betterREDthandead

Update time. My ship is holding a Biggest Loser contest, and I am a Big Loser, so I joined Starting weight was 195.9 lbs and a 40 inch waistline. (Barf.) First weigh-in was today, and I have dropped to 194.5 and a waistline of 39.5 inches.

Duckette, we definitely hope you'll poke your head in from time to time. We take a lot of pride in keeping LGW a welcoming place for ALL hockey fans regardless of team affiliation (the well-behaved ones, anyway ) especially folks like you who are good sports. It's always good to hear news and perspectives from around the league (and world), it keeps us from insulating ourselves in a little red cocoon.

Then again, maybe the reason is something not fit for kids to hear. Or maybe it's a perfectly legit reason that he did level with his kids about. In any case your dedication to sportsmanship is admirable but you're making a lot of assumptions you have no business making. The post I agree with the most is Dabura's, however.

Throwing my support in for the Sens, now that it's official. For purely aesthetic reasons - I never had a strong liking for SoCal (OK, I can't stand the place. Sorry VIB16 ) Maybe it's time for Canada to get a Cup again. Sens in 7 - the curse of Detroit lives on and bites the Mighties for the second time.

As for tailgating, I've never seen it for Wings games. But some places that will definitely be full of Wings fans (if you don't mind hanging out amongst the enemy ) would be Hockeytown Cafe (on Woodward, easy to spot with giant hockey puck sticking out of the roof) and Cheli's Chili (near Comerica Park and also very easy to see). And I'll toss in another vote for Greektown. You can park at the casino garage (I think it's on Beaubien?) and validate parking inside the casino....and of course, there be bars, gambling and terrific Greek food. If you're the Irish pub type, the Old Shillelagh is like kitty-corner from the casino. You can get around with the People Mover (50 cents for the ride) or just walk, the Joe is not much more than a 10-minute walk from Greektown or the Hockeytown Cafe.

Hard to believe it took this long for that point to come up. If there's a Mighties fan anywhere who thinks along the lines of the thread title, they're either a moron or they've got a worse short-term memory than the guy in Memento.

So is this the end of the "u ply at GAYlord haha lolz" jokes? Gosh, I'll really miss them

Personally I think it's more just coincidence that a European captain has never won the Cup than any reflection on the leadership abilities and desire for the Cup of Europeans. As some Stone Agers would have us believe. Sure would be nice to add another one to NN's list of firsts. There wouldn't be a more deserving candidate than Lidstrom, either. Oh, and how about first European goalie to win Conn Smythe? I believe Hasek should be a front-runner for that.

Burke is a jackass, plain and simple. He was a jackass with Vancouver and he's a jackass with Anaheim. His Canuck squads were known for their goonery - it took a little while for the Canucks to shed their dirty image after he left. Marc Crawford was his coach - that says it all. The man has always condoned foul play - remember that two-bit defenseman that took out Z with a knee? Brad May's play sometimes crosses the line into thuggery (not to mention him putting a bounty on Steve Moore's head) and he's a Burke favorite. If Burke stays with Anaheim much longer, the Ducks will gain a league-wide reputation for dirty hits and thuggery, backed up by their GM.

There you go again trying to equate what Pronger did with a "big hit". That was not a "big hit". Big hits are clean and are defined as clean because they rarely result in injury. What Pronger did was headhunting, not hitting. It was much more closely related to Bertuzzi's sucker punch on Moore than any clean "big hit" such as what Scott Stevens might lay out. Dirty plays like Pronger's are what ends up hurting someone much more often than things like the small slash to Kunitz, which happen about 100 times a game, minus the broken bones. And, I don't know if this has been said, so I'll say it just in case, because it needs doing. Brian Burke is a complete jackass. He was a jackass with Vancouver and he's a jackass with Anaheim. The man loves dirty play, and it follows him wherever he goes. "Well, ahem, most of the pictures and video show that Pronger was trying to shove Holmstrom's head into the boards. But there's this one shot here where if you angle your head just right and kinda close one eye you can see that it was a clean hit, but you gotta squint cause it's like a Magic Eye." Finishing a check my ass. He doesn't even know why Pronger was suspended in the first place. There you go again trying to equate what Pronger did with a "big hit". That was not a "big hit". Big hits are clean and are defined as clean because they rarely result in injury. What Pronger did was headhunting, not hitting. It was much more closely related to Bertuzzi's sucker punch on Moore than any clean "big hit" such as what Scott Stevens might lay out. Dirty plays like Pronger's are what ends up hurting someone much more often than things like the small slash to Kunitz, which happen about 100 times a game, minus the broken bones. And, I don't know if this has been said, so I'll say it just in case, because it needs doing. Brian Burke is a complete jackass. He was a jackass with Vancouver and he's a jackass with Anaheim. The man loves dirty play, and it follows him wherever he goes. "Well, ahem, most of the pictures and video show that Pronger was trying to shove Holmstrom's head into the boards. But there's this one shot here where if you angle your head just right and kinda close one eye you can see that it was a clean hit, but you gotta squint cause it's like a Magic Eye." Finishing a check my ass. He doesn't even know why Pronger was suspended in the first place.

You Ducks fans hafta understand - this isn't the first time Pronger has tried to run our Wings and hurt them. Back in '02 when Yzerman was playing on one knee, Pronger spent two or three games zeroing in on that. It was like he was getting free candy every time he hit Stevie, and twice that if he went low. Blues fans get all worked up because it was Pronger who ended up out of the series with a knee injury, because he decided to come flying recklessly at Stevie for the 539th time in the series in a play that had nothing to do with the puck, Stevie ducked the hit and Pronger's knee went POP. A fitting end to his season. Now Pronger's at it again. In the past I've compared Pronger's style to a train wreck.....only, when he's playing the Wings, it's like he's purposely jumping the tracks to aim at the cars.

