MulesWillFly93

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

Radio is dead, not Hockeytown.

‘Twas The Night Before Playoffs

‘Twas the night before Playoffs and all through the Joe
Not a player was skating, not fast and not slow.
The jerseys were hung from the rafters with care
Stevie, Sid, Gordie, Terry, Ted, and Alex were there.
The fans in Detroit were all snug in their beds,
While Stanley Cup fever danced ‘round in their heads.
Val Filppula, Gustav Nyquist, Colaiacovo, you see
Would star in their dreams of what would soon be.
Next day on the ice there would be such a clatter,
That, for true fans of hockey, nothing else would matter.
Away to the arena, we fly like a flash,
(Unless we can’t get tickets, ‘cause we don’t have the cash).
The laser light show on the freshly groomed ice
Would light up the way as we welcome our guys!
Then, what to our wondering eyes should appear?
But the best of the NHL, at least so far this year.
Now Z is our Captain, a new forward named Brunner
It’s time to re-tool, it couldn’t have happened sooner.
More rapid than eagles, the players they came,
And we whistled and shouted, and called them by name.
“Now Kindl! Now Kronwall! Now, go, Kyle Quincey!
On Datsyuk! On DeKeyser! And, now, Danny Cleary!
Into the Playoffs! With the best of the League!
There’s no turning back! There will be no fatigue!”
“There’s Bertuzzi!, Tomas Tatar, and Ian White!
Jan Mursak! Riley Sheahan! They’ll all show their might!
Thanks to Petr Mrazek and Brendan Smith!
We got to this point, this team knows no quit!”
No rest for the worry, surely we’ll whelm!
Here’s Franzen! And Ericsson! And now Darren Helm!!
There’s Tootoo! and Andersson! and Jimmy in net.
Drew Miller, Patrick Eaves, the best fourth line yet!
They say we’re getting old, we know that’s not true
We simply reload and reload, that’s what we do!
With Lashoff and Abby and don’t forget Cory
Our young guys can bring it, there’ll be no worry!
As the Blackhawks and the Ducks and Canucks all cry,
When they meet with the Wings, and their Stanley dreams die.
As the Penguins do crumble and Montreal meets with fate,
The Bruins and Capitals will just have to wait.
Then, dressed up so nicely, in the best they could find,
The coaches line up, with the trainers behind.
There’s Renny, and Bill Peters, and head coach Mike Babcock
And, on the bench, The Monster, our faithful back-up!
A lock-out shortened season
Caused some frustration and tears.
Would we keep the streak alive?
Yes! Now it’s 22 years!!
Ken Daniels makes the calls, he’s in no hurry
And on a sad note, oh how we miss Larry Murphy!
Our eyes, how they twinkle! Our hearts are so merry!
With Redmond to comment, or maybe Don Cherry.
With a wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Mike soon had assured us we had nothing to dread.
He spoke not a word; these guys know how to win
To the Finals we go, we can do this again.
They spring to the ice, as the referees whistle,
In pursuit of the Cup they will fly like a missile.
And the fans will exclaim, whether they lose or they win,
“Go, Red Wings! We Love You! What a great year it’s been!”
GO WINGS!!!

A little late, but I am damn glad we've got Howard buttoned down. You know what I want out of a goalie? Consistency. And I believe Howard is consistent. Sure, he has a bad game every now and then, but all goalies do. What he doesn't do is go all bipolar like Fleury, and I appreciate the heck out of that. Nor does he have self-confidence issues like Luongo; when he plays bad, he accepts it, gets over it, and bounces back. Another thing unlike Luongo: he flips the switch in the playoffs, even when the rest of the team forgets to. And come on, if he can play decently in front of THIS defense, he'll be just fine in front of a real one. Rask's contract is up this year, and Lundqvist's is up next year. Obviously they're going to re-sign with the same teams, but I wonder what you'll all say when you see how much THEY get.

