MulesWillFly93

Hehehe, I almost did. I voted 30-35 so I can be pleasantly kind-of-surprised-but-not-too-much when he gets more.

Thank god for the feed. I have every dang channel known to man (VS, NHLN, CI, FSN) and live in Ducks territory, yet I still don't get the game because it's on some funky OC- and LA-only channel. Last time it was my cable company's fault for not carrying FSN West Prime Ticket, but this time San Diego just doesn't get it period. Ok, rant over, gooooo Wings! I want Howard and Bertuzzi specifically to keep being awesome. When they're awesome, I feel awesome. Glad Bert's good to go, by the way.

Same here. When I saw it, I thought, well, that looks neat, but...what IS it?

I definitely think they need to step it up, but I also think they could use a little more time to adjust. I mean, I don't want to be sitting here saying the same thing in January - "Just give them more time!" - but they've only played 6 games so far (which makes this the 6th game ever that Mo has played with us), so I think they still have time to make it happen. If this continues to not work, though, I'd say maybe move up Eaves, but him and Helm always do so well together that I hate to break them up. Who knows, though, maybe Eaves would do even better with a guy like Modano. Well, let's cross that bridge when we get to it, I guess.

Yeah, pretty much!

Yeah, the fact that it's a hate article doesn't bother me, but what does is that her arguments are logically unsound, and she doesn't even try to back them up (although if you're just flat-out wrong, it would be kind of hard to find examples to support your argument). Heck, I could probably write a better article about why other fans hate us, really. My favorite part is the "Red Wings are arrogant" line. Come the eff on. I can't think of ANY current players who act cocky. I can think of a lot of reasons other fans don't like our players - Homer is a pain in the butt (or rather his butt is a pain in your face), Bertuzzi is a thug, etc. - but arrogant?! Yeah, that Lidstrom, man, he really talks a lot of crap about other teams, doesn't he? I can think of two whole players in recent history who might be said to have inflated egos: Fedorov and Avery, and Avery got shown the door for that exact reason. Plus, we Wings fans get to share Avery's "legacy" with the Stars, which doesn't exactly help the author one-up us. Now, I do heartily agree that we FANS are a bunch of arrogant bastards - as The Chief would say, we've got SWAGGER, *******! We're probably obnoxious at times, too. However, I absolutely 100% disagree that we are some of the least knowledgeable hockey fans out there...if she ever visited this forum she'd know she was wrong. Yeah, there are a couple of yokels here like me, but for the most part I've never met a more informed bunch of people all in one place, period.

Agree with Lundqvist over Luongo, and also agree that I'd go with Miller if he were on the poll. Jimmy likes to give me a heart attack now and then, but I'd probably pick him second after Lundqvist out of the choices on the poll.

Ohhh, that would explain it! I thought 3 million people seemed a little low for LA, for example...

Go Wings! I'll be in my freaking Russian class during the game, so I won't be able to watch until later...I'll have my fingers crossed the whole time, though! Glad Franzen's back...that one scared me a little.

Man, if I'm a bandwagon fan, so be it. Nothing's going to stop me from cheering for the Wings.

But the shoulder patch on the new jerseys is a modified version of their original logo, so they're actually still using it. It does seem like they're trying to distance themselves from Disney and the movie, though, whether they have to or not (although I myself like the green mock-up a couple posts back that looks more like the ones in the movie). Agree about the Flyers hookup...it looks like Son of Pumpkinhead or something...

Agreed, plus it's just not that big a city! I don't know why, but I always considered it to be one of the major metropolitan areas of the South, but as of 2009, Atlanta is the 33rd largest city in the U.S. El Paso, which is the most random-ass place I can think of, is #22, for pete's sake. For that matter, Seattle, which might actually have some hockey fans in the vicinity, is in 23rd place (10 spots ahead of ATL) and has 100k more people than Atlanta, yet we keep on putting teams in the South for the sake of some kind of Manifest Hockey Destiny. Ridiculous.

Egad...yet another reason I'm glad I'm not a Ducks fan. Is this like a special Halloween jersey or something? I know they're known as the Flyers of the West, but that doesn't mean they have to copy that godawful shade of orange the Flyers use. I agree with Travis...I like the "D" logo better than the "Ducks" one (although it's still not exactly spectacular), and I'm glad they got rid of the asymmetrical stripes, but who the F decided it would be a good idea to put that much orange on it? The ends of the sleeves should be black or gold, if you ask me.

Doughty. Still want him. Don't care if it's next to impossible...I am unrealistic like that. Shea Weber also comes to mind...

