betterREDthandead

Sorry. Don't take the following rant personally. That said..... I've said it before and I'll say it til I'm blue in the face: f*** a playoff. I find the idea of a playoff system in college football to be easily one of the most the most abhorrent things that could happen to the sport. I despise Terry Bowden and other writers of his ilk who arrogantly presuppose that every fan is just bawling for a playoff and a couple greedy haters who run the show are the only thing in the way. I would rather find out that USC was paying each of its players a million bucks than find out a playoff system was being instituted. I would rather have South Florida or Middle Tennessee State rise up and win the next twelve national championships than institute a playoff. Anything beyond the "plus-one" idea absolutely sickens me.

One thing that bugs me.... Hasek is a 40+ year old goalie, who's been playing net for a long, long time and doing it better than almost anyone who ever did it. The notion that he needs to "get his head on straight" is pretty lame. He's not some wide-eyed 19-year-old kid who's suddenly realizing how fast those NHL slap shots reach the net. Any problems with Dom are entirely related to the fact that he's 40+ years old. I love Ozzie to death. He's as loyal a Red Wing as you'll ever find and I have total confidence in his ability in net. But that's Dominik. Friggin. Hasek we're talking about. I think the guy with more Vezinas than Carter has liver pills should be the starter and should have the benefit of the doubt as to whether his mental state is up to the task.

Getting to be a bit cluttered with all the different threads on blackouts. Now merged into one nice clean thread. Carry on.

So that's where J.S. Aubin ended up. It's been a while since I heard that name last. L.A. truly is the depths of suckitude if they dragged that name out of the weeds.

It's quite possible the Flyers did that so they would be able to send him to the AHL if they needed to. He's almost guaranteed to clear, after all - who's gonna claim a guy they won't get til December?

I disagree that computer rankings higher than human polls automatically equals underrated. I'll be the first to tell you that Virginia is NOT the 14th best team in the country, even though the computers say we are. Take a look at our schedule and how we've performed - blowout loss to Wyoming, unimpressive win over Duke, barely squeaking past UNC, GT, UConn, and worst of all, Middle Tennessee. Only one truly impressive win, the 44-14 shellacking of Pitt. Frankly I think the human polls that put UVA 24th are just about right on. We're 6-1 and you can't really make a strong case for the teams below us, but we've still got to show it on the field that we belong.

I note with delight that Lilja is represented in the lineup by his preferred nickname of PAIN TRAIN. I request the same treatment for Pronger and humbly suggest WHINY *****.

I kind of get the best of both worlds as a Michigan fan and UVA fan In a way it's harder to be a fan of a run-of-the-mill average big-conference team like Purdue and UVA than a mid-major, non-BCS type team. You're expected to beat all those small-time schools like rag dolls the same way a Michigan or a Florida State would, but it doesn't work that way. Case in point 1: My first year at UVA we made the basketball tournament for the first time in ages, drew the cursed #5 seed and Gonzaga, and the whole school went "oh f#ck." Cause you knew what would happen. Gonzaga had already made the Sweet Sixteen twice and the Elite Eight once and knocked off two #2 seeds. Sure enough, they beat us on a last-second play and everyone talked about what a great upset, those plucky Zags did it again, knocked off an ACC powerhouse, blah blah blah. And meanwhile we're all going, it took us like five or six years just to get back here, those guys made the Sweet Sixteen for the third time in a row, who exactly upset who here? Case in point 2: A little bit later, I'm watching Illinois at Southern Miss in football, and Illinois had just gone to the Sugar Bowl the year before, but it's freaking Illinois for chrissakes. And they lost at Southern Miss, well on the road back to being the Illinois we all know. And the announcers in this game are talking about what a great thing for this little program to knock off a Big Ten power, and all I can think is, do you even watch Big Ten football? To be a UVA fan is to tell half the fans in the conference, "Just you wait til basketball season" and the other half, "Just you wait til football season."

I think this will be a short thread. I for one think Lilja is doing fine, and we don't need Markov. The defense is rock solid. The offense needs more attention than the defense, because there still isn't a truly consistent scoring threat outside the top line.

Totally random tidbit. They just showed the Kings' retired numbers banners on TV: Dionne, Taylor, Vachon, Gretzky, Robitaille. Anyone notice that 3 of those 5 were also Wings?