I was born and raised in San Diego in a family that wasn't into sports, period, including me for a long time. I always liked the idea of hockey, though. It sounded so exotic - the largest amount of ice I'd ever seen was in an ice cube tray, so a sport played on a large sheet of it definitely piqued my curiosity. Watching the Mighty Ducks movie is probably what originally opened my eyes to its existence.
Also, around '97-'98, I started talking to this girl online who was from Michigan and was a Wings fan, so that made me aware of the Wings, who were obviously doing really great at the time. I've always had a romanticized view of the Midwest, since my family is originally from Nebraska, and I grew up hearing stories about farm life and stuff, and somehow through this girl, the Red Wings kind of worked themselves into my vision of the Midwestern world. I still didn't get into hockey at that time, unfortunately, but it was always there in the back of my mind.
What finally did it was reading a story in French class about a kid who was a Habs fan in the '50s. After the class was over and I was on Winter Break, I was bored out of my mind and looking for something to watch on TV. I flipped by a hockey game, and I thought, hey, I just read that story about hockey - maybe I'll give this a shot. It stuck. I should've been a Ducks fan, I guess, but I'm a sucker for history, tradition, and nice-looking uniforms, so I couldn't commit. Plus, they're not in MY city/county, so I don't think I owe them any loyalty, anyway. Then I thought back to the Red Wings fan I used to know, and the more I learned about the Wings, the more I realized they were exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to watch hockey in its natural habitat, in a cold climate, where they'd been playing it for around 80 years and took pride in it - not as some sort of weird anomaly out here in the desert that popped up around Disneyland when I was 8 years old.
Sure, I liked their winning record, too, I won't deny it - I don't think I would've ever considered becoming a Blue Jackets fan, for example - but it's more than just the winning, it's the commitment to excellence, self-respect, and personal responsibility embodied by guys like Yzerman and Lidstrom that I know will serve as an example that will last long after they're gone, even if the wins column starts to take a turn for the worse (which it has). That's what keeps me going today - the organization knows how to do things the right way, and it will continue to pass on that culture to our future. Like it or not, we're at the end of an era, and it's not easy to start a new one, but we've got the know-how and pride to pull it off. Jeez, I wrote a lot, sorry.

A little late, but I am damn glad we've got Howard buttoned down. You know what I want out of a goalie? Consistency. And I believe Howard is consistent. Sure, he has a bad game every now and then, but all goalies do. What he doesn't do is go all bipolar like Fleury, and I appreciate the heck out of that. Nor does he have self-confidence issues like Luongo; when he plays bad, he accepts it, gets over it, and bounces back. Another thing unlike Luongo: he flips the switch in the playoffs, even when the rest of the team forgets to. And come on, if he can play decently in front of THIS defense, he'll be just fine in front of a real one. Rask's contract is up this year, and Lundqvist's is up next year. Obviously they're going to re-sign with the same teams, but I wonder what you'll all say when you see how much THEY get.

I was born and raised in San Diego in a family that wasn't into sports, period, including me for a long time. I always liked the idea of hockey, though. It sounded so exotic - the largest amount of ice I'd ever seen was in an ice cube tray, so a sport played on a large sheet of it definitely piqued my curiosity. Watching the Mighty Ducks movie is probably what originally opened my eyes to its existence.
Also, around '97-'98, I started talking to this girl online who was from Michigan and was a Wings fan, so that made me aware of the Wings, who were obviously doing really great at the time. I've always had a romanticized view of the Midwest, since my family is originally from Nebraska, and I grew up hearing stories about farm life and stuff, and somehow through this girl, the Red Wings kind of worked themselves into my vision of the Midwestern world. I still didn't get into hockey at that time, unfortunately, but it was always there in the back of my mind.
What finally did it was reading a story in French class about a kid who was a Habs fan in the '50s. After the class was over and I was on Winter Break, I was bored out of my mind and looking for something to watch on TV. I flipped by a hockey game, and I thought, hey, I just read that story about hockey - maybe I'll give this a shot. It stuck. I should've been a Ducks fan, I guess, but I'm a sucker for history, tradition, and nice-looking uniforms, so I couldn't commit. Plus, they're not in MY city/county, so I don't think I owe them any loyalty, anyway. Then I thought back to the Red Wings fan I used to know, and the more I learned about the Wings, the more I realized they were exactly what I was looking for. I wanted to watch hockey in its natural habitat, in a cold climate, where they'd been playing it for around 80 years and took pride in it - not as some sort of weird anomaly out here in the desert that popped up around Disneyland when I was 8 years old.
Sure, I liked their winning record, too, I won't deny it - I don't think I would've ever considered becoming a Blue Jackets fan, for example - but it's more than just the winning, it's the commitment to excellence, self-respect, and personal responsibility embodied by guys like Yzerman and Lidstrom that I know will serve as an example that will last long after they're gone, even if the wins column starts to take a turn for the worse (which it has). That's what keeps me going today - the organization knows how to do things the right way, and it will continue to pass on that culture to our future. Like it or not, we're at the end of an era, and it's not easy to start a new one, but we've got the know-how and pride to pull it off. Jeez, I wrote a lot, sorry.

I gotta say, this is pretty disappointing. There are a lot of circumstances where I could cut him some slack - if his BAC was borderline, if it was the first time he'd gotten arrested, if he'd had a bad childhood and needed some extra help getting his life in order. I can't say anything either way on that last one, but he's not making any points with me on the first two. If his first run-in with the law didn't make an impression, how many times is it going to take for him to clean up his act? I want to see him change, of course, but if I were the Wings brass, my patience would be wearing thin at this point.

This is good for a laugh !

