Datsyerberger

Oh wow, there are some bitter canadians out there pissed about losing the old song, uh-huh. Personally, though, that's what I'd vote for VS. coverage of hockey. The cats and babies howling remind me of Thing One and Thing T-- I mean Doc and McGuire.

Heh, I remember that one. A friend of mine was at the game, told me about it on AIM later on. Didn't believe how awesome it was until I saw it.

Okay, for the sake of starting up a more hockey-related discussion about the ESPY's here (without beating Crosby to death): How about Best Play: Eli Manning's pass to David Tyree? I have to admit, that one was spectacular. However, are there any plays that you would put up against that? Maybe some Wings plays? How about Zetterberg's ninja backflip flying wristshot goal? Or Zetterberg's escaping 4/5 of the other teams skaters to "QB" Pavel for his hat trick? Zetterberg doesn't get a line of blockers. The Manning one was brilliant (and needed) so it is certainly worthy, but anything you would have put up for that?

I'm bored; this is how I cope.

This deserves a comment. I indeed could name a team or two (though not Jai Lai, mind you) that I think is worthy, but doing so would have ruined the objectivity of my arguments--that is, referring to the mainstream American sports market to which a good majority here will be most familiar. (To sum that up casually: I could bring that up, but I'd be lucky to find 1/200 people who gave a flying f***).

Reply to Opie: The problem, then, comes to you misinterpreting my posts, rather than a lack of knowledge on my part. That may be due to my writing; if so, I apologize. My argument has been neither that the Wings should have won the award, nor that the voting was based solely on the Cinderella effect. More specifically, my argument in my original reply was arguing -against- someone using the Cinderella effect (the Celtics previous 28-56 record) in his or her argument for the Celtics winning. I would certainly argue, personally, that it likely had a decent effect on the voting results. However, I certainly don't believe that's the sole purpose for their winning of the ESPY, nor that such an effect should be the voters reason for voting for them (though that likely did happen, to some degree). I never did argue that the Wings should have won, or that the Giants should have won due to beating the Pats (I was cheering for the Pats, by the way.) I was simply using them as examples to shoot down the Celtics winning due entirely to the Cinderella effect (if it were all Cinderella effect, it would have gone to the Giants.. if it were all based on skill and not market size, the Wings DO make a competitive candidate for the Celtics this year.) Logically, two intentionally vague, nondescript comments on my behalf do not make for very good grounds for determining the entirety of my sports knowledge. You may not have intended an insult at me, but your entire argument was solid and just fine as it was without bringing such into question (and, due to the rather loose grounds on which you so did, it weakens the integrity of your otherwise strong arguments, in my own view.) Doing so was more or less and elegant equivalent of tying off your arguments with a statement of "LOL NOOB!!!1one". Edit (I see a bad habit forming): I couldn't give a rats ass about cricket, by the way. Just thought I'd throw that one out there.

Well, it has been on for more than an hour and I don't know if I have that channel. ..Time to check!

Some minor sports occasionally, baseball (not as much as I used to, but I keep an eye on it), football (more college than pro), soccer, hockey. The latter three are the only ones I watch with any degree of regularity (and then, mostly hockey), but I have a bad tendency to read an unnecessary amount of sports forums and news (even though I'm not a huge sports fan, besides hockey) just due to a fast pace of reading and an excessive amount of free time. I do find the fact that you insulted (or atleast, challenged) an aspect of me based on a comparison of a total of 2 (out of 10s or 100s) of sports distasteful, but seeing as I'm spending my time being intentionally argumentative anyhow, it's not entirely unjustified. I'm certainly not going to reciprocate, but I would ask that you refrain. I enjoy reading your material, usually, as you are an intelligent and knowledgeable poster. Oh, and for the record, I have watched plenty of ESPN, and I stand by my bashing of it. It is an entertainment network before it is a news network--which ultimately isn't bad, as they are a business foremost and that's what makes money for them. However, other than keeping an eye on game scores and large news, I respect their authority on sports about as far as I can toss them. I'm a member of the small, boring minority that prefer straight, dull news over entertainment. (Edit again: I freely admit to knowing very little about basketball news, other than championship winners and major players. As noted in my previous post, I concede the Celtics are deserving of the title of best team this year--though I disagree with the possible reasons some may have for voting them as such.)

I'm aware... I just like bashing ESPN... is that so bad? Honestly, I do think that the Celtics deserve the win given my now-knowledge of their season record, but I still believe that there's a Cinderella effect going on that influenced quite a few voters in their favor. What about the Giants tackling the behemoth Packers? That's an interesting story as well. But I regress, I posted mainly to argue a point. As you can likely tell from my numerous replies in this thread, I have nothing better to do. And sadly, since it's the offseason, I've already read each post in the first 2 pages like 20 times. WHEN WILL OCTOBER BE HERE?!

And unlike the Celtics, the Wings also rocked the season last year. It has more to do with what the other person replying to my post pointed out, the media loooves Cinderella stories. I'm aware of the fact, but it still disgusts me a bit, to be honest. That, and basketball is more popular (and one that ESPN covers). If they DIDN'T give the Celtics (who play in one of the "1st tier" sports) the win, with a record like they have, there'd be a lot more NBA fans crying bloody murder than NHL fans--we already know that ESPN is lame. (Edit: By the way, though I know the play and rules of basketball, my (lack of) knowledge regarding the actual play of the NBA franchises is made evident by my previous post. All I really knew is that the Celtics sucked sometime recently and they won the championship this year, and the Feel-Good Story light immediately turned on.)

