kipwinger

Drink. More. Water.

No, you can tell they're not from Detroit because they're generalizing to a pretty large degree. The new stadium is going to be in the area behind the Fox theater and Hockeytown Cafe. Which is sort of close to the old Tiger's Stadium, in the sense that it's closer to Tiger's Stadium than it is to the Palace.

And in other news, the Miami Marlins fan just gave Cabrera a standing ovation after he was pulled from the game. Very classy move by a fan base I don't typically expect much out of.

That's what happens when real hockey players are on your fourth line, and goons are on someone else's. Good luck putting Colton Orr on the ice against Jurco and Glendening. It's the Canadian way!

Is this game televised anywhere?

There were times when Smith looked pretty bad last night, but I thought at other times he did a pretty good job of getting control of the puck and using his skating ability to calm things down and allow the team to get up ice. My biggest knock against him is his decision making, which is poor, but should come around as he matures. As such, I think this thread's a bit premature. He's been bad quite a bit in the past, and at time VERY bad. But by now that should be expected of a young defenseman on this team. I say wait and see with Smith. Give him as much time as you gave Kindl, and then go from there. Unless, of course, Sproul or Quellet somehow pass him in the depth charts in the next year or two. Which is possible, but not probable.

I like to think that Bertuzzi lifted the guy above his head, military pressed him three of four times, before sending him to the ground a la The Ultimate Warrior.

Biased how? Toward Canadian teams, or certain players, or what? I'd never suggest that he's not wrong from time to time, but I certainly don't get the impression that he has some axe to grind in favor of a particular team, conference, player, etc.

And in today's Cleary news, he's back to wearing #71 for the whole season. He had discussed switching to 15, as the kids at his hockey school had voted for that number, but now he's changing his tune. Stay tuned for more of the "Dan Cleary is the center of the Universe" show after these messages from your local sponsors.

I'm going to go on record disagreeing with you guys. It all depends on who's writing for ESPN. Lebrun is good. And I actually gained a lot of respect for Katie Strang for her coverage of the lockout. But Custance, Hradek, and Buccigross are horrible.

I don't know what you guys are talking about. Hot and Ready pizzas are awesome. You just can't hold them to a standard they're independent of. Are there better pizzas? Yes. But those are gourmet pizzas, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the type of pizza broke people and college kids buy. It's like saying Busch beer sucks because it's not as good as Guinness. Of course it isn't. It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be cheap, and get you drunk...and it does that excellently. Just like Hot and Ready pizzas are supposed to be cheap and filling. If that's the standard then they pass with flying colors.

I wonder if Chris will get around to paying all those back taxes now that he's got control of the check book?

It's not that he's not a good player or anything. And it's certainly not like he won't continue to improve. I just have a problem with teams giving big contracts to people who haven't earned them yet. s***, if you're ok with this contract, then why not sign Brunner for the 3.5 he was asking? I mean, he's only going to get better right?

Well it's probably something Winter Classic related, or something like that. I doubt seriously it's a personnel move because the Wings aren't likely to call a presser to announce a trade and shame the outgoing players like that. My guess is they'll announce tweaks to the Alumni game roster or something.

He also brutalized Scott Hartnell as well. And I LOVED that very much. What's that tough guy Scott? Wanna fight a European and show how badass you are? Right. Scott Hartnell = Phoniest "tough guy" in the NHL.

Text book example of why salaries are out of control in the NHL most of the time. Owners give him that kind of money and term based on his career 76 points in 102 games. Obviously the kid will continue to improve, and he might well be a super-fricken-star one day. But today isn't that day, and he just got HUGELY overpaid based on potential and draft position alone. Hell, Rick Nash won the Rocket Richard Trophy his second year in the league and didn't get paid like this on his next contract.

Damn shame, he's looked good so far too. Hope he steps into that kid the next go around. I keep waiting for Kindl to figure out that he's huge. Kinda like Jiri Fischer did.

Isn't Don Cherry one of their biggest fans? Case closed.

Keep dreaming! You'll get this guy and like it.

Hasn't Chris been the de facto decision maker for Ilitch Holdings for quite a while now? I know Mike and Marian write the checks, but if I'm not mistaken Chris has been the go-to guy for a few years. If so, it's basically just making the situation official in spite of the fact that it's been the reality for quite a while. Edit: Just looked it up, Chris is the President and CEO of Ilitch Holdings and has been since 2004. So I wouldn't worry too much about any changes to the way the team does business.

B-b-b-but I thought the East is a big, scary, monster that's going to steal our lunch money and fondle our women folk? I know it's a preseason game and all. But I ain't afraid of no ghost.

Yep, you totally got the point. I obviously think Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson, and Dan Cleary are all just as good as one another. Case closed Columbo. Or...I could have been making the point that keeping a known commodity over taking a gamble on guys with promise, but who are still unproven, is not always a good idea. It may have been in the Hossa/Franzen case, but time will tell whether it's a good idea to keep Cleary and Samuelsson around over "unproven" alternatives like Tatar and Nyquist.

Wasn't the case closed the other day when he said the exact same thing?

McCollum actually hasn't looked too bad, but man oh man...Subban...yeah...definitely the future in Boston.

Weiss is still learning the system, so his offense hasn't come around yet, but he's good on the faceoff, good on d, and distributing the puck well. The rest of his game will come along.