toby91_ca

Well, in pretty much all other industries on the planet, the grown ass men have no choice whether to follow saftey precuations if they want to be employed. Edit...oh yeah, forgot to mention, was Franzen lumped in with that "younger" player group? He's older than 4 of the 5 players mentioned in the "older" player group. Morrow is as well.

It's Laich's attitude that makes policies like this necessary. If you leave it up to the player, they'll just put themselves back out there when they shouldn't be out there.

Dan Bylsma's comments from today:

Well, actually, yesterday was probably the most newsworthy thing to report about Crosby in the past 9 months. Being cleared for contact is huge. All that needs to happen now is for him to take contact in practice for a bit and ensure no symptoms and he'll be back playing and then we're done with it hopefully. The one problem though is that the Pens have a lot of games early on here so they won't have much of an opportunity to get in a lot of high tempo, hitting practices. Practices on day games are non-contact and when you play back to back or even only one day off in between games, the non-day games aren't always going to have practices either because the guys need rest here and there. So, his return could be delayed due to that, which means we may be getting more and more useless news for longer than we should otherwise get it.

This type of thing can have a huge impact, I wouldn't underestimate it. I actually agreed with Melrose's comments. Although, he didn't address the gestures. On that topic, I don't have a problem with them at all, the only reason I didn't like it in this case was that the other guy got hurt.

Well, I guess what you are saying is the if you advertise better, the game will become more popular, therefore be available more widely on national TV. I guess that's at least a small reason, but really doesn't matter to me. I live in Canada, so when ESPN was showing games, it didn't mean anything for me. I grew up watching Hockey Night in Canada...still do. TSN came along a little later and now I also get any game I want on Centre Ice. Personally, I don't mind paying for the package, but for someone that does, it really doesn't matter how popular the game becomes, you'll never be able to get the same ability to see whatever you want on free national TV.

Interesting response from Phil Bourque. Sounds like he is defending Crosby by saying "do you think he wants to speak to the media everyday"....problem is, I don't think JR was taking a shot at Sid, he was taking a shot at the media. He also said that the first thing he learned when he joined the media was to think before you speak.....maybe he should have thought a little bit before he slandered JR quite a bit. http://www.1059thex.com/player/?station=WXDX-FM&program_name=podcast&program_id=interviews.xml&mid=21489320

The only reason I can think there was some sort of reporting on ESPN yesterday is because there was news Monday night that Crosby might be seeing his doctors yesterday and there was expectation that he would be cleared for contact. When the media spoke to Crosby yesterday, he said that he did not have an appointment, he would be seeing doctors later in the week and it was a routine meeting. I guess the ESPN news reporting went out to clarify that "screw up" by someone.

The difference is that the double minor would apply for an accidental "high stick" - this was a slash....big difference.

I saw a bit of his rant and the one piece the concerns me is when he appeared to say that Crosby should just get on the ice and start taking contact. I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume what he meant was that he wants to see him move to the next level and get back soon, that's what he wants to see, not seeing him get interviewed with no updates. I'm not sure though. Other than that, I agree with him, even though he sounds like a bit of an idiot when he says it. Here's the big problem.....the members of the media will continue to ask Crosby questions as often as possible because they will want to be the ones that gets the big story out first. That's simply how it works.

Can someone help me understand why we should care about marketing? I could understand if I was an employee with a Company that isn't doing as well as they should and it was attributed to poor marketing, jobs on the line, etc. But, why the hell should I care about NHL marketing?

Well, the normal way is a slash across the shin pads, not a slash up that high. If there was no injury, he probably would have gotten away with it though.

The difference is that Foote's was clearly unintentional as he simply tried to lift Yzermans' stick and missed. Yes, you need to be in control of your stick, which is why he got the penalty. In Bouchard's case, again, unintentional to hit him in the face, but he was swinging his stick at the player to slash him....he had intent to hit the other player with his stick, quite a bit different. I'm torn a bit though as suspending him for that is tough, but if he was deemed that he swung at his head on purpose, he would have been gone for 20 games, so the suspension of 2 games kind of takes that into account. I for one am not upset at all about the suspensions. For once, maybe the suspensions will actually mean something, perhaps even be seen as a deterent.

That is absolute bulls***! Do you play hockey? If not, I understand why you have this view, if you do, then I don't know what to say. What Giroux did was not how you play, it's not how you go into a corner to get a puck. He did what he did to avoid playing it the right way, go into the corner, take the hit to make a play. I didn't listen to the volume on the replay at all, but hopefully they are saying something similar.

Most fans don't really "invest" in the team. Maybe they invest emotionally, but that's about it. Yes, fans buy tickets, they buy merchandise, etc. But that isn't investment, that's simply purchasing goods and services. If the fans actually want to invest in the team, then send your money in without expecting anything in return except for a small stake in the team. The sponsors don't invest in the either and they really have no ownership over anything. They pay money, in return they get advertising. The owners are the ones that actually paid to purchase the team. They need to run their business (i.e. the team) to make money hopefully, otherwise, that team may not last forever (Atlanta). This sponsorship deal actually helps the fans be able to watch their team play. Without such sponsorship deals, the ability for teams to operate would deteriorate.

I think the thread title is very misleading....been meaning to say this for awhile. Where are the "milestones?" I just see a bunch of very random facts.

I didn't see last night's game or see any post game either, but what you are saying sounds like Cooke may not have learned his lesson. I'm not so sure of that though. I haven't heard any specific comments about his last suspension, but I have heard about how he has changed over this summer, etc. I guess only time will tell. I won't care so much about what is "said", I'll worry about how he actually plays.

I understand what you are trying to say, but we are not talking about multi-million dollar hockey players here.

One of the dumbest posts I've read...honestly.

It would be less than last year. This would mean that a goalie was pulled from the game only 5 times all year.

That right there is the problem. It becomes more and more part of the game and I think how players have learned to hit when they were younger. If you go back and watch Don Cherry's Rock em sock em videos, you don't see a ton of head shots in those. Right now, the NHL has a serious issue with brain injuries. They really do need to get rid of head shots and the way to do it is to seriously suspend players that deliver those hits. Back in the day, it used to be the responsibility of the player getting hit to be responsible and not to put himself in a bad position. The hitter had no responsibility....that made no sense at all.

For those asking, the other big difference, which I forgot about, to the Wisniewski hit was the resulting injury. If the Wisniewski git resulted in a serious injury, his suspension would have been "significantly" longer than the 8 games he got.

I think the 2 differences you are missing, which go the other way are that: 1) Brendan came from the side (harder to see him coming, but still not totally blind) and 2) Brendan's hit had a lot more speed and force behind it.

I would assume so, let's see what he has to say.

I think you have your percentage wrong. If a guy hits a another player in the head with is shoulder, it is a clean hit maybe 1% of the time. I think a lot of people are correct in assessing Ben Smith as having some responsibility here and the fact that he did move a little bit. I think that probably factored into the rationale for the suspension. Without that, you are probably looking at a really long one. Try to do your best to assume this was Cooke that threw that hit and then give me your reaction.