I am so ANGRY right now. Knew this was coming for weeks, and it just gets worse and worse. The 2012 lockout, for me anyway, is so much worse than the 2004-05 lockout. At least during THAT lockout, I felt like the game had serious problems that needed to be addressed. Also, we didn't know what the loss of a full season would feel like, and there was hope (until January) that it could be saved.
This time, I KNOW what a lockout feels like. And this lockout has NO purpose that means anything to a fan. All the people telling me that the owners need a bigger share of the pie so that the 18 teams losing money can be back in the black...shut up. Please shut up. There was nothing in the owners' proposal that would do anything to keep idiot GM's from circumventing their own rules they asked for, and generally doing an awful job running hockey teams in markets that don't even really want hockey.
If I hear the phrase "new NHL" one more time, I might have a nervous breakdown. What did we accomplish in exchange for losing an entire year? Take back your stupid salary cap, cap floor, trapezoid, regular season shootouts, and obstruction calls and give me back the old NHL. If you had to completely blow up the system to get what you want, and having gotten what you want (plus $3.3 billion revenues), and you STILL can't figure out how to divide up all the money you collected from the fans?!

That ruins any chance my Flyers had of being the top team in Scotland, really looking forward to Drew coming to Fife! Probably the closest I'll come to a Red Wings game!!

Doc burns the stove and yells "FIRE!"

He doesn't sound threatening to me. Maybe I'm not reading between the lines enough, but it sounds to me like somebody asked him what he thought of the situation, so he gave them an honest answer, which is that he agrees Edmonton needs a new arena. I agree that it's none of his business what the taxpayers and government of Edmonton decide to do with their money, and the fact that he IS putting his nose in Quebec City's business bugs me, but it doesn't sound like it's gotten to that point yet here. It sounds like it's the Oilers who are forcing the city to do something by saying they won't play at Rexall Place after the lease is up in 2014.
Somehow I really doubt the Oilers would leave Edmonton. Don't they have some of the best attendance numbers in the league, percentage-wise? I mean, I would imagine that's why Bettman wants them to build a new stadium, right? If the Oilers can suck that bad and still fill 17,000 seats, those are some enthusiastic people you've got there, so why not see what you can do with 20,000 seats? I mean, I know QC has some enthusiastic fans, too, but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It makes a lot more sense to me (at least in my pea brain) to take a team like Phoenix, who has awful attendance, and relocate it, rather than doing the Canadian Team Shuffle.

Dang, Jimmy, tell us how you really feel! The players are cattle on the owners' cattle ranches? If that's true, then they best be taking good care of their cattle, or else no one's going to want to buy their product. I get that the owners are running a business and not a charity organization, but I think that metaphor is taking it a little far, and I think the players deserve a little more credit for what they do.
Also, I don't buy his argument that the players should be so incredibly grateful and bow down to the owners for what they receive from them. Let's face it, both sides are grubbing for as much money as possible, so one side can't play the victim and say the other is being greedy and unfair when they both have the same goal in mind - making money. I just find it a little hard to swallow that he tries to justify the owners making bazillions and then criticizes the players for going to Russia when a) they have jack all else to do and b) have just as much right as anyone else under the capitalist system to make as much money as possible.

Currently playing? None. The only person I've been able to find from San Diego is Craig Coxe, who retired in 1992. Of course, my favorite person to claim is Chris Chelios, who went to high school here. Yeah yeah, I know he's firmly rooted in everyone's mind as a Chicagoan, but cut me some slack, we don't get a lot of hockey glory out here.

I was at a Taylor Cup clinching game for the 5 Time West Coast Hockey League Champion San Diego Gulls!! Talk about awesomeness!!

Notable players to play for the Gulls include Willie O'Ree and Lindy Ruff.
esteef

Teemu Selanne (high five to my fellow Selanne fans)

He doesn't sound threatening to me. Maybe I'm not reading between the lines enough, but it sounds to me like somebody asked him what he thought of the situation, so he gave them an honest answer, which is that he agrees Edmonton needs a new arena. I agree that it's none of his business what the taxpayers and government of Edmonton decide to do with their money, and the fact that he IS putting his nose in Quebec City's business bugs me, but it doesn't sound like it's gotten to that point yet here. It sounds like it's the Oilers who are forcing the city to do something by saying they won't play at Rexall Place after the lease is up in 2014.
Somehow I really doubt the Oilers would leave Edmonton. Don't they have some of the best attendance numbers in the league, percentage-wise? I mean, I would imagine that's why Bettman wants them to build a new stadium, right? If the Oilers can suck that bad and still fill 17,000 seats, those are some enthusiastic people you've got there, so why not see what you can do with 20,000 seats? I mean, I know QC has some enthusiastic fans, too, but hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It makes a lot more sense to me (at least in my pea brain) to take a team like Phoenix, who has awful attendance, and relocate it, rather than doing the Canadian Team Shuffle.

Doan to Detroit. Not that I really super want him; I just have a feeling for some reason.