You think this'll put a stop to all those lovey-dovey stories about the Niedermayer brothers and how Scott got a Cup but Rob didn't and Scott was all sad for his brother and Rob joined the Ducks just to have a special Cup of his very own despite the fact that he clearly got the shallow end of the gene pool in the hockey department? By the way, since I'm about 2600 miles from any continent right now, would someone care to fill me in on the crowd reaction? I need to know whether or not I should be hating on Anaheim fans at the Pond

Amazing what you can do with a little perspective

Link 1 Link 2 The IIHF will be holding the Victoria Cup tournament starting in September 2008. The trophy is named for the Victoria Skating Rink in Montreal where the first recognized hockey game took place. 24 European clubs will play in a Champions League similar to that in soccer, for the right to play for the Victoria Cup. The NHL team will not necessarily be the Stanley Cup winner. 1 million Swiss francs is the prize for the winner, which is roughly $820,000.

It's my opinion that Mike Ilitch already has decided to build a new arena, but he's holding off on a public announcement until he can buy all the land he needs. When he built Comerica Park, he made the announcement real early and had to buy land at over-inflated prices and there was a big stink about which buildings were gonna get torn down - they eventually had to physically pick up and move the Gem Theatre 900 yards down the street. Way much hassle and it set the project back about a year and a half. I think Ilitch has learned from that experience and won't be announcing a new arena til ALL the land is in place. As for why the cameras are so low, it's simple: We don't have luxury suites in between the upper and lower tiers. Nearly every other arena does and so you're used to the view from above the suites. At the Joe the cameras are barely a couple feet above the SRO level. Makes for some fantastic sightlines from the upper deck though.

One nitpick: the Ducks' Thornton is Shawn, not Scott. Scott plays for the Kings. (Lot of Thorntons in the league Scott is related to Joe but Shawn is related to neither.) Shawn Thornton is never going to be depended on to score goals, but I'd really love to have him on the Wings, he plays with a lot of guts and never takes a shift off.

Please don't display your ignorance. Zion's right - I'm in the Navy. The Navy blocks YouTube, MySpace, and personal email on Yahoo and Hotmail, in order to prevent viruses from getting on the network. Slinging the hockey game through the DoD network? The idea is laughable. Zion - sadly AFN tends to give preference to basketball....and the yo-yos who always seem to get to the TV first would rather watch their 24 marathon on DVD

The Ducks have more determination? Really? I'd like to know, just how much adversity have the Ducks got through to get this far, that shows how much determination they have? All I've seen is a couple OT games against Vancouver - big whoop. In the first round the Wings had to deal with a team that resorted to cheap shots, sticks to the gut, and overall goonery.....not to mention the absolute toughest crowd on the road they could possibly have seen. Oh, and throw in some of the most magnificent goaltending in all the playoffs so far. Meanwhile the Ducks were yawning through a snoozer. In the second round, the Wings came back time and time again from two-goal deficits with absolutely clutch goals to win the crucial games. Most people that pick Anaheim are doing so on the basis of the easy time they've had so far, which has some legitimacy to it. But in the determination category, the Ducks have proved nothing. Not a thing. The only determination the Ducks can be said to have is the same motivation everyone has to win the Cup....nothing less, nothing more. The Wings have faced FAR more adversity - to say the Ducks have more determination, you've got no backup for that. As for "what Vancouver and Minnesota said"......HOOOOOOO don't make me laugh, most of you Ducks fans, and the Ducks themselves, are guilty of "that's what X and Y said" syndrome. As soon as you guys (and the team, in that stupid LA Times column) started opening your yaps about how all you had to do was be physical with the Wings and they'd fold like a newspaper, that's when we Wings fans knew you guys were scrooooooooood. Believe us, Calgary and San Jose thought so too. And yesterday's game is proof positive that that approach will not work.

Isn't it nice to be rooting for the en fuego goalie of this year's playoffs rather than run headfirst into him?

A solid percentage of them thought that the only reason they're not playing San Jose is because the Sharks collapsed and handed the Wings the series on a silver platter. If you're expecting respect from that crowd, grab a Snickers, it'll be a while. If the Ducks lose it'll be the officiating, the Ducks collapsing, the Wings getting lucky, and it'll have nothing to do with fantastic goaltending by Dom or the Wings' terrific penalty kill. Why even get worked up over it?

Two years ago HD barely existed and practically nobody had it in their homes. Now people are acting like spoiled little whiners because Vs. didn't broadcast the game in HD? Barring a Game 7, for the entire remainder of this series I'll be somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, thousands of miles from land, NOT getting Vs. I'm luckier than many, I still have Internet (if only a 128K connection from a shared satellite) and I can at least come to the computer every so often and check the score. Please spare me the whining that you were forced to watch non-HD coverage of the game.

Oh really? You don't like Bertuzzi? No way?!?

Uh....the refs are cheating because of the LA Times prediction? "Little green men in clown suits killed JFK" would be a more plausible conspiracy theory.

Only if Lidstrom's retired

Pronger, overrated? What a joke. Anyone that thinks Pronger is overrated loses their right to be taken seriously. It's pretty clear that you can't comment objectively if you think Pronger is overrated.