Frozen-Man

:hysterical:

If you are going to make generalizations like that play them out . . . I agree that your average man could not handle the rough play of hockey either but which one could handle them better? The fact is that women's highest levels of hockey don't have full on lay out hits and use cages on their faces. I actually really enjoy watching women's hockey (especially the Olympics) even though I rarely get to see it but it is a very different game. It is not the smash and crash game that the NHL is, it is much more of a finesse game - a great game - BUT a very different game because (in my opinion) of the realization of the differences physically between men and women. If you want a comparison compare the best to the best. The best male boxers would destroy the best female boxers; the best male weight lifters dwarf the weights lifted by the best women weight lifters; the best male shot putters out throw the best female shot putters; and the best male hockey players in the world destroy the best female hockey players - that is why they have women's professional teams (with different rules) and you never see NHL guys trying to get into women's leagues but the converse is true for all sports.

1. Yes, I love when there is a fight during a game. It adds excitement, energy, and enjoyment to the overall experience. Plus its nice to see a sport where guys walk the walk rather than just talk the talk like the NBA where the players mouth off, bow up, might take a pansy swing, and then backpedal fast. Plus, I love getting on the internet each day and seeing the fights I missed from the nights before. 2. No, but I would be seriously pissed. It is an integral and important part of the game and shouldn't be removed just to appease a bunch of whiny politically correct pansies who probably wouldn't watch the game anyway. 3. Yes, I found this one really hard to answer because I don't think yes or no really fit. Some teams and some fighters greatly benefit a team. Some I think hurt a team because of their overall ability. Some help a team but it is on a rare (although important) occasion (i.e. momentum change). Finally, some fighters help the team draw a crowd, which financially helps a team and therefore helps overall.

Yeah but the point is she is playing in a much, much less physical league where few if any of the players will make it to the NHL other than the 15-18 year old phenoms.

Yeah but you made your point by comparing her to average joes. You didn't say she could be the crap out of any player in the NHL where she would have to compete, you used anonymous random people. Very few here could handle the NHL either - hence the reason we are posting on a forum about the Wings rather than playing for them. Yeah but the important part of that statement is IF. That is the point, IF a girl could score 1,000 points in a season I would want her too, I just don't think that physically it will happen. This is not an anti-girl - I just don't think that there happen to be any right now who can compete day in day out at the NHL level.

I think that sucks - girls should always have a place and a league to play hockey. I actually think that there is less problem with the coed in lower (especially city) leagues because the game is not near as physical. Several teams I have played on have had girls on the team and many of them were much better in many aspects of hockey than I was. I also agree that women should be allowed in as long as they can keep up. I have no problem with a woman trying out for the NHL and would root for a woman if she were good enough to play for the Wings. My contention is two fold. First, I don't think that the "damage" done to male hockey players, which nobody likes people are ok with, would translate for women. As I said in previous posts people react very differently to seeing a man with a bloody face than they do a woman (think about how often in movies they make the guy that they want you to hate abusive to women). Second, I don't think that at the extreme level, best of the best, NHL women in general can compete. Again, look at my previous posts, the average NHL player is 6'1" 204 lbs. I just don't think someone 140-150 lbs can compete with that. I mean just imagine if Hudler was 35 lbs lighter. To me it's not that women should not be allowed in but I don't think that if you had a guy that was the size, strength of most female hockey players he would get a sniff at the NHL either. Someone posted earlier about Hayley Wickenheiser playing pro in Europe but there is a reason she is not pro here and I think the majority of the reason is that this is where the biggest, baddest players come to play and the league is set up to be much more physical than it is over there.

That is a horrible argument and rationale, but one that is often used. I would hope that a professional would be able to "kick the crap" out of people who are not professionals and most are only amateurs in the sense that they played city league (or the rough equivalent) all their life. Great comparison one of the best female hockey players in the world verses normal average males. By that rationale Kopecky is a hockey god because compared to me the guy has unworldly and incomparable talent. By the way compared to my 4 year old nephew the Wings should sign me to a 10 year $100M contract. IF you want to make comparison try making a realistic comparison - professional athlete verses professional athlete.