The Detroit Red Wings went from a 54-21-7, finishing first in the league, to winning it all-----> Best team? CHECK. The Wings clearly performed at a superior level than the Celtics throughout the season. The fact that the Celtics had to pull themselves out of a considerable deficit to win makes them a cute bedtime story, but not the best. The fact they had to dig themselves out of a hole immediately writes themselves off as being the best (though kudos to them for winning their championship). The Wings, on the other hand, made sure they never had to do that. THAT is what a winning team is about. Edit: Oh, hey, my forum "rank" is 3rd Line Checker now. Where are some Avs I can punch?

Oh, I think LA is a great sports town. I just think that guy's comment about the weather was a steaming pile of poo.

The entire article was easily indentifiable as a crock before ever seeing the absence of Detroit on that list by this line: Los Angeles: "The good: The weather." Highly indicative of some desk jockey who thinks of that Californian sunshine and has obviously never been to LA. Yea, the weather in a desert. ******* fantastic, man. Edit: Yea, so it's hardly all desert, but it's hardly some sort of paradise.

And the part of that statement he said only to himself mentally was "...unless you know where to look."

I'm actually fine with the majority of the southern and west coast teams, and I think moving them somewhere northern, while being easily successful short term, is a long (perhaps quite long, but long) term mistake. Yes, I realize they're not huge hockey markets and that there are larger markets elsewhere (which, by the way, already have teams to support). However, people complain about hockey being a 2nd tier sport and not getting the coverage of other sports, then come out with some elitist attitude where they think hockey shouldn't be around the lower half other continent. Believe it or not, there ARE some hockey fans down here, and some native. Its a small but slowly growing base. And it needs that chance to expand, even if slowly, rather than building upon pre-existing markets for short term gain. And, for the most part, the southern and southwestern teams have a good geographical spread. Now, that said, there are a couple notable exceptions to this which need to be corrected. 1: Florida or TB. I pick Florida to go. Newer team, no cup, has consistently been a total failure. Also, TB is a fairly successful sports market and fairly centrally located in the peninsula. And there's enough snowbirds, Michigan transplants and so forth in that general area to make it a fairly successful market. 2: California. More specifically, southern California, and even more specifically, the LA area. Two teams in a still young market providing unnecessary competition for eachother. LA or Anaheim? I say ditch Anaheim. LA has more history beside them, and Anaheim's stolen cup be damned.. it's never going to get over that Disney stigma, especially since their logo is a ******* duck.. about the least intimidating critter you could use outside of a pygmy shrew. (Sorry, Duck Guy, by the way.. but I like you, so you can always hang with us Wings fans ) So, Florida and Anaheim. Where to move them to? Northwest coast for one, I'd say.. there's untapped market potential there. The other one to Canada somewhere, plenty of places to choose from there.. And, in the future, expand 2 final teams so it's a 32 team league, thus solving a lot of problems.

Wow. ******* score. This team is going to be epic. Epic and a half, even. Now, what do they do with the lines?

I'm going to guess Phil Bourque. In '91, he tried to fix a rattling on it or such, took off the plastic base and noticed other repair men had inscribed their name on the inside of the cup.. thus, he added his name to the list of repair men for his own handyman efforts. This would make him a player whose name is on the cup without a team attachment.

Hey! I guessed right on one. A little surprised to see he wasn't more overpaid than that, though (I mean, thats overpay as it is but I was expecting more like 7.5). Regardless, Chicago is going to be very annoying this upcoming season..

Me too, that guy is just taking massive amounts of playing time away from our prospects.

I hope it's not Lebda.. who else is gonna drop f-bombs for us on live broadcasts? I was honestly quite impressed with him in the playoffs, serious improvement over last year. I hate to see anyone go, but Meech was very solid during the season, and Ericsson has too much potential (and can be sent back down to GR).. thus, my money is on Quincey.

Lilja is by no means an awesome player, but he's a ******* bargain for what he does bring. We pay the guy a little over a mil and everyone around here expects him to become the second coming of Lidstrom..

Awesome. Given what comparable players are being paid, this is a serious bargain. A mistake or two aside (And who didn't make a mistake or two in the playoffs?) I thought Stuart put up a very solid performance. Now we've got a great #3 and #4, and are paying them probably 2/3 of what other teams in the league might be paying them. Nevermind how ridiculous our #1 and #2 are. I'm really curious to see how he performs with a full year as a Wing. I'll bet his hit placement steadily improves and he has his best season in points thus far.

On an all time list? Lidstrom, by a long shot. I like him and Stevie about equally, and my jersey is a Stevie. But Lids is easily an arguable top 5 defenseman. Now, if its a matter of captaincy.. Stevie, by a long shot (that does not, however, means Lidstrom isn't a spectacular captain.. its just that Stevie Y is almost a deity in that sense)

Hello Dan O'Halloran...

Hey, I just found his dinner. Yum.