BlakChamber

Not to pile on the Michigan fans, but you guys paid App. State $400,000 to end your national championship hopes. I know the immediate reaction is to fire Carr, but his job can't seriously be in jeopardy, can it? I've always been under the impression that he's been around long enough he'll get to go out on his terms.

People overreacting on the interwebs? Surely you jest! I don't think the NHL should go around worrying about what Mike and Mike or NFL fans think. If people have already made up their minds that hockey sucks, billboards aren't going to change their mind one way or their other. What would you suggest in place of these billboards? They're funny and they get people talking. I'd have to imagine that's what the designers were going for.

Me thinks you're taking these ads a tad too seriously.

^^^ You and your hillbilly jokes. Where do you come up with them, they're just the cutting edge of comedy... IIRC, App. State has won the 1-AA national championship the last two years. Since most of the UM fans on this board are cool, I'm not going to say much. Other than that this weekend could turn out to be the perfect weekend of college football for me. Consider: GVSU (my undergrad alma mater) won. MSU (my law alma mater) won. Rutgers (fiancee's alma mater) won. UM lost. All I need is Notre Dame to lose...

The NHL should be playing up the fighting aspect of the game. It's always been part of the game, and the fans like it.

Normally I would agree with you. If it was any big 10 team other than UM I'd be cheering for them. But, my two favorite teams are MSU, and whoever is playing UM.

Grigorenko. What's the word on him, is he going to be in Detroit or GR this season?

Jack, you should be watching MSU-UAB So far, the first few days of college football have treated me right. Rutgers won on Thursday. Now MSU is dominating at the half and Michigan is behind. I'm certainly not willing to hand the game to App. State yet though, Michigan has too many weapons on offense for the game to be done.

The Leafs one is a reference to the Toronto Raptors. Those are pretty good, I liked the Wings and Bruins one especially.

Those are great

Looking at the schedule, Notre Dame could possibly start the year 0-8. Good thing they've got 4 cupcakes at the end of the year. I doubt it would happen, but it would be awesome if it did.

Yeah, I've seen that one as well. I think the effect of the BTN is that there's no more ESPN Plus games broadcasted in the local market. And since there's no more ESPN Plus games, there's no point for a Big 10 fan to get ESPN Gameplan.

No, that's not true. ESPN and ABC are still going to be showing Big 10 games. Check the website of whatever team you want to watch and that should tell you what TV network the game will be on. I know right now for MSU, they've got 2 games on ESPN/ESPN2, 1 on ABC, 1 on NBC, and 2 on BTN. As far as I know right now, if you have DirecTV, you get the BTN. I believe the big holdup is with the cable companies, Comcast in particular. The BTN wants to be part of the basic tier of programming, but the cable companies want to make them an extra channel you'd have to pay for.

Only a few more days until MSU kicks off, I can't wait. I really think that Dantonio is exactly what MSU needs. There's not going to be any miracles this season, epsecially with the schedule that MSU has, but I think this season is going to be a step in the right direction. Sadly, I won't make it back to EL for any games. I'm drunk on Green Kool-aide, 12-0 baby!

I'm not getting your so-called point here. And yes, 5-6 years ago there were plenty of people who knew who #3 was and plenty of people who watched nascar.

Um, NASCAR is generally considered the second most popular sport in America. For some reason, poker really took off with ESPN. I think the TV poker boom is probably over, but they showed it because people watched it.

I've never bought into the whole ESPN hates hockey and is out to get the NHL. Even after reading the article auxlepli posted, I'm still not convinced. The article cites a statement from a dj, a couple coulmns by Bill Simmons (who's paid to be opinionated) and a blanket statement from the espn ombudsman (who by the way is the only reason to read espn.com right now). To me, that doesn't equal proof that ESPN has an anti-hockey agenda. I think the simplest explanation is that ESPN is interested in whatever can make them money. If they feel that they're going to make more money commenting on Barry Bonds instead of the Stanley Cup, then that's what they're going to do. It's like they say in The Godfather, it's not personal, it's strictly business. Looking at the ratings on VS. and the Stanley Cup ratings, I don't think its hard to understand why ESPN isn't pimping hockey. As far as ESPN glossing over NASCARS declining ratings and pimping MLS and arena football, even with NASCAR declining, they're still in a hell of a lot better situation than the NHL is. The pimping of MLS and AFL is annoying. But it gives me an idea. The NHL should sell ESPN a stake in the NHL. That seems to be what worked for arena football. Personally, I don't watch espn except for sporting events. Sportscenter sucks. There's less focus on showing the highlights and more focus on anchors trying to think up catchphrases, human interest stories, and corporate sponsership. All I want is to know the score of the game and what happened. Boo-yah this. For those of you who get a Fox Sports channell, I highly recommend watching FSN's Final Score instead of Sportscenter. There's more highlights and less fluff. And yes, they show hockey.

What a piss poor day to pick for the game. Going up against college bowl games does not equal good ratings. I think the game will do fine for attendance, since neither Buffalo or Pittsburgh are college football cities and the two cities are pretty close to each other. Really, they should have saved this and done it the week between the conference championship games and the Superbowl.

I thought ticket prices for the regular season have stayed the same for a few years now.

If I were still in Michigan, a USHL team would be pretty low on my list. In GR you've got 3 NCAA programs (MSU, Ferris, WMU) within an hours drive and an AHL program right in town, I'd rather go watch any of those teams than junior hockey.

How about you continue to avoid the thread. If people want to read pro-Preds material, they can. If they're like you and have no interest in reading it, they can just skip the thread altogether.

No more posts like this in the thread. This goes for everyone, not just deviswaterboy. The vast majority of Preds fans have always been respectful on this board and contributed to the forum. The ones who make useless posts full of Detroit stereotypes are dealt with quickly. By making ignorant posts like this, all it does is make the Wings fanbase on this board as a whole look bad. If you don't want to read anything about the Preds, don't open the thread. If you want to go the oh-so original route and make redneck jokes and be disrespectful, you'll find your posting privileges revoked. And I'd really avoid making hillbilly jokes when your post reads like it was written by an 8 year old.

Seriously, play nice or don't play at all.

So which is it? A: You don't believe any of the crap you're saying and are just looking for some attention and/or a reaction from people. B: You do believe the crap you say and just weren't hugged enough as a child.

Here is a copy of a facebook quiz from Michigan DT Marques Slocum. This is unbelievably awesome. I can't decide what I want more, a Detroit f*** Lions t-shirt, or a Da Realest ***** Alive mug for my mom.