C-TownWing

No issues here, I like Wesley and it's not my team anyway, they can do what they want with it. I still think it's kind of funny though. Wesley, Adam Graves, even Doug Gilmour to an extent (Has anyone ever gotten so much love for getting to the conference finals? He basically got his number honored because of one season.), the latter two of those being Original Six teams. Yet you get blasted by some around here for mentioning Shanahan, Fedorov or Osgood in that capacity.

IIRC, we got him in the trade better known for Brendan Shanahan. Primeau and Coffey, of course, went to the Whalers. Edit: I looked up this trade, and I guess the Whalers also got a draft pick, which ended up being Nikos Tselios, Cheli's cousin. As long as we're going with some old guys, I'll drop Fred Glover, just because he's a minor league legend, most notably with my hometown Cleveland Barons--the all-time AHL scoring leader at the time he retired. 61 regular season and 8 playoff games with the Wings from 1948-1952, although I read somewhere once that he was pretty resentful towards Jack Adams for not getting what he saw as a fair shot.

Us is perfectly acceptable to me as a fan--you've invested emotions, and more importantly, money into the team, why not? You're part of it. Maybe not as big of a part as Pavel Datsyuk, but still a part nonetheless. No, what really gives me the redass is people saying "we" when we're winning and "they" when we're losing. As far as the hating teams that win thing...I'm a Wings fan, so I'll have to go outside of hockey. I'm a Browns fan as well, and I can tell you that I don't hate the Pittsburgh Steelers. Why hate someone *just* because they kick your ass all the time? Are they supposed to quit trying just to give my team a chance once in a while? How about taking some accountability for not being on their level? If there are other reasons, fine, but hating a team just because they're good is stupid.

Ryan Barnes, forever immortalized by RyanBarnes! How could I forget him?

I couldn't forget him as a Wing since he was pretty much my favorite non-Wing ever before he was with us (see avatar). Scored his 500th with us too. He's borderline (probably won't get it) as it is, but he'd be a sure-fire HOF if he didn't spend most of his prime with the Whalers. It's pretty much all been said by now, but Wendel Clark, Ulf Samuelsson, Bill Ranford immediately came to mind for me--remember how we loaded up with those guys (plus Cheli) at the deadline in 1999? We were mortal locks to three-peat, right up until goaltending issues caught up with us in the Colorado series. I'll man up and admit that I thought getting Kyle Calder was a great move. Agree with eva and others, WTF is anyone doing naming guys like Ogrodnick, Kozlov, Burr? I don't even go back far enough as a hockey fan to have seen Ogrodnick or Burr, but understand that they were key contributors for several years to their respective Wings teams.

He just got cut in my fantasy league for Lucic. Pretty much a no-brainer, but I like how the owner didn't feel the need to replace him with a defenseman.

Wow, he somehow managed to come up with $2000 for that shot, I'm impressed. Of course, the Jackets are treating this steaming pile of mediocre like a freaking Norris finalist--he's the 3rd highest-paid player on the team at $4.3 million, trailing only Nash and Huselius and 2nd in ice time behind Tyutin. Columbus-Detroit "rivalry." Good one. The scary part is that it actually is in their minds.

OP absolutely nailed it. The problem's even worse than 21% to me because of the economy--as a general rule, TV ratings go up when the economy sucks. Free entertainment. I think you could even extend it to hockey's popularity in the US--quite simply, there are too many long, hard-to-pronounce names, and hey, if the US isn't the best at it, then it must not be that important. Or so goes the logic of most people. In this context, it's no surprise that football's the most popular major team sport in America, with baseball and basketball next (some foreign influence, but still mostly American), and hockey and soccer (sports the US isn't close to the best in the world at) are last. My only point of disagreement is that I prefer the European style and wouldn't trade our game for the Bruins' in a billion years, but I realize I'm in a tiny minority of North Americans on that one.

