betterREDthandead

Another hustle goal from Flip. That's how he does it.

They probably are. The Joe has no boxes or suites between the upper and lower deck. Most arenas do, and the cameras always go at the bottom of the upper deck.

Y'know, I dunno why they make Fraser wear that helmet. All that hairspray surely must have qualified as a helmet.

We are LUCKY to have this lead. And by "lucky" I mean, "OZZIE! OZZIE!" The man's stood on his head so far, and the Wings have looked like ass. Thank God Datsyuk can make any pass, any time, anywhere.

Or, how about it's not a title to be given out willy-nilly by sportswriters who fancy themselves crowners of kings? How 'bout it's ours because we say it's ours, because we thought of the idea (OK, by we I mean the Wings and their marketing department) and because of everything the Wings have achieved?

I don't despise the idea, but you're right - it's not the brightest move for non-traditional markets that aren't selling out their games and trying to scratch and claw for any fans they can get. It'd be smarter if they could guarantee a sellout at the regular prices.

We had this discussion when Phoenix did the same thing. And I have to ask: Why exactly is the Nashville organization a bunch of assholes for doing that? It's the highest form of compliment is what it is. A Wings game is more valuable than any other team in the league. If you take it as an insult, you're actively looking for disrespect. Now, that's not to say that this isn't also colossally stupid. If they're trying to meet a threshold of average attendance, artificially lowering it for their biggest draw of the year is dumb, dumb, dumb. Unless they're actively trying to sabotage the lease.

Two things: One, do you know what the difference is between hitting .250 (roughly Inge's career average as a third baseman) and .235 (roughly what he hit last year)? Nine hits. Nine. Less than one hit every other week. So it's fairly irrational to hate him for hitting .236 if you can tolerate .250. Two, I'm not exaggerating when I say Cabrera is absolutely brutal with the glove. His 23 errors were tied for second-worst in the league. He fielded just over 71% of balls in his "zone", worse than all but one. League average is about 77%. And his range factor is well below average as well. Sometimes things like fielding percentage are misleading, but there isn't a single fielding metric that won't tell you Cabrera is a bottom-of-the-barrel fielder. Cabrera's a fantastic hitter and I love having him in the lineup. And he'll provide the Tigers more runs than he'll give up with his glove, obviously. But don't kid yourself thinking he's a passable fielder. He's not.

Small correction. There's 12 pages of a huge majority defending Hasek against one or two individuals who insist it was a dirty play. Oh, and a small goalie war. It wouldn't be a thread about Hasek without someone going "Ozzie's better!" And vice versa.

Which is still a higher seeding than NWMSU. The NCAA must be the only institution that hands home-field advantage to the underdog.

So he can start. Oh, and you can't trade draft picks in baseball. Best guess: A middle reliever with a pulse and a B-level prospect is what we'll get.

Don't kid yourself. Cabrera has one of the worst gloves in either league. He has the range of an oak tree. It's really obnoxious, this hangup on Inge that you have. For god's sake shut it. Inge is one of the hardest-working guys in the game and has one of the best attitudes, too. What did he do, step on your puppy? .236 (in ONE season - remember hit .253 in '06 and .261 in '05) can't be the only reason you hate him. Out with it, why are you so irrational about Brandon Inge?

I think that's dead on. They're called a puck-possession team, same as they have been since forever. It's different now though. They used to be brilliant at playing keep-away. They don't do that as much - now they're a puck-possession team because they know how to go get it. They're on all the loose pucks and they're good at taking it away. That's grit and it's a much better way to win because it doesn't require perfection at every turn.

So what if Hasek chose to take out Gaborik? We call that game "hockey". You can hit other players. Pretty neat stuff. If you're saying Hasek didn't intend to hurt Gaborik, then what's your beef?

Again: Hockeytown isn't about 90% attendance at the arena instead of 100%. It's about everything the Wings have accomplished. And if Pistons' tickets do in fact cost more on average than the Wings (I'll take your word for it because I don't feel like looking it up) it's skewed by the courtside seats that sit on top of where the rink would be. God those things are expensive. You get food service right there at your seat off a menu like you were at a restaurant. Plus the Palace has more suites and boxes.

"officially"....why, because some douchenozzle writer thinks so?

