zaxx

Huh?? 8 games?

Anyone who says that the Blues will not make the playoffs is out to lunch! I read a blog entry on Kuklas Korner the other day that listed the Blues with the second best record in the second half of the NHL. The only team with a better record during that stretch was our Red Wings. I would not want to play a team that is that hot, and that confident in the first round because whoever they come up against will likely lose. At the very least it will go 7 games.

Anyone who claims there is a "code' in fighting and players respect each other is forgetting that for every Probert who respected the code there is another player who does not. An even then the code respecting players will forgo the code when emotions burn hot enough. When in a fight if a guy is backed into a corner any advantage will be taken. The guy who backs down first will be the one to have his face on the ice. Players have bitten each other (see Derick Dorsett while in the WHL), eye gouged (Ott), taken the low blow, or tossed punches long after the refs came in. These guys get emotional and when the fight or flight behavior kicks in, they are fighting to survive. Retired fighters always talk about how scared they were the night before a big game when they knew they were going to have to fight a big guy. These are not super heroes, they are simply men, with all their flaws. Some guys train and learn how to properly and cleanly win a fight, others pull hair, some use the clean fight skills and augment them with some dirty tricks. In fact dirty tricks in a hockey fight have been around longer then the NHL. Guys used to wrap tape on their fists or any number of tricks to get the advantage. This behavior is a part of the game, a sick part but it is there. Growing up in Canada everyone spoke of the lore of fighting, but behind closed doors the tricks were always present. This is why the tie down on the back of the jersey came about, and why guys have thrown punches that purposely miss so they can contact with the hard plastic elbow pad. There is no respect during a fight, NHL or not. Before anyone marks me as an anti-fight fool, let me say I am a big fan of hockey fights. I love when two players have battled for an entire game, the emotions boil over and they decide to duke it out. Shows character when you are willing to stand up man vs man to try and get that upper hand.

That was an awesome fight and in that fight near the end Dorsett broke his hand/finger. He was out for several weeks with that injury and if you notice there is a point when the two stop punching and come close. Well at that point Carcillo could tell Dorsett's hand broke so he asked him if he wanted to stop. Dorsett being the nutcase that he is told him hell no and they went back into it for a bit longer. Crazy buggers! See: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/sport...at=&sid=101

Purchased "Weird Facts about Canadian Hockey Strange, Wacky & Hilarious Stories" while at the book store today and I found a story inside about our favorite enemy of the 0-'s, one Claude Lemieux. Since it shows why our Conn Smythe Trophy winner (Hank) has such great character and the turtle just falls flat, I thought I would share. Well we all knew he was an ass but this story really goes to show it. He signed the deal, realized he would have gotten bigger bucks as a free agent and tried to get out of it. What a bum. Yes you can tell the book is a little older by the fact that it mentions that Lemieux is retired, but still the story is an interesting glance into the mind of a turtle.

My parents are both from Newfoundland (living in Saskatchewan now) and they would be just tickled to read your posting. I on the other hand would consider pulling out some Newfie jokes and having some fun. lol Best comeback on these forums though, good on ya!!

Have you ever played hockey and been hit from behind or even ridden hard into the boards from behind. The Lilja hit pissed me off as well but I was mad at Lilja. Undisciplined, unacceptable, and out of line is how I explain his behavior. It was a stupid thing to do and if he is not suspended I would hope Uncle Mike would bench his ass. Even if it was a mistake it was not) he needs to be reminded of why that is wrong. I would not be surprised if a suspension follows, he picked up speed riding the guy into the boards. Lilja knew that the guys back was there and he sped up to really nail him, trying to be aggressive. If they were closer to the boards it would have been fine, but five feet from the boards is a career ending zone when hit from behind. I am glad the refs did what they did and I hope I never see Lemieux style B.S. from my Wings again.

Have you ever played hockey and been hit from behind or even ridden hard into the boards from behind. The Lilja hit pissed me off as well but I was mad at Lilja. Undisciplined, unacceptable, and out of line is how I explain his behavior. It was a stupid thing to do and if he was not suspended I would hope Uncle Mike would bench his ass. Even if it was a mistake it was not) he needs to be reminded of why that is wrong.

Shots on goal are never correct. Was at the game in Anaheim on January 14th. My wife and I were watching when a shot would occur and then we would check the clock. They missed many shots on net or counted shots that did were not. It was really pathetic to see something like at occur in the NHL. I mean these guys get paid to count shots! lol In fairness it is a fast game and easy to miss the shots when the happen but these buys were just horrible. I have a habbit of checking the shots on goal to see how close it is and track how accurate the counting and it was one of the worst I have seen that night. At one point in the game the shots on goal were 10 - 3 for Detroit. Then a couple of mins later they were 15 - 14 for Anaheim. We were counting the whole time and it should have been more like 18 - 9 for Detroit or somewhere in that range.

Was on vacation in Disneyland a few weeks back and just so happened that the Wings were in Anaheim to face the ducks. Made it out to the game and took our DSLR camera with a big zoom. We were near the back of the rink but my wife took plenty of pictures. Yeah we totally won that game all due to the large amount of Wings fans in attendance. Enjoy: http://picasaweb.google.ca/baker.geoff/Jan...edWingsVsDucks#

Thanks, it is actually my wife's camera. She loves taking pictures. Of the lot of pictures my favorite is this one: http://picasaweb.google.ca/baker.geoff/Jan...800233125124034 and the two before it. I could not figure it out during the game and I will never know but I always thought that it was against NHL rules to come up behind another player and violate them. lol!!

You can see in the replay that following the release from Smith's hand the stick went directly down. If it was thrown it would have had some horizontal movement, but it only had a vertical motion. After the save when Smith came down he landed on the stick with his blocker and the snap against the ice shot the stick sideways. It was not thrown it was dropped, the only reason it moved away from Smith at all was due to the contact with the stick after the play. Just more BS from the gods in Toronto. I am only glad this did not happen to us.

Where did Babcock get his second Stanley Cup ring? Or are you just making a prediction for this years champs!

No he is not. Alright this thread has gone on long enough, I call close the thread. Nothing to see here move on. lol

A pick for the early season worst player in the NHL. Difficult to pick someone this early on, but he makes a point at least for Lebda to pick up his play. http://www.kuklaskorner.com/index.php/psh/...n_worst_player/

Great article about Holmstrom's early season scoring success. The best part is the misprint where the article refers to Zetterberg as "Hernia Zetterberg". lol http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/news/sto...86-0a1bbbaecfbe

Didn't we sweep his team in