But no all men's teams for the boys who would rather not play with the girls?

Yeah I agree and I guess that would be some of my reservation as well, you now have a whole group who is protected i.e. can't even get a minor hit without retribution but they would be protected not because they are Gretzky type exceptional players but because of their gender. I think it would be really hard to have a whole group who have basically a separate set of rules (regarding hits, what is acceptable during scrums, and even the questionably border line penalty worthy actions like little crosschecks, slashes, boarding etc. - and the rule disparity would go both ways because you can't exactly just allow the women to do those things to the men and then the men just skate around ignoring them) and I don't see how players ever get past the point that they would always be treated differently by each other. Yeah I agree and I am just not sure that society will ever get past it because of the physicality of the sport - for example the women in Olympic hockey wear full cages while the men are not even required to wear visors - I just think people (at least for a long time) will not be willing to watch a woman taken off the ice with a towel under her face because it has been so bloodied up by a puck, stick, check, or fist. I agree women have many skills that are an absolute must for a hockey player (some maybe better than the men) but I don't think they can compete from a physical standpoint. Take Hudler for example, the biggest knock on him in the past and probably biggest concern in the future (even though he has taken huge steps to disprove it) is his size yet he is 5' 9" and weighs 178 lbs. while Cammi Granato is 5' 7" and when playing weighed 141 lbs. No 141 lbs guy would get noticed by an NHL GM (in fact Wikipedia - if true I couldn't find the info anywhere else - says that Brian Gionta is the smallest player in the NHL at 5' 7" but he weighs 34 lbs more). The average height of NHL players is 6' 1" and the average weight is 204 lbs. - I just don't think that there are many GM's that would consider picking up a 141 lbs player and she was one of the best ever (in my opinion) of her gender.

I think one thing you touched on in your first two concessions but that deserves more fleshing out is the fact that people in general don't mind near as much seeing a guy take a puck/stick in the face, or bloodied up from a bad check into the boards, or hurt from a cheap hit, or dropping the gloves and punching and getting punched by another guy. I think that this is the dynamic that would keep this from ever working. Take fighting for example (which would cause the most outrage), can you imagine Colton Orr or Jared Boll dropping their gloves, pushing back their sleeves, circling around and then proceeding to punch a woman in the face. In the first place I can't see either of these guys doing that (which would create its own parity because you would have a group that could act without fear of retribution - unless you carried a male and female enforcer which I doubt most GM's would want to do) but if they did I for one, like most people, would not want to watch it. The outrage would be huge and it would be a PR nightmare because of the moral outrage it would create. It seems to me that unless the NHL totally bans fighting this alone will keep the NHL from going coed (I guess they could make rules about different genders fighting but that would never work to have some people on the ice that can fight each other and some that cannot). However, for the sake of argument assuming that fighting is not an issue I still think that society as a whole, while not minding seeing this: will not be ok with the same thing happening to women. I even think that most people would have a hard time seeing a male NHL player do this to a female:

Yeah I really enjoyed it. Hope we play it again this year.

I find it humorous that you continually say that it is obvious and easy to see that Dats is much better but ALL the stats that you just put up (not stats some other poster found but the stats that you found and cite) to prove that Dats is better than Z ALL favor Zetterberg. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Dats is not as good as Z - some days when I watch Dats I think he is the best player on the ice that night and some days I think the same about Z. They are both amazing talents on both ends of the ice, with incredible work ethic night in and night out, desire to win and compete, and an ability to make those around them better. I don't really give a crap about who is better because they are both such and important and intrigral part of the team, I just find it humorous that you think there should be no discussion because Dats is obviously so much better and back that up with stats that are all in Z's favor. Almost as funny, you claim Z was a -4 in a San Jose / Detroit game this year and back that up with a link to a box score that shows Z was even strength - don't worry your proof is only 4 points off of what you claimed. Then you say he wasn't the -4 that you claimed he was only "because he took place in much of the scoring" (which doesn't really help your point anyway) which is completely false. Detroit had 5 goals Dats line had two, Flips line had one, and Z's line had two. Even if we believe your assertion that Z was a -4, but not really because he was even, but he was only even because he was on the ice for so much of the scoring (which kind of is the point of a plus/minus stat - you don't take the minus numbers and then not count the plus numbers I mean Z is 100% in face offs if you don't count the ones he lost) you are still -2 points off from what you claim. If you don't like Z fine, if you don't think he is as good as Dats fine, if you want to debate who is better fine, but please don't make crap up and then defended your made up crap, with an excuse that changes the the whole way a stat is kept, and then make up crap about when Z was on the ice so that your made up stat fits.

