Barrie

What? Come again? Always getting injured? He missed the end of last season, but played in the playoffs, and may miss about 4 games so far this year. That's not always getting injured. Not to may players play all 82 games.

Oh well, it's like that with every team and every city. Now the blue collar fans have a better chance at getting Wings tickets instead of the corporate folk. Plus the Tigers, Pistons, and Lions have created a lot of buzz in the city as well. There's many factors involved, not just the lack of Cups. Also, interest in the NHL is down across to board. The Salary Cap and the new rules aren't as great as Bettman and the owners were saying they'd be.

I'll be there next Wednesday (Jan 2nd) vs. Dallas.

Check out what was in my local city paper, Burlington Post. You gotta love Kris Draper! http://www.burlingtonpost.com/sports/article/144926 The Burlington Q.B.'s Sports atom AA rep hockey Eagles got the chance to meet some members of the Detroit Red Wings during a tournament they competed in recently. The Eagles were 2-1-1 in the Big Bear Firebolt tournament in Ann Arbor, Mich., winning the consolation title with a 9-0 victory over the Wayne Firebirds. Prior to the tournament, the Eagles attended a Red Wings practice at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, with Detroit forward Kris Draper giving the players a tour of the Red Wing dressing room and signing autographs. Later that day, they watched the Red Wings defeat Minnesota Wild 5-0. Getting the Eagles goals in the consolation final were Wyatt Hicken, Nick Gambarotto and Zach Anderson with two each and Jack Davis, Mark DaCosta and Angelo Cutaia with singles. Goaltenders Fraser Kirk and Connor MacDonald both recorded shutouts in the tournament. The Eagles also tied the Grosse Pointe Bulldogs 2-2, lost to the Humber Valley Sharks 2-1 and beat the Wayne Firebirds 7-0 in earlier games. FYI, Burlington Ontario is 45 minutes Sourth West of Toronto. I'm happy to see a AA rep Hockey team from my city go down and have an experience like that. I'm sure it created a few new Wings fans.

I've never been a big Sammy fan either, but getting rid of him, and getting something decent in return, is probably easier said then done. We're probably stuck with him until his contract expires.

Hasek would fall down before the fight started anyway.

Yea I googled it too, but didn't use the correct key words. I put "Yzerman Bad Knee", I should have put "Surgery" in there too. Anyway, thanks, and yea that's cool I made the first page on google.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, I'm going to a Christmas Banquet tonight where this year we're dressing up like a Super Hero. Instead of a Super Hero, I'm going as "The Captain'. I got the Jersey, and cap, and a knee brace ready to go. I was thinking of getting crutches, but thought, "nah, I'll have to carry them around all night". Anyway, just double checking which knee Yzerman had to have repaired after the 2002 Stanley Cup. It was his right one, correct? There will be pics for sure, so I'll post one or two here and the lgw Facebook Group page too. Edit: Oh, I should mention, a few weeks ago I tore a tendon in my left middle finger, so if there's a pic to post, you'll probably notice me wearing a splint. FYI, that's not a fake Yzerman injury, that's a real Barrie one.

Or Datsyuk didn't get called for a penalty late in the 3rd.

I got to wonder if Bettman, the lack of fighting, the salary cap, the continual and threat of rule changes, the unbalanced schedule, etc. is turning people off from the game. I would think with the majority of the talent spread out and average teams, there isn't that buzz anymore when teams come to town. Despite losing, I'm sure it created interest in cities like Columbus when big bad teams like Detroit, Dallas, Colorado, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Boston, Montreal, Philly, etc. were playing the Blue Jackets. Now besides Ottawa and Detroit, every team is the same. Even the Wings, eventhough we're winning, the buzz isn't there anymore.

http://msn.foxsports.com/id/7547552 I found the complete list.

Haha! Good one Lou!

Agreed. Mostly we get North Americans from trades, FA's, etc.. For fan interest sake, the team could use a couple more guys like Cleary, but they are hard to find.

Boston, like Detroit, is an excellent sports town. All the major sports are well supported.