What other direction? He slid straight into Gaborik, so that would imply, the only "other" direction is away from him. What's he supposed to do, make a precision surgical strike on the puck? Hasek didn't choose to take out Gaborik, he chose to put as much of himself between the puck and the goal as possible, rather than dance around trying to make some fancypants play 30 feet from the net. Oh, he was settling the puck down. Well, that changes everything. Really, chap, how truly unsporting. I say, what kind of barbaric competition would allow someone to get hit while they don't have the puck entirely settled? Come, guv, let us retire to the croquet grounds for a spot of tea.

Can't argue with the facts. Excellent post.

Get used to it. He's good for another 16 years, minimum. And me, I don't get tired of it. Crosby is a once-in-a-generation talent. He's hockey's LeBron James, only better.

Well, someone said it earlier in the thread....how interesting that the marketing slogan was so damn successful people now think it's a title to be won or lost. It's a title, true enough, and there have always been pretenders and wanna-bes, but it's not going anywhere. Remember Raleigh calling themselves the New Hockeytown in 2002? Yeah, that lasted. In another thread I wrote a whole blazing long list of stuff that makes the Wings elite. Soon as M-SP catches up to all that stuff, they can try and be Hockeytown. Til then, it has nothing to do with a couple hundred extra fannies in the seats. The proper response to someone else claiming they're now Hockeytown USA is to stick a Cup ring on each finger and laugh in their faces. Might be arrogant-sounding, but we didn't start it by making outrageous claims on someone else's marketing slogan.

Greg Schiano has interviewed for the Michigan job. He may get it. If that happens, I'd be thrilled. Possibly even a better hire than one Leslie E. Miles.

You know, DD deserves mountains and mountains of credit for the Tigers, as does Jim Leyland. It really does start with Ilitch though. For years he was criticized because the Tigers were bad and he wasn't really doing much about it. Turns out the criticism was justified, because it seems like he woke up one day, decided, "I want a good baseball team," and made it happen. Just like that.

Decade schmecade. More like two. Starting work on #3. Guess who won the Norris Division 20 years ago, in 1987-88? Consider.... The Wings have appeared in the playoffs every year but one since 1987 and are working on a 16-season streak in that regard. That's six more than the #2 and #3 teams and 12 more than #4. This is the longest current streak of any North American team in any sport. No end in sight on that one. 3 Stanley Cups and 4 Finals appearances. All-time record holder for points in a season. 5 President's Trophies. (No other team has won more than 2.) 13 division titles. The Wings are the last team to successfully defend the Stanley Cup. Mr. Hockey is a Red Wing. The Captain is a Red Wing. Just think about those nicknames for a minute and what they mean. The Wings can claim a worldwide following of fans unmatched by any team in the league. And they have a tradition - Winged Wheel, legendary players, legendary names, the octopus, and 10 Cups - as great as any that can't even be considered by the vast majority of the league. What this means is..... [arrogance] The Red Wings are the premier hockey club in the entire world. Period. And they play, right here, in our own city of Detroit. Not New York, or Toronto, or Paris, London, Moscow or Rome. It's why we are Hockeytown, and the rest of the world is not. Doesn't have anything to do with having 90% capacity instead of 100% at the arena. [/arrogance] It's nice to reflect on that every once in a while for some perspective, especially before bitching OMG why aren't the line combos different?

Friday: Washington @ New Jersey NY Rangers @ Atlanta NY Islanders @ Florida Minnesota @ Detroit Anaheim @ Chicago Ottawa @ Dallas Philadelphia @ Colorado St Louis @ Edmonton San Jose @ Phoenix Saturday: Boston @ Toronto Carolina @ Montreal Atlanta @ Washington Minnesota @ Columbus NY Islanders @ Tampa Bay Anaheim @ Nashville Pittsburgh @ Vancouver Phoenix @ Los Angeles Buffalo @ San Jose Sunday: New Jersey @ NY Rangers Carolina @ Detroit Calgary @ Chicago St Louis @ Colorado

Just think: Two years ago at this time, the Tigers still had not had a winning season since 1993 and were only two years removed from a historically awful run. Now they have a pennant under their belt and are being described as a superpower, a label that's been pretty much reserved for just two teams. I still haven't gotten used to the Tigers being a team that everyone is chasing.