Datsyerberger

Complete agreement. When/if they really start pushing that, there's nothing that can justify it, even if it does give hockey some more mainstream face time. Sooner or later, it will start looking like basketball with that sort of attitude... and then you get the sort of officiating that comes along with that, as if our officiating isn't troubled enough to begin with.

*Steve Martin style Inspector Clouseau voice* I wuuld like to buy an Ummmmberger.

I'd agree with that. The main reason I didn't join up after last years playoffs is because the off season looked so dead, and I admittedly have a short attention span. Something to do here while we wait for the next season would be great..

On a totally random note, every time I see Letang make a good play I say "Commander L'tang! Qapla'!" because I swear it sounds like a good name for a Klingon.

Well, in my case, I'm a Florida native.. and since TB has been around longer than Florida (albeit only a coupla years) and they have a cup, I've sorta chosen them as my 'in-state' team. It's about showing atleast some spirit for the 'local' team (they're actually about as far away as ATL in driving hours for me, but they're in-state..), it lets me show some local spirit, even though everyone in that area is probably from up north anyhow, heh. Also, we have a Florida TV station (SUN network, I think it's called..) and when TB or the Panthers are playing hockey is one of the very very few times around here I actually see hockey on TV.. in addition to that, TB or FL vs Wings is about the only time I ever get to see the Wings play during the season XD. Also, they're sort of an underdog, which I always have a tendency to cheer for. Now, that said, my hockey fan background comes from my dad, who's a Det. native, so it's little secret where he's at, heh. And because of that, I consider the Wings my team by adoption/heritage, heh. He/his parents lived next door to Delvecchio for a while. Given all that wonderful hockey heritage, and the fact I wouldn't probably be a hockey fan in the first place if not for my the family fan heritage, so to speak, my devotion is with the Wings.. so, when it's Wings vs TB, I cheer for the Wings. TB vs anyone else, I cheer for TB. It's no different than a Michigan fan (college football) cheering for anyone that's playing against OSU... heh.

On another note, if you think stats for Wings players are f***ed in NHL 08, you should check them in EHM 07, even with updated rosters. Huds and Flip are about where I'd expect them, but compare Dats&Z to the top 2 forwards on many other teams and they have glaring holes and generally suck at defense (which is ironic, considering they're probably the best 2-way pair in the league at the moment...) Mule and Kronner have horridly low stats compared to their performance, Kronners stats are about equal to Lilja's in fact (don't wanna know how they figured that...) and Franzen barely makes it as a 3rd liner. After I've pulled off of waivers and done my pre-season trades, Cleary usually can't even occupy a spot on the 4th line. And what's even worse is Lids is barely even better than many of the other top D-men, some that while I think they are quite good, are not quite at Lids level either. I think this is more of a problem of some of those other players being rated to high rather than Nick being rated too low. The only good thing is that the grind line players (Maltby, Draper, and D-mac, who I /always/ grab off waivers..) are well-rated and make for an excellent low price shutdown line. Though, in my opinion, Draper's speed is a bit lower than it should be, and his faceoffs rating is a touch too low (its 18/20 I think, where it should probably be 20/20 if you compare that to the other players who have 20/20). He's only what, the top faceoff man in the league right now? Also, Ozzie is waaaay underrated, but that's just a reflection of how the media treats him I guess. The other glaring statistical anomoly in EHM 07 is how highly overrated Floppa is. Makes me wonder if the devs were all Avs fans..

To back him up, I just ran 5 sims on NHL 08 today and got Det vs Pit 2 times. Det won both >_> Others were Wings and Habs, SJ and Pit and Ducks f***s and Devils.

Perhaps the humor is lost on others, but I thought that was absolutely effing hilarious. (I just smirked at the "Badger badger badger tuuurcoo tuurcoo".. I was going to leave it at a smirk until I saw the MULE! ITS THE MULE!. XD I didn't expect you to do that part, I laughed. Very well done. )

Though he's racked up PIMs in other seasons (albeit a very low amount, usually around 12-14 and no higher than 20) Wellwood had 0 PIM in 2002-03 in 57 games played (not including 7 playoff games in which he also had 0 PIM) in the OHL. In addition, he had 0 PIM in 48 GP with the Leafs this year. Not quite as impressive, he had 4 PIM in 54 GP in his 2001-02 OHL season, not including 16 playoff GP with 0 PIM. Also, 76 GP in the AHL in 03-04 with 6 PIM. While playing clean and not getting called on coincidences must certainly be difficult, it's clearly possible as one person has managed to do it in multiple full seasons in different leagues and nearly done it a coupla other years as well.

