd to 2nd at the end of a race is completely overwhelmed by the races where an "elite" driver gets caught up in a 15-car pileup and receives NO points for that race. People who don't understand hockey have similar complaints: they see TV highlights of some puck that went in off a skate or some freak play, and they assume that it's a random, arbitrary sport. I think that true fans of hockey and NASCAR (and we'll throw soccer in there as well) appreciate the games for more than things that can be quantified on a score sheet. If you're a NASCAR fan, there's something beautiful about a brightly painted car racing around a track at 200 mph. If you appreciate hockey, you can appreciate a guy diving into the lane to block a pass, or the way 5 guys cycle the puck around the zone on a powerplay. If you don't get it, then you probably don't get it!

Osgood will not even be close to making it into the Hall, as much as I like him as a Wing. Yes, he won a Cup, but he essentially ceased to be a number 1 goaltender by the age of 30. His wins and GAA will be viewed as much a product of the great Wings teams he played for as anything else. If you need proof, look at how he played for St. Louis and NYI as a younger goaltender. He wasn't terrible there, but certainly not Hall worthy. Cam Ward is on a similar career path to Chris Osgood right now, and nobody's tapping him for the Hall either.

You have to be kidding me. Return to the glory days of the 80's? Or the glory days of the 20's where it was against the rules to use a butterfly? I've said it a million times: Hockey is a game that has to be appreciated for what it is. Much like soccer, the average U.S. fan isn't programmed to appreciate a sport that has long stretches of action with no quantifiable gains or losses, until somebody scores a goal. As a hockey fan (and former goaltender), watching a tightly played, professional game where goalies are either standing on their heads or playing the angles so perfectly that there's nothing to shoot at IS exciting for me, particularly if it's on the team I'm rooting for. Last night's VS. game might have been a snoozer by conventional standards (2-0), but the NYR fans chanting "Henry! Henry" for the last 45 seconds of the game probably got their money's worth. There were tons of empty seats and practically zero television exposure in the 80's, despite the glorious offense and fighting you remember. Hockey was actually much more popular in the 90's during a time when goalies like Hasek and Brodeur were allegedly "ruining" the game by posting sub 2.00 GAA's. (The reason is because of the sucess of the Rangers and Devils and the East Coast bias that fuels national media coverage, but that's neither here nor there...) The game is evolving and becoming more professional. Rather than freak out and try and change the rules everytime we see a bad game or television rating, why not appreciate the fact that we have athletes doing things that Howe, Sawchuk, and even Gretzky were never physically capable of. Appreciate it for what it is instead of complaining about how good the goalies are, and how we have to make it "sexy" for the public at large, which, frankly, couldn't care less.