A.T.Hun

I'm surprised that the late game is blacked out for me. I live 1/2 hour north of Green Bay. I can't imagine they would think that puts me in CBC territory. AFAIK I'd have to live in the UP to get the CBC at all.

I stumbled across that same solution. Right now I'm watching the game (just went into OT). I'm even doing it via Firefox and Mplayer in Linux. The video is a little dodgy, but it works! By the way, is Atlanta calling themselves "Hockeyville"?

Crack kills, children. Thankfully this is just one person's crack-addled idea and not anything that will be appearing in the Joe before the apocalypse.

Remember, this is from the team that gave us this: And, of course, this: Both of which made Wayne Gretzky do this:

If what Mule says is correct, not a single team in the NHL thought he was worth drafting. At all. None. Just because you're big and you know how to put on skates doesn't mean you should be in the NHL. Maybe he'll pick something up in Juniors. The invite will at least show him what he must do if he hopes to make it.

That's funny; I don't care who ya are. Of course, Wayne Gretzky just threw up a little in his mouth. Wisconsin really doesn't have the population. Milwaukee has a hard enough time supporting the Admirals. And, believe me, as a Wisconsin-based Red Wings fan, I'd really like to see it happen. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!

I'd have to agree with what was said about the 98 championship. I can't even express how I felt after the accident in 97. Here we just got passed the highlight of my life as a Wings fan and then this happens. To see them turn right around and win again was pretty spectacular. Having said all that, McCarty paying back Clod, Shanny clotheslining Wah, and The Professor giving Floppa the "nugies of death" has to be THE winner. I think it is quickly forgotten that Mac got the GWG in that one too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pab978XyR3E

You were expecting him to sign for 75% of a max deal? He would have had to be out of his mind to do that. He won the Hart, he's their captain, and he's as marketable of a young star as you will ever hope to find. Even a union as dysfunctional as the NHLPA would have someone sit down with him if he even dreamed of signing for $7.5/per. This is a great way to say "thank you" to the city of Pittsburgh and to prove that they are serious about competing. I'd imagine that more than a few season tickets will be sold on the basis of this news, to say nothing of jerseys.

According to ESPN, Boston has fired Dave Lewis: http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=2905947 I'm not saying Lewis is the greatest coach ever, but I'm not sure who could have success with that "franchise" (and I use the term loosely).

I was pleased to see the USHL getting some props from the TSN guys. I get to see some Green Bay Gamblers games every so often. You can tell that most of the players aren't NHL material, but there's always a few that you look at and say, "He's something special." The USHL has become a legit junior hockey league.

No kidding. I think I'm going to nap through the regular season. I'd imagine this won't help attendance at the Joe either. Nashville management seems to want to ensure that they won't hit those attendance targets next year. What a mess. I feel bad for Predly fans. No really, I do.

Isn't it sad that three of the original six are in pretty much everybody's top five? Here's the kicker: Jacobs was just elected chairman of the board of governors. Shoot me. Shoot me now.

I like the comment from ESPN's Scott Burnside:

I had to laugh when I saw this. This just in for those who still believe in Keenan as a coach: He has precisely TWO winning seasons since the Rangers won the cup. One was in the strike-shortened 94-95 season when he led the Blues to a 28-15-5 record. The other was Boston in 00-01 when they were 33-26-7-8, good for fourth place in the Northeast (and technically that isn't even a winning record). If he were to take over as GM eventually too, the Flameout would be complete.

One "unintended consequence" of a salary cap is that it requires GMs and upper management to be really smart. Before the cap, the Wings could spend their troubles away. Lower-income teams whined that they couldn't keep up. Now with the cap, the Wings management needs to be smarter and not just rely on Mr. I's bank account to bail them out. GMs of lower-income teams no longer have financial inequity to complain about. Thus when Edmonton ham-handles the Smyth situation, they are justifiably crucified for blowing it. Also, lower-income teams can no longer dump their bad contracts on big-market teams who are making a run at the Cup. GMs are exposed for what they are. In that way, a salary cap is cool. As an aside, that's how we know the Lions are run by blithering idiots. The only thing I really don't like about the cap is that it punishes teams that really work at their franchises. Mr. I bought the Wings when the Norrises had almost totally destroyed the franchise and built it up to a powerhouse. Franchises that are either incapable or unwilling (or both!) to do the same have less fiscal pressure to improve their teams because the cap is there to bail them out. I'm thankful that at least there is a salary floor as well to keep there from being a hockey equivalent of the Kansas City Royals who take in loads of revenue sharing cash but don't actually spend it on salaries.