I'm not a Yankee fan, but if you read the names in the report, only Clemens actully used something before 2000. All the rest started after the 2000 Championship. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3153646

Honestly I'm not surprised with the names on the list. Actually I was mostly surprised it was only 90 or so mentioned. However I think Mitchell only scratched the surface with names. I'm sure atleast 50% of the league was on something since MLB wasn't properly testing the players. Also, I'm willing to bet there's players in the other 3 sports who are on something. Some steroids can't be found, like the water based one Mitchell was talking about. I like how the report was presented. Mitchell was very classy at the press conference, and I agreed with him on most of his points and recomendations. I too have thought this was a problem created by Selig, the Owners, Trainers, and the Players. All are guilty in what has gone on. Players are always looking for a competitive edge, and if the Owners didn't properly test the players, then what did they expect would happen? Obviously players are going to try it and the owners enjoyed the extra revenue and fan interest being generated by the offensive numbers that were being put up. I also agree the best thing to do is clean up the game and move on. I don't think it's fair to start taking records, trophies, and Hall of Fame votes away from players, because we are unaware of how wide spead the use of performance enhancing drugs was. Most of it is just here say and only 90 or so players have been mentioned. I think it'll take about 50 years to find out who all was on them. However, I'm not naive, I know the media and a lot of fans are going to go on and on about this for years, but it should just be cleaned up and moved on. I've been a Baseball fan and a Tigers fans since I was 6 years old, and my love of the game hasn't changed one bit. Despite what's been going on, and all the bad press the game is getting, I can't wait for the 2008 season to start.

Even when the Wings-Avs rivarly was in full force, the games against the Leafs were as much fun as the ones against the Avs.

Yup, Bettman's a puppet for the Owners and they love him. IF Bettman stepped down, they'd get someone almost exactly the same.

You guys need to tape stuff. I have it on old school VHS.

The dull schedule and the Salary Cap has had a negative effect here in Hockeytown too. I'm enjoying the winning, but sometimes winning isn't everything, if you know what I mean. You need a little flash and flair to go along with it when trying to sell tickets. The teams we had from 1995-2006 had it all when it came to entertainment (winning, flash, flair). I don't think we'll ever see that again, or for a very long time. Probably prior to 95-06 it was the 1950's with Sawchuk, Howe, Lindsay, Kelly, Abel, etc..

I think there's a number of factors that have led to the decrease in Wings attendance: -The Michigan Economy -No more Yzerman, Shanahan, and McCarty -The high cost of Wings tickets compared to the other 3 teams in the city. $44 for upper bowl tickets at The Joe is to much. I refuse to pay that much. I'm happy paying $27 for SRO. -The low number of North Americans on the team. If you like the theory or not, I think the majority of North American fans relate to North American players better than Europeans. And I think it's fair to say in Europe they can relate to Europeans better than North Americans. -Expectations are to high, maybe. The last 12 years it's been Cup-or-Bust in the playoffs. We haven't won the Cup since 2002, so maybe some fans, used to seeing us win it all, have lost interest. Overall, if the Wings want to sell more tickets, I think they need to lower ticket prices, and add a few more North Americans to the team.

Sounds great to me!

I wonder how much these will cost when they're made available to the general public?

I agree with most of the comments here, so what?! Did media/fans in other markets actually lose sleep over our marketing campaign? If so, that's sad. I'm starting to wonder if people were waiting for Yzerman to retire so they could say, "haha, see you're not Hockeytown, you have some empty seats in your arena now!". I don't care if Minnesota calls themself, "The State of Hockey", I think that's clever. It's their marketing slogan, it's not something that the NHL gave them. Some people are so narrow minded, they need to look at the big picture. In Minnesota what other team is actually doing well? Currently the Timberwolfs are 2-15, Vikings are as good as the Lions (6-6), and the Twins are continuing their rollercoaster ride (losing Hunter and possibly trading Santana). The Wild are the only team actually doing something there. Compare that to the Pistons record (13-6), the Lions improvement, and the blockbuster trade the Tigers did earlier this week. 3 of our 4 major sports teams are amoung the favorites to win their Championships. There's a lot of outstanding sporting events to go too, and so what if not all 150,000 seats are sold every game. There's also another 100,000 tickets to sell in Ann Arbor. We're a blue collar town going through some tough times, give us a break. Or one of the other Minnesota teams actually does something positive. How quickly they forget this is their second crack at the NHL. The first time didn't go to well.

Wow, the lineups for Kris and Chris autographs will be huge. I dare anyone waiting in line to yell "Hey Chris/Kris" and watch them both look up.