SouthernWingsFan

Ding ding ding! Beautiful post there.

Newsflash: Not everybody has to stroke the Red Wings' ego. And yes, I perfectly understand that Melrose almost always picks against the Wings. Why even worry about that stuff? Why is it that everybody who doesn't pick the Wings or slightly critiques them or says they won with some "luck" is automatically an anti-Wings fan/analyst on here?

<----- Beardless I can easily grow face fuzz and get close to a full-grown beard if I don't shave for 3 or 4 days straight, but I would never be able to ignore the urge to scratch and even if I didn't, the beard would still itch and it'd be a pain in the butt for me to keep it up or properly trimmed. <----- Will almost always have little/no facial hair.

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five - Freedom Nothing like cheesy 80s rap music, those were good music times.

It wouldn't surprise me if this is some type of publicty for attention or publicity stunt, but I don't care that badly to think about ridiculous scenarios of why Avery might want to do this. If his is something that he thinks he really wants to do after a career in hockey, more power to him then. He shouldn't worry about what others think about this.

Understood as career is definitely important. I apologize in advance if it sounds like I'm being snobbish to you, but I am curious to know from your first response to this thread. Do you have kids? I just don't know if you fully understand how powerful a feeling or an event it is to see your child being born for the first time ever. I personally do not have kids, but I have a nephew who is close to 5, and a second nephew on the way in probably about 6 weeks, and I absolutely cannot wait to see this kid, and he isn't even mine. Hell, the spouse of one of my co-workers showed up at our office today and showed off their daughter that was recently born about 7 weeks ago. I was tickled like crazy when I first saw the baby today, she is adorable. Work is definitely important, we all have to work, and winning the Stanley Cup has got to be an extremely special occassion, but none of that comes remotely close (at least to me) to witnessing a child being born or seeing a child for the first time ever. Family and your children is most important in the grand scheme of things.

Woot! New Orleans Hornets are 3rd! :carrot: :banana:

Look on the bright side, at least there's still no back-to-backers. I'll be coming up for game 2, looking forward to it!

You cannot take any team for granted whether they are seeded 1st, 8th, or 100th. The difference between the 1st and 8th seed in hockey playoffs today is usually not much. So I don't care who you are or what team it is, no series is going to be a walk in the park. We may be relieved that we might be facing Colorado over Calgary b/c Kipper might be a better goalie or we've had Colorado's number so far this regular season, but all of that means very little in the postseason. We were thrilled to face Edmonton in 2006 playoffs b/c they supposedly provided a managable matchup. Look what happened there. I'm worried about every team, every team is capable of making a deep run.

The pen is blue........... The pen is blue!!!! The g'damned pen is blue!!!!!!!!!! Sorry, I'm not here, carry on. *shrugs*

As somebody who has had the same type of injury unforutnately from playing basketball, rehab will not be fun, and it will take plenty of time. And my knee that I messed up still isn't the same a little over 4 years later. But, I'm no professional athlete either so hopefully Kopecky will recover much faster. He was playing some of his better hockey this season late. Hopefully that play won't wear off anytime soon.

Like him or not, Cherry sure is damned entertaining and funny. Whether he just says stuff out of left field or not, at least he's passionate the few times I have seen him. I take comments from guys like him or McGuire with a grain of salt and with very little seriousness as they'll usually talk out of their rear ends every few minutes. No point in getting to upset over guys like them.

Overblown or not (and I'm all about having fun/celebrating etc.), I haven't really read or seen how bad or serene the whole thing might be or have been, you gotta be responsible and aware of your surroundings and not disturb the peace and such. I know there will always be people who like to go on edge or over the edge having fun, but that's just something I don't (and hopefully never will) do.

Clarence Wheeler and the Enforcers - Right on (about 2:45)

Drake needs to do exactly what he did in game 6. Be a gigantic pain in the butt hitting everything in sight, in a controlled manner, and throwing the opponent of his game without taking too many penalties. He played nuts last game, in a good way.

While I disagree with you about Nashville not being a good team, given their firesale et al they had to be pretty solid to even make the playoffs, but you are spot on 100% about everything else I think. Definitely not a media conspiracy, it's only a conspiracy if you want to it to be or just want to find reasons to be upset that other people aren't stroking the Red Wings egos. Even if some people might be doubting the Wings more than some are favoring them, I really don't care what they have to say that badly. It doesn't have any outcome on the result of the games. It's just extra stuff that I pay minimal attention to just to learn about the basics, etc.

My unscientific, uneducated MVPs of the series... (1) Datsyuk - Even if he didn't score, he created plenty (2) Lidstrom - Consistently was himself which 99.9% of the time is damned good (3) Hudler - Showed he has the capability and fortunately put it to good use for most of this series (4) Osgood - Camly came in when the team was reeling and showed why he's been one of the better goalies in the league this year even when splitting time (5) Franzen - Seemed to disappear in the middle of the series but has still shown his confidence offensively this series by shooting more

Who cares about them? The Wings were fortunate in a few ways certainly, especially the first goal. You have to be fortunately and lucky in any series, but the Wings more than showed they were good enough to capitalize on some luck. It is wasted effort to get worked up about news stories or broadcasters, or lack of respect issues or whatever else. Let them write about their stories gracefully and let them be. None of this changes the fact that the Wings were both lucky AND good enough to advance. Just enjoy that they are still playing.

No.

No poison picking. We were all tickled like crazy to face Edmonton in the first round of 2006 because they played a "similar" game to ours. Well look what happened... Seeding, at least in terms of the talent level or capability of the teams, means very little anymore. It doesn't matter if you are seeded 1st, 8th, or 50th. No matchup is going to be a walk in the park. I don't care if it is Calgary, Colorado, or District-5. I don't care who they play.

I hear nobody in here admitting he was right at least when the "goaltending controversy" apparently came true like he was predicting (please for the love of god no goaltending debates, I like both goalies equally). Everybody was all over his behind saying there would be no controversy in terms of who was starting at least. Well look what happened... I do not understand why people care so much about what he has to say and get so worked up with what he says. There's a mute button on the TV if he's that torturous to listen to. And no, I don't care one way or the other what he or any other broadcasters have to say during games or about the Red Wings, etc.

Remember, it's these people's jobs to create some controversy, take it for what it's worth. That being said, I strongly disagree. Some shots the goalie just has little/no chance on. Nashville executed the empty net sequence of plays pretty flawlessly. Give them credit when it is due.

Nice! Seriously though, and this is not just because I'm Catholic. I definitely love my hockey, but understand why they are doing this, even though I would hate for it to happen if I lived in New York broadcasting over. It's the Pope, the most definied current-day religious figure of their religion, so I think it should be honored/broadcasted properly.

I think you mean church and state. Or goverment and religion. Or.............heck I dunno.

Just saw this on NHL Network this morning actually, haven't read responses on this thread. I haven't really paid much attention to this series in terms of press coverage or Avery starting controverisal crap to media outlets. I saw the unorthodox way he screened Brodeur a few games ago (please let us not get into the legality of it or whether it will embarass the NHL, I don't care). There's no denying he was a huge factor, in a good way, for the Rangers this series. I'll be glad to listen to responses and maybe somebody can change my mode of thinking, but I think that's bad of Brodeur not to shake is hand. I know Avery's a loose cannon sometimes, but I don't think he was really a "troublemaker" off the ice lately, he didn't do anything chickens**t like Lemieux did to Draper where Ciccarelli said he didn't want to shake his hand, etc.