I have heard some pretty bad things about Texas Tech fans. I suppose I at least owe an explanation as to why I think MSU fans as a group are pretty awful. You know how you say the less affiliation a Michigan fan has with the school, the more likely they are to be obnoxious? Same goes for MSU fans. You who went to the school are being given a bad name by those who only root for MSU for the sake of hating Michigan. The type that doesn't care if MSU loses, because they expect it, just as long as UM does too. Instead of flying an S flag and a Go State bumper sticker, they sport t-shirts that say, "The REAL University of Michigan", "U Call It Maize We Call It Corn," etc. I've never really had the pleasure of interacting with Wisconsin fans, although I always did think it was pretty stupid how the ESPN types made a big deal of what an awesome tradition Wisconsin had about jumping up and down to that stupid song. Despite the fact that the tradition can't have been five years old when we first heard about it. But I stand by what I say about Maryland fans. Went to the Purdue/Maryland bowl game last year and every single one of those people, no matter where we were, airport, hotel, parking lot, stands, street, you name it, they wanted to start something.

Aaron Ward?!?!?! now that's a blast from the past. I think the funniest thing is how the announcer is all loving it that Joe Thornton is the hero against the team that traded him.....and then Marco Sturm sets up the game-winner.

ARGH. Decisions decisions. Next week, same day same time, I've got Michigan-Illinois on ABC and Virginia-Maryland on ESPN2. What to do what to do what to do??? panic panic panic oh wait.... :idea: TIVO BABY. Actually even without Tivo the choice would be pretty clear. I've watched Michigan play Oregon, Notre Dame, and Penn State and haven't seen a single snap of UVA football all year unless you count highlights. Illinois is not a rivalry game either. Maryland is HUGE. We HATE Maryland. I think Maryland fans are the absolute worst fans in the country, even worse than FSU or MSU fans (sorry fellas.)

That's what I meant. So maybe one less marble.

One undefeated down. UVA knocked off UConn, but that sure was an ugly, unimpressive win. (Make it two - LSU just got stuffed. Why can't this sort of thing happen to Ohio State?) Wisconsin, Illinois, and FSU all lost, so I think this'll translate into a top-25 ranking for UVA.....but we really need to show more than we have. Starting to feel a lot better about Michigan, though. Crossing my fingers, maybe the OSU game will be for all the marbles again.

As I've said before, I like the Rockies, so I'm liking them being up 2-0. I'd have preferred the old-school matchups between perennial losers Phillies and Cubs, but the Rockies are cool, they've been in the league I think 15 years now. That's about as long as the Jays had been in when they won the Series. As for the Indians, my dislike for them is pretty mild and doesn't extend past the regular season. On the other hand I hate the Red Sox almost as much as the Yankees. So I'm definitely pulling for a Cleveland-Colorado Series.

Against the forum guidelines. We'd have banned their asses

I still think nothing can top the time Texas A&M fans learned the school president had been posting for quite some time on the Aggie fan site and revealed himself upon his appointment as Secretary of Defense. Difficult to beat that one.

I thought you didn't like personal insults.

Like I said before: Kronwall should be at the point now where he is expected to bring his partner up to a higher level of play, not be needing a better partner to raise his own play.

I see you're in Holly, so what you say makes sense from where you are. But I got news for ya - most people consider Auburn Hills the boondocks. Let alone Holly. The Palace is not in a "great suburban location", it's a solid 45 minutes from most people. Downtown is closer to a lot more people than Auburn Hills is.

I really don't think you can expect the defenseman to cancel both the pass and the shot. Lebda did his job there. Ozzie needed to trust Lebda to stop the pass - he didn't, he was cheating over to the wrong side and wasn't in position to react to the deke. I don't think Lebda's exactly outplaying Kronwall, but Lebda hasn't had a high-profile mistake that led to a goal like Kronwall did. Unfortunately, Kronwall is prone to those and he needs to fix them.

Congrats on that, I guess. So, if Denver doesn't have a lousy economy to blame, what's the Avs' excuse for ending theirs?

Kronwall's a first round draft pick, he shouldn't need to be paired with Lidstrom or Rafalski to succeed. We should be pairing Lebda with Kronwall in order to help Lebda succeed, but that's not how it's working out. I appreciate his willingness to lay a check. I don't appreciate the own-zone giveaways. And he still hasn't shown that offensive production we keep hearing about.

We already know Lilja doesn't read the boards. Otherwise Matt would have been sued along time ago for enabling libel.