I'm in. Like I've said, people act like there's a way to "fix" the ASG, to make it a tight-checking, competitive game, to make players want to go, to make us want to watch. There isn't. We've tried NA vs. World to capitalize on the Olympics and the global nature of our game. We've tried adding YoungStars to showcase up-and-comers. We've now tried forcing players to show up. We've even held it in conjunction with the centennial of hockey's most storied franchise in front of hockey's greatest fans (just IMO, sorry guys, but come on, they cheer a good dump in for f's sake). The game still sucks, period. My only hesitation is that I like the outdoor game on 1/1, just because it's quickly becoming known as something that happens on that day every year, and that of course builds the brand of the game up. Of course, the Rose Bowl's been mentioned as a venue by some. I don't know why, I'm pretty sure it's occupado on or around 1/1 every year. But moving it to "all star weekend" would make it available for Ducks-Kings or something like that, which would be pretty cool.

It's because we are the Hockeytown.

Quit reminding me--I'm on record as saying that the second Nick retires or shows serious decline is the second the Wings become just another decent team. I hope I'm wrong, but there are plenty of teams out there with dynamic forwards that still struggle when their stud #1 D is hurt (Pittsburgh) or in decline (Anaheim). And Lids is the stud #1 D of the stud #1 Ds, if that makes any sense. Anyway, to answer the question, I hope not, since it's pretty damn unlikely that we do. I love Mule, but Hossa is a top 10 forward in this league. And he won me a fantasy championship a couple years ago (ok, to be fair, I have Franzen this year and I'm in 1st). If you can reasonably keep a guy like that, you do it--if it comes down to one or other (as opposed to Franzen AND Hudler or Hossa or something like that), that's pretty much a no-brainer to me.

The only problem I see is that there's probably a bigger talent gap between the champs and the all-stars now, since there were only six teams back then and the talent's spread thinner now (even accounting for the Euros). The thing is, the all-star game in pretty much every sport is a joke, and no amount of tinkering is likely to change that. We probably ought to accept it for what it is (I've never understood why we hockey fans go through so much more hand-wringing over the ASG than fans in other sports), or get rid of it altogether--give the whole league the week off. I'd be fine with it. Even going back to when I was a kid, I always liked the skills competition better. Al Iafrate had a decent career, but he's a legend in my mind because of the hardest shot thing. So another suggestion would be to make it the centerpiece of the weekend. Maybe toss in an oldtimers game, because that's a hell of lot more entertaining than the YoungStars. Even this year, what was the most talked about thing from the weekend? Ovechkin's costume. The players look like they genuinely have fun with it, which makes it entertaining to watch, unlike the game.

I voted yes, but am now qualifying that by saying that it would probably work better to do the AHL thing: PlanetUSA vs. Canada. Last I checked, the NHL is pretty much 50-50 with Canadians vs. non-Canadians, so that makes sense to me.

I'm not even sure which one fits here: a. He showed up in Montreal and is therefore allowed to play, or b. His injury, much like Dats and Lids, won't keep him from playing in a game that counts but wasn't worth aggravating in the ASG. Can one of the more "enlightened" among us explain the big deal here? I'm officially done caring about this issue until we lose home ice to San Jose by a point or on a tiebreaker. Back to NHL Network, and that commercial where the guy builds boards around his TV to watch the Penguins beat us for the Cup last year...on second thought, maybe I'll read a book.

I was just thinking that. My last jersey purchase (other than the avatar one, which I've just been informed is en route) was a white Datsyuk with the Stanley Cup patch. I chose him over Z specifically because of their contract situations (I might've gotten Datsyuk anyway, but it made the decision easy). For $400, I need to be damn sure before I get one.

For realsies. I'll take the point under those circumstances, and considering it's the game Columbus was circling as the beginning of their playoff push. Can't wait until Burkie poaches Nash to TO though. Get him out of our division/conference.

For real...my last thought before hearing about this was a re-think of the whole Hossa vs. Zetterberg issue. Yikes.