Maybe someone on the boards here works at Belle Tire and saw that thread we had, and managed to get that idea up to the top or something as a sponsorship idea and so forth and.. well.. is that really improbable? Heh. Not like we need to inflate our egos by thinking that the awesome things we see are all spawned from the ideas we generate here, because lord knows we're some super genius think tank...

People live in Arkansas?!?!?!

Well, its 1 am here in NW Florida, and 1 am there for all those folks over in the stands in Dallas. Whew. Glad I'm usually up at these hours. Quadruple overtime fun.

Just plain old regular Life. The most exciting thing you could possibly eat outside of Corn Flakes. Haven't had the cinnamon in a while.. hmm..

I ate a bowl of Life cereal while watching 2OT. Epicly exciting, I know.

Part of me wants to see this go to something wild like 5OT (hell, I've got nothing better to do anyhow), and part of me really wants this to end in Dallas's favor so we can go ahead and get to the next Wings game. Enjoying the game, but damn I wish Dallas would liven up a bit...

I hate to break this argument out, but technically, octopuses is the correct plural, not octopi. Octopi is a misconception.. it's used with the assumption that octopus is latin, thus making the masculine plural transition from octopus to octopi. However, it is not, it is latinized greek.. thus, the actual proper modernized plural would be octopuses. The proper latinized greek plural would actually be octopodes, but it's usually argued as pedantic--thus, octopuses, not octopodes, and certainly not octopi. (In fact, if you look at the red underlining auto spell checker in here.. though the red is hard to see, octopuses is the only one of the three that it doesn't underline)

I agree. While it was all together a pretty good goal for putting a move on the goalie, all he did was spin around to a backwards skate and flip it in off his backhand. It's clear from watching it in slow-mo that he had already reversed and lifted it up with the backhand before ever losing his balance or jumping or whatever the hell happened to him there. While it makes it look cool at normal speed because he takes sort of a spinning dive right afterwards, when played slow its clear that he simply reversed and got off a backhander before falling. Good goal, not particularly impressive though. Now, on the other hand, if that Zets goal was indeed intentional, that is some awesome s***. He was already clearly going down and he managed to get his stick on the airborne puck while flying around and launching the sucker into the goal. While I agree with a couple here that roofing it was probably as much luck as anything else, its a testament to his skill he managed to hit it at all and send it in the general direction of the net while flying.

Panama City, Florida, here (Northwest Florida, Gulf Coast). Besides the occasional snowbird here, most people don't even have any idea of what hockey is, much less the teams or anything.

Boy, eff me. Now I know why high blood pressure runs in my dad's side of the family.. the Wings like to try to give us heart attacks. Regardless: LETS GO RED WINGS!!

I also have EHM and could help with that.

LFG for Onyxi-- Wait, wrong game. Im looking for an assistant GM for Tampa Bay.

I'm up for whichever simulator produces the most realistic results most reliably and with the most detail. Also, I'd prefer they be a "calculated simulation" rather than played, because in that case you have to take the skill of the people playing into account as well, not to mention some of the goofiness that sometimes goes on in such games. Also, using calculated simulations should go a lot faster (one person should be able to calculate all the games in a given day, take the various stats and pass them around, should someone want that tedious job.) Also: Looking for an assistant GM for Tampa Bay, preferably someone that has a lot of all-around hockey smarts and knowledge, and isn't GMing somewhere else for whatever reason (lack of time to be the full time GM, etc etc). If there's someone that knows a lot and wants to get involved and give advice, TB would be a great place to do so.

I'm in total agreement with RedFX on this one. Summer/early fall season is emulated in a simulator, sorta a fantasy season style. Season 2 closely follows both the real season and the playoffs.

#1: 2 seasons sounds good. I'd like to have 1 that closely follows the real seasons/playoffs but Im sure we could work a 2nd one in somehow. #2: all that sounds great.

Hippo Birdy 2 Ewes.