SouthernWingsFan

There aren't going to be many Canadians boycotting the game I think. Hockey is your sport, you aren't going to leave it anytime soon in all likelihood. So focus on bringing it into new areas. It just doesn't get popular and happen overnight. It takes time. And Atlanta had a hockey team before the Thrashers actually. The Flames played there.

And you can pretty much make a claim that a majority of players in the league whine at some point in their careers.

Look I definitely understand Crosby et al is talked about a lot, but there is a reason for that. For better or worse, HE IS THE FACE of the NHL and brings about a great shot of making the NHL have some form of popularity semblance in the United States again, even if it is small popularity. I think it is a safe bet that many in here would like hockey to be more popular in the United States and have people like the sport as much as we do, or at the very least try to understand the sport. What is one of the better ways to do that? You pimp your most popular and well-known players. Crosby is one of those people. You can't have it both ways to where you want the sport to be more popular but not hear anything about Crosby. He's going to be pimped by the league to try to make the sport more popular. Pimp the hell out of him for all I care if it makes the sport more popular, I don't pay any more attention to media or sports outlet more than necessary anyways so it wouldn't bother me. Also consider this. People that might have much hockey knowledge or have only tuned into the playoffs say in the conference finals. What is the first thing they might associate with the playoffs and hockey? Sidney Crosby or Pittsburgh. Whether we are tired of hearing about him or not, it's a good ice breaker to possibly get people to talk about other aspects or players in the sport. Hell I did exactly this last weekend when I went out to dinner, I was talking about both the NBA and NHL playoffs in general to the bartender and I told him I preferred NHL and the first thing he mentioned related to it was if Crosby and Pittsburgh were still in it. We had a good brief conversation on the other teams still in the playoffs, I told him about other players as well as Crosby, etc. Don't use Sidney Crosby as a bad thing for the NHL, use him to start discussing the game with other people, AND THEN tell them there are other aspects/players in the game, etc. Marketing and pimping Crosby like the NHL is doing is definitely a good thing for the sport. And the Penguins deserve every bit of positive publicity. Because of Crosby, because Malkin has done so well in addition, and because this team was on the verge of not being in Pittsburgh a few years ago, but had a combination of luck as well as a product on the ice that eventually got better, and fast. I know we want the Wings to win obviously, but Pittsburgh is a feel-good story to more people in this country in general, and it'd probably be a better feel-good story if they won it all to more people in general outside of the Red Wings world. And that as well, would help make the game a little more popular to non-hardcore fans. Should the NHL market differently or put their eggs in more than one player's basket? Perhaps so. Do I want the Red Wings to win it all? Without question. Just understand though how important Crosby and Pittsburgh are right now to the NHL's marketing efforts.

Actually, no HDTV for me where I live. I have definitely seen and appreciate hockey games that are in HD, but truthfully it is a luxury I don't mind living without. I can still see games and the puck/action very well on my normal TV.

Wonderfully stated on Kopecky, and while thankfully the Wings haven't needed him too badly in the grand scheme of things making it to the SCF, I miss seeing him out there. He was certainly starting to play more intense and throwing his body around before his injury, as others have thankfully recognized. Assuming he was healthy though as well as everybody else, Neither Downey or McCarty OR Helm would be in the lineup right now. To the original subject at hand if Franzen isn't back in game one or anytime thereafter, McCarty over Downey. I do not think any of these games are going to be blowouts, and I highly doubt there will be any "fighting" in since these are the most important games of the season. Sure I'd love to see Downey out there, but he hasn't played any playoff games, McCarty has done all you can realistically ask for him in the grand scheme of things this playoff season and where he is at in his career (minus a pretty bad last game) in my opinion. McCarty over Downey right now.

Three squirrels are in the forest. Two are male, one is a female. The two males are competing for the female squirrel's attention. She chooses squirrel #1. Squirrel #2 sighs in disappointment. The first squirrel yaps back at the second, "Yeah that's right, those are my nuts in her mouth!" Then the female squirrel responded, "The heck with you, you're no good, you don't have your own nuts anymore!" The second squirrel then basked in happiness. Get it? Squirrels? Nuts?

I've actually only been there once which is kinda sad. Truth be told though I don't drink beer that much, I'm more of a wine drinker actually. Love red wine.

