toby91_ca

Lidstrom is getting up there, but no way do I agree with having him at #2 all-time. At a minimum, Harvey and Bourque are ahead of him.

Interesting fact about league revenues I heard today. Currently, the 6 Canadian teams are generating 40% of total league revenues. I knew they generated more than their fair share, but I didn't realize it was that dramatic.

I know, there is clearly a difference, but what Eugene was talking about was revenue generated by the Canadian Teams. What I don't understand is how you handle revenues generated by a sale of a Wings jersey at the HHOF. Does that form part of the Wing's generated revenue? I don't think it would. In terms of total revenue, I think you have what is generated by the league itself (which I presume would be these merchandise sales) and those that are generated by each individual team (laregly gate driven). Where the Canadian teams really have the advantage is on broadcast revenues. The NFL adds all the TV revenues up and splits it across all the teams, which makes for mostly healthy and stable franchises, but the NHL doesn't do this. The reason for this is very clear, the NFL agreement to do this was reached a long, long time ago and when it was reached, no one thought these revenues would be very significant, so it wasn't a big deal. If someone had the insight, no way they would have agreed to split those revenues.

You can't just look at that table and add up the revenues by team and then pick out the Canadian teams and calculate a percentage, that wouldn't include ALL revenues, unless I am missing something. Also, your exchange is way off. The Canadian dollar during 2004 was worth, on averge $0.76 US, not $0.85. I listen to an owner say it's 40%, I tend to take it as a reasonable fact. Also, I did read something that suggested a few years ago, revenues in Canadian dollars represented 30% of the total and since then, the Canadian dollar has appreciated in value by 30%. Assuming nothing else changes, that right there gets you in the high 30s. So...what's the issue? I think this is a "trivial fact" - it fits the definition. I was initially going to say FACT, but I didn't have any cold hard support to back it up, so I changed it to Factoid.

I would be willing to place a healthy bet on him NEVER scoring 50 goals in a season. I wouldn't bet my life on it though

I believe it was Mr. Melnyk, or however you spell it, who was on the radio the other day. I would suspect, as one of the owners, he would have a pretty good idea of the breakdown of total revenues and the source thereof.

It's curre ncy. Also, Player XYZ could be playing for Toronto and have a US bank account IN Toronto. Just because you are in Canada and have a bank account in Canada, doesn't mean it has to be in Canadian dollars.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much the deal. When he was drafted, the Wings liked his skill but honestly were probalby not entirely hopeful that he would ever play in the league due to his size at the time. This is one of the reasons he was taken so late in the draft.

Mac's stats from last year, 32gp, 0 points -3

If you create a new topic and just add the topic title or description, but don't type anything in the "body" and hit post new topic, the thread will be created without an actual post. This is the second time I've seen this happen.

I just think I disagree. I think you are speaking from a non-objective point of view. A non-hockey fan isn't really going to view the game like that. You aren't really going to get to know the players over that short period of time anyway. People like us enjoy watching and finding those players we like to watch, but we're already fans of the game.

Again, I'm not sure what you are talking about. 99% sure Canadian teams were able to spend the Canadian dollar equivalent? All of their spending is in US dollars, so not sure where that thought comes from. The Canadian teams are subject to the same US cap as every other team. Where a Canadian team would benefit from the increase in the value of the Canadian dollar is in revenues. Canadian team's revenues are denominated in Canadian dollars and their expenses are in US dollars. As the Canadian dollar goes up, profits go up.

No, it's right around zero. The game of hockey is going to get exposure whether you have the pros there or not. In terms of non-fans watching, they don't know who is a star and who isn't. I would argue that having the non-pros there would make for a better product and actually be better advertisement for the game.

Success rate on a penalty shot is double the success rate on a power play, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my position on this. If the PP was much more successful, I'd still think it is dumb to give the choice.

Check your calendar, when the Olympics are played, no teams are out. I understand why, as a fan, you'd like to see your favourite players playing in the Olympics and that's why when you see polls on this topic, it will likely be weighted in favour of sending the players, but that doesn't change the fact that is makes zero, zero, zero sense for the NHL. The players themselves wanted to play, so it was a concession made to the NHLPA in the past, but I think it will go away.

I guess it's a sore spot with me, but I think it is the dumbest idea anyone could think of.

People may enjoy watching it more with NHL players, maybe, but that doesn't do anything for the league. If you think it would actually bring new fans to the league, I think you need to think about it a little more. Fans that woudl be more interested in watching because of the NHL players are those that are fans of the NHL. If you want to argue that people would be more drawn into the sport because they would be watching the best players play, I think you'd be making an extremely weak argument. Shutting the league down and sending players to the Olympics has never made sense for the league. Edit, forogt to mention.....not sure how I can express how much I disagree with that statement. If you are only a fan of the NHL and not hockey in general, then maybe, but I would think the vast majority of hockey fans spend much of their lives with the game and watching the NHL represents only a part of that.

47.11Instigator - An instigator of an altercation shall be a player or goalkeeper who by his actions or demeanor demonstrates any/some of the following criteria: distance traveled; gloves off first; first punch thrown; menacing attitude or posture; verbal instigation or threats; conduct in retaliation to a prior game (or season) incident; obvious retribution for a previous incident in the game or season.

It's too bad you don't hear more stories like this, because I can tell you that there a many, many, many NHL players that do this type of thing all the time. I'm not sure you see a lot of that in some of the other sports for some reason.

Even if Bettman isn't the commissioner, I highly doubt the NHL will be in the Olympics past 2010. It makes absolutely "zero" sense for the NHL to shut it's league down for its players to go play in the Olympics.

I have no idea why anyone is even talking about changing it up. The theory of the penalty shot is bascially giving the same opportunity that happened in the game, which was taken away back to that team. Putting a different player in there is changing that opportunity. Having a team select a powerplay changes that and degrades the game as far as I am concerned. The best game would be one with no penalties, so adding more powerplay time makes zero sense. Keep it as is, it replaces what was already happening in the game, no more, no less. Take the shot, move on with the game.

Not sure, I've never looked for it. There is a site that tracks shootout stats, but I haven't seen one for penalty shots. I have heard statistics for penalty shots that suggested the success rate was somewhere around 35% and the average success rate on the power play is less than half that.

Success rate is a lot higher on a penalty shot than on the powerplay, that's all you need to know. Also, the penalty shot is taken and it's done. Why would you want to replace that with a 2 minute powerplay, that would make for more boring time. Don't we want less PP time??? Don't we want back and forth play and not simply playing in one end for 2 minutes?

The higher level of hockey you play, you will generally stickhandle less and less. When you have an open shot on net, you usually take it. Making extra little moves is normally ill advised. As players in the NHL gain experience, you will notcie that they try less and less to stickhandle around everyone.

I have to believe this isn't true. The last I heard, the guy is bankrupt. His debts far exceed his assets. I hope the average person out there is not in the same or worse situation. Why would they do that though? It's a business, not a charity. I understand the thought behind doing something like this, but they have a lot of ex-players, they can't simply employ them all in some capacity to ensure they continue to thrive financially.