I haven't seen the figures for the final game, but I'm sure you've all heard that the T.V. ratings for game 3 of the finals were catastrophically low--the lowest prime time ratings in NBC history. Now what? I'd like to hear some changes YOU'D like to see. Maybe they'll make hockey more accessible to everyone, maybe they'll improve things for the hardcore fans. Please spare me the "Fire Bettman!" comments. We all know that's not going to happen. Also save the "have the Wings and Rangers in the finals." It's true that having a California team nobody knows about against a Canadian team that not even Canadians care about isn't going to help ratings, but let's leave game fixing, etc., to the conspiracy theorists. Here's some suggestions I have. Few of them are original, but I think they'd help 1) Get a nightly NHL show on T.V. I'd prefer John Buccigross and NHL2nite on ESPN2, but failing that Versus really must have a nightly show. I have difficulty believing that they couldn't preempt a 1/2 hour of cow punching or whatever. 2) Get "Hockey Night in Canada" on American T.V. Once again, it'd be nice if they could get it on something like NBC, but it would seem to be a no-brainer for Versus just to broadcast the CBC feed. 3) If we're stuck with Versus, work to get them on more cable systems and on the basic tiers. I don't know who Gary Bettman has to sleep with to get this done, but he's supposed to be good at this marketing stuff. *cough* Any thoughts?

I don't like the fact that Pronger got the Cup either. I'm especially annoyed that Brian Burke got one. He's really going to be insufferable now. The thing is, I can't say that I hate the Ducks. Hate would require me to care. Maybe if the Wings face them two or three more times in the playoffs, then I'll care. For now, it was just another team that won the Cup. Good for them. When does training camp start?

The Ducks aren't anywhere near the "gooniest" team ever. Broad Street Bullies, anyone? While I'm disappointed that the Wings didn't make it to the finals (I think Sens-Wings would have been awfully fun to watch), I didn't really expect them to do much of anything this year. I saw a lot of positive things, especially from Pasha. I'll be sad if I have to watch Pronger raise the Cup, but I've watched bigger a-holes do it (Clod, just to name one).

You beat me to it, but you're exactly right. Every year you know that if the team that Pronger is on falls behind he will do something stupid--often profoundly stupid. If he ends up being suspended (and I'm not holding my breath on that one), his foolishness could be catastrophic for the Ducks.

"100% of the shots you don't take don't go in." -- Wayne Gretzky By and large it was an ugly game, except when the Wings were on the penalty kill. With maybe the exception of one rush, I thought they were outstanding. I'll gladly take four 2-1 wins with all eight goals being uglier than sin. Plus, there's nothing more wonderful than hearing the opposing team say, "We played exactly how we wanted to play . . . but we still lost." I would like to say that those two goals will get in Giggy's head, but I'm not holding by breath on that one.

After a couple years of outskating and outshooting the other team only to lose, I'll take all the ugly wins I can get. If opponents want to say "They didn't win, we lost," I'll take that all the way to the Stanley Cup. We wanted a team that was willing to work ugly and win ugly. We've got it. As Al Davis said, "Just win, baby."

Amazingly, Malts seems to be one of the most polarizing players on the Wings. I don't know if I've found anyone who is indifferent toward him. People either seem to love him or hate him. At any rate, I don't think the concept of re-signing him for three years is bad. I haven't heard exactly how much they're paying him--that would be the ultimate deciding factor. Edit: I just saw on the Detroit News that it's three years/$2.65 million. $883K/per. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Respect is overrated. I couldn't care less what the Sharks fans think about the Wings. Honestly, I'd rather have fans taking a critical look at their team's play instead of blaming the refs or making some brilliant comment like "The Red Wings suck." The only thing that counts is that the Wings won, no matter how ugly or late the tying goal was. Only very rarely in the playoffs will you have a game of pure hockey beauty. My main hope is that Langer's goal gets between Nabakov's ears, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

LANG A GONG, GET IT ON!

Someone in one of the replies to the ESPN.com story on the suspension said that if the NHL really wanted to punish Calgary, they'd make McLennan play the whole game