Thanks for nutting up and saying this, therefore making it easy to say that I agree. I listened to him on XM from Montreal on Friday and was very impressed with his level of insight into and passion for the game. Previously, I had been biased by popular opinion and his ill-fated stint coaching the Whalers. That said, the gust of wind comment was pure idiocy, but that's really my only complaint about the guy at the moment.

Lidstrom and Datsyuk not showing up put Marleau and Robidas on the team. Fan voting put Giguere and Niedermayer on the team. Pretty obvious to me which one cheats the fans, league, sponsors, etc. more. The best FU to Bettman would be to win tonight (made more difficult by the fact that Mason's not suspended for skipping the YoungStars game), making the suspensions irrelevant and the "penalty" a restful 2 points.

Millionth time? I've never heard it before, but I actually really like this idea--the biggest problem right now is that Western Conference teams go across all four time zones (with NHL teams) for the in-conference games (the vast majority), while Eastern Conference teams stay in the same one. This would eliminate that and make everyone travel a lot, although that obviously drives costs up too. Only thing is that I tried to split it out... South: Southeast Division, Pacific Division, COL, STL, NSH, CLS = 14 teams North: Canadian teams, Atlantic Division, MIN, BOS, BUF = 14 teams The two left? The Wings and Hawks. I don't want to split us up from our traditional rival, especially now that they're getting good. And I also don't want us in the South, I want to be with the rest of the Original Six, the other Canadian teams, etc. So you'd have to move someone from the North, but I consider everyone there to be a solid northern city. Maybe the Isles don't get the arena done, move to KC and make this easy. Of course, maybe the Coyotes move back to Winnipeg and make it even harder. There's probably not a way to do it without pissing off at least one team. But anyway, major to Vancouver for blaming travel for their sucktitude. Has absolutely nothing to do with counting on a career point-per-game player to be freaking Gretzky and singlehandedly elevate you from mediocrity. Nothing at all...

I love it when guys try to win with their brains, so good for this kid! As far as whether it works or not...well, to me, if it tricks someone just once it's probably worth it, and it probably has. Agree with what seems like the consensus though--if you're in close enough for them to work, you're probably basing your shot placement more on where you think the goalie isn't than what you actually see.

While the part about 8 seeds is true, seeding is what forced Dallas to go through Anaheim and San Jose last year while we got to destroy injury-decimated Colorado in the second round, and I think that ultimately helped us once the WCF started. Sure there are plenty of cases where teams overcame a seeding disadvantage, but I'll take everything I can get. That said, as long as we're 1 or 2, I don't care about losing out on the President's Trophy or the #1 seed in the west. The only reason I even care about the division is because losing it would mean we're the 4th seed.

You're absolutely right...for whatever reason, I remembered him mostly giving beatdowns of middleweights (probably skewed by the memory of Laperriere). I went back, checked the record, and he represented well against guys like Parros and Shelley. So I officially retract that comment, but point out that it wasn't an integral part of what I was saying

This seems to be lost a lot of the time...these west coast trips, whether the Canadian or US version, are brutal, and we were playing our 3rd in 4 nights, one of which was against an equally physical Anaheim team. Not to mention the fact that they wanted this game more--their home streak had just been ended, people were starting to talk about them being pretenders again (in part because of our last game with them)--it was a statement game to them. Anyway, to me, true toughness is going out and playing your game despite what the other team does, it's not shoving and facewashes after the whistle or having a guy waste a roster spot to skate for two shifts and take 5 PIMs. We have tough up and down our roster--the book on us for a few years now says to be physical, teams do it, and we still play a composed game (and win) the vast majority of the time. Take their cheap shot, score on the PP. Don't give one back and play 4-on-4. Like it or not, that's Red Wings hockey and when we execute it, we're damn tough to beat. Downey? For real? Nice guy, crappy hockey player. Also a crappy enforcer if nobody noticed. All of that said, I'd like to see Helm and Abdelkader soon. Just because I don't believe in enforcers doesn't mean I don't believe in a couple good shift disturbers who can make something happen on the other end once in a while too.

Make it happen Kenny! Just kidding, hell no.