Why the smiley face? I have never seen you post about anything that you thought was good, or you liked, or that was positive in any way. Just curious because it doesn't seem to fit.

That is about the funniest picture I have every seen. That is awesome! You know what cracks me up about the whole subject - there are some guys like GMR and ManLoveforCleary who post on this subject but also post on all the other hockey subjects which is awesome and adds to the overall site and then there are guys like ESAD who almost never post about anything else (and only trash the Wings) who always make me wonder why they like the Wings in the first place, they hate the players, the team, the coach, and the management - there are teams that are exactly what they whine about wanting but would rather hate everything about "their team."

I don't disagree that there are guys in the NHL that have grit, play tough and can fight, however, I do have a problem with your list (at least some of it). You say you would "trade somebody like Lebda, Lilja, Kopecky, Meech" for the guys on the list. If you take the first 3 guys on your list (I'm not going to look all them up I'm too lazy but I realize some make considerably less than the first three) Commodore makes $3,750,000, Regehr makes $4,020,000, and Bieksa makes $3,750,000. All of those are huge pay increases over the guys you mentioned. In fact if you take the salary of all 4 of the guys that you mentioned you would trade the total is $2,883,333 - you could trade away all four guys and still be roughly $1,000,000 short of any of those guys salaries. Those guys all make a fair bit ($750,000) more than Kronwall and at least as much as Stuart so one of those two guys would be a more realistic comparison. I don't think anyone wouldn't trade one of the 4 guys on the Wings you mentioned for any of those first 3 guys on your list but especially with our current cap problems there is no way. Pre-cap it would have been no big deal for the Wings to trade a $500,000 contract for a $4,020,000 but to do that now we would have to lose one of Hudler, Hossa, or Mule (in addition to which ever we will lose this summer) to absorb one of those upgrades.

Whew, I was hoping that someone would either start an enforcer/non-enforcer thread or at least turn another thread into one. I just feel like it is the one aspect of the team that is not really discussed on this site.

WOW now that is a brilliant and very diabolical theory. I love it.

No one would be falling down if we had and ENFORCER on the team.

Hey Micah why don't you just cut and paste "I hate all Red Wings players except Downey (and maybe Mac) because they are all soft" for every post and save some time?

I can't imagine Babcock resting guys unless there is a monumental shift in the standings for some reason (which is very unlikely to happen). The Sharks have essentially a 1 point lead over the Wings in the standings (if you give them wins for the 2 games in hand) - I can't see any way that the Wings rest players when: 1) home ice between the Sharks and the Wings has been such a big deal in the wins this year; 2) the extra travel of over 2000 miles (one way) all the way to the west coast (if the Sharks have home ice) is a big burden during the playoffs; 3) the President's Trophy and Stanley Cup Finals home ice is still up for grabs (I know that the Bruins are 4 point behind but if Babs sits guys that's not very much). I could be wrong but with all that at stake I can't imagine him resting guys (but admittedly he is a much much smarter hockey guy than I am ).

Excellent post as usual. Thanks for the info on the salary breakdown. I wasn't sure how most teams distributed salary. :clap:

I think that is the reason Eva said find an acceptable trade. The acceptable trade he was talking about was not from the Wings perspective but from Stuart's perspective.

Didn't see this yet but thought I'd post it. Seems like a pretty crappy idea to me: 10 Minute Misconduct for fighting?

Great response by Georges Laraque to the proposed changes to the fighting rules: "The GMs need to find ways to make fighting safer instead of taking fighting out of the game," Laraque said Tuesday in Montreal. "With the instigator rule, you have more cheap shots in the game than ever. Having a 10-minute misconduct won't stop that. They should look at helmets or whatever to make it safer, not more penalties."