I've rewritten this post and gone back and forth on the issue about 50 times, and here's what I think it boils down to: I think, in the end, it's a good marketing move. The point of a hockey team is to assemble the most talented players you can in order to win as many games as you can. Ordinarily I would say signing players based on race might not necessarily work toward your goal of getting the most talented players, but at the moment, the Thrashers have a bigger problem: nobody cares about them. Even if they did have the most talented players in the league and they won the Stanley Cup this year, not that many people would give a hoot, and they'd still be relying on cash flow from teams like ours to make ends meet. Things being as they are, though, they are not the most talented team in the league, and I think they would be wise to do something to try to increase their ticket sales any way they can so that THEN, once they have a little revenue flowing in, they can focus on bringing in more talent and going for the ultimate goal, which is to win. That way, they can have their cake and eat it, too; they'll have a good fanbase and a good team for them to cheer for. That said, I have no idea how this is going to work. Someone please tell me what a guy like Byfuglien, who's from the middle of nowhere in northern Minnesota, has in common with someone who's lived in a Southern urban center like Atlanta all their life. This seems totally cheesy to me...it's like, "Hey, we have black players! See, you should like hockey, too!" You can't force people to like something. Oh well, I guess there's not much risk involved, really...especially considering the slim pickings this off-season. I say that if it gets a few people to give hockey a chance and end up loving it, then it'll be worth it. Be kinda funny if, somewhere down the line, the Ducks were predominantly Hispanic and a majority of the Canucks were Asian, though...

Friday, October 8 Minnesota at Carolina San Jose at Columbus Dallas at New Jersey Anaheim at Detroit Buffalo at Ottawa Washington at Atlanta Saturday, October 9 Phoenix at Boston Columbus at San Jose NY Rangers at Buffalo Dallas at NY Islanders Montreal at Pittsburgh Ottawa at Toronto New Jersey at Washington Atlanta at Tampa Bay Philadelphia at St. Louis Anaheim at Nashville Detroit at Chicago Los Angeles at Vancouver Sunday, October 10 Boston at Phoenix Los Angeles at Calgary Florida at Edmonton

I think #3 answers the question in #4. I, too, loved Dats and the candles...he's like, "A little more to the left, I think, and the feng shui in the room will be perfect!"

- 6 am at article writer's house: *hits publish* - 6 am at Franzen's and Kronwall's houses: "Ouch! What was that weird twinge in my knee?" STOP WITH THE JINXES ALREADY!! But seriously, the Caps are my prediction to meet the You-Know-Whos in the finals, too. Of course, I said that last year, and I'll probably be wrong again, but darn it, they've got the pieces; they just need to fit them into the puzzle. If not Wash, then Boston. Apparently I'm rooting for the chokers this year....that doesn't extend to the Sharks, though, obviously.

I'd rather hear Ovechkin rap than Justin Bieber sing, which, unfortunately, is exactly what we're going to get here pretty soon. Instead of being inundated with Eminem like last year (seriously, couldn't they have alternated Not Afraid with a couple of other songs?), we're now probably going to hear Bieber all through the playoffs, thanks to a brilliant marketing move by the NHL. Gee, which demographic probably watches hockey the least and is therefore the least likely to see Bieber during a game? Preteen girls. And which demographic is the most likely to throw their TV through the window after the 150th time they've heard his song played over a highlight reel (or possibly after the 1st)? Everybody else. If this happens, I swear I will never watch another game live ever again because it will become absolutely necessary to my sanity to fast forward through the commercials. God help us.

Tampa is the only one out of those that legitimately has a chance. I agree that the Oilers will pick up in a year or two, but since the rest of the list looks so dismal, I'm going to pick them as a what-the-hell-you-never-know second choice. Columbus could fall into that category as well. Toronto...nahhhh. Not this year.

This is major deja vu for me...last year, they did one of these 24/7 things on NASCAR driver Jimmie Johnson, and everybody had the same exact complaint: "Holy crap, we have to hear MORE about Jimmie Johnson? I can't take it anymore!" Also, Jimmie Johnson is just about the nicest, classiest guy in the world, and people were STILL fed up with hearing about him. You tell me there isn't a problem with overexposure in sports in general right now. Also, while I'm glad they're focusing on everybody on each team for the Caps' sake, I'm not sure I want to hear less about Crosby and more about Cooke/Orpik/Talbot/etc. They're not as overexposed, of course, but unless someone smashes a pie in Cooke's face, I'm not really interested in what he has for breakfast.

Aww, I love a good bromance! Ahem, anyway, after this year's lines were announced, I couldn't help but think about whether it'd be better to have Homer or Franzen on the 1st line (off-season ponderings, you know how it goes). Since they're both worthy, I couldn't decide, but if Mule and Bert are going to work together so well, then great! Keep 'em on the same line! Whew, now I don't have to think about it anymore, heh. On the subject of Bert, I agree with the OP. I don't necessarily want him to start fighting a lot; I'd just like to see him play with a little extra RAWR in his step and take care of business when business really needs to be taken care of, such as yesterday. Good job, Bert!

This will be interesting to watch...if you live in a remote village in Alaska, and you just got hooked up with cable TV for the first time in your life and are excited to finally get to see real NHL players in living color.

Whoa, Crosby out? And we didn't even do it? Rad!

AAAALLLLELUIA!!! Weird, it seemed like the game wasn't on there when it first started...guess I jumped the gun.