Slapbak - We Come To Jam

Other than an injury to Dan Cleary about 3/5 through the season when Cleary was playing second line and yielded more time and offensive responsibility to step up for Franzen, not much else can really be explained I think as to why he went on the tear other than he got on a hot streak that isn't out of the oridnary for people with halfway decent offensive skill to get sometimes, it helped his confidence and to shoot more, and he's also getting lucky bounces as well. When you score a lot in bunches, it's normally a combination of being really good/finishing, getting some lucky bounces, and being in the right places at the right times.

Some of you all are being absolutely ridiculous. We're the softest team in the league? Get real. Listen to what other teams now say against the Wings when they face off. They scratched that moniker last playoffs. And while I undestand you play try to play by any means necessary both physically and mentally in the playoffs, have some of you ever considered that doctors know a lot more about physical conditions of players over people who are just beer-bellied sports forum armchair Monday morning quarterbacks? I would not be surprised that Franzen himself wants Franzen to play the most, and it is eating at him metally not being able to play out there. But if the doctor says no, you go with the trusted AND QUALIFIED medical opinion of SOMEBODY TRAINED to make such informed and accurate decisions. Beer-bellied sports forum armchair Monday morning quarterbacks are not qualified and trained enough or at all to make informed and accurate decision on the status of Red Wings players, especially since we don't physically examine them.

Nobody knows that for sure. One man alone doesn't win a Cup for a team, and game 1 hasn't even started yet.

In his defense on the breakaway, it was with an inexperienced rookie who was confused on either to speed up or slow down. The Stars defenseman took advantage of Helm's lack of decision-making and caught up past Helm and to Samuelsson, and hooked Samuelsson/got enough of his body to force him to make a bad shot. ThreeRiversFan, every team (or at least in here) seems to have the need to be ridiculously over-anal about certain players to the point of where you just want to tell people to shut the f**k up since we've heard the same song and dance about the certainly player 600-700 times. It was Curtis Joseph a few years ago, it was Robert Lang and/or Andreas Lilja last year, this year it was Lilja to a small degree, but Samuelsson is king this year. Samuelsson's game is pretty accurately described by betterREDthandead, so I won't reiterate. And like many portrayals of whipping boys, they are often greatly overstated and overdramatized. Personally I'm neutral on him. Far from my favorite but he doesn't deserve some of the treatment that he gets on here, as it gets more annoying and repetitive than those tests from the local Emergency Broadcast System.

Some other same city/college championship in the same year worth nothing that I can think of off the top of my head... 2003-04 UConn Huskies both men and women's National Basketball Champions/NCAA Tourney Champs. 2005-06 Florida Gators Football and Men's Basketball National Champs.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaatorade! Gaaaaaaaaaaaatorade! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBk7xTXOPjc Water sucks! Gatorade is better!

Free beer. And since that rarely happens, I usually just stick to the following brands more often than not. Coors Light Abita Amber (Abita Springs, only about 10 - 15 minutes from where I live) Bud Light Budweiser Molson Jamaican Red Stripe

Anybody notice how weird Bert and Ernie look together? One has just one eyebrown, not two. And the other doesn't even have any eyebrows!

Switch - Best Beat in Town Great funk/disco track from the late 70s.

The series hasn't even started yet, don't be ridiculous.

While I don't like O'Hallaran being selected, calling it a pro-Penguins conspiracy is going a bit too far I think... Sorry, I just don't buy into conspiracy theories or pro-bias/anti-bias towards sports teams.

Hopefully he won't make the same mistake twice on Holmstrom interference. It's a judgement call in the heat-of-the-moment so you can't blame him for that. Just wish stuff like that was reviewable from the start to get the incorrect/initial judgment call corrected. Hopefully if a similar "goal" happens again, he'll get it right the next time around.

And an overall popular opinion of a fan nation is going to do little/nothing in changing my opinion, and sometimes saying, how I think how ridiculous such an aspect of a fan nation can be and is sometimes. Just like very few people are going to convince you that you should and are going to give full credit to Ken Holland for being as good a GM as some depict on here/should be satisifed with what he did during the trade deadline, etc.

:violin: N O NO

VS/NBC gives the NHL much more attention than ESPN/ABC ever did or will do, so you take the good with the bad.

So? That still doesn't change that the whole "media conspiracy/picking against the Red Wings all the time" theory in here by so many is completely ridiculous.

Burnside has definitely picked the Wings in the past, and LGW-whipping-analyst Barry Melrose has even picked the Wings these last few times. Not everybody is against them, and this whole media bias against the Red Wings that people claim in here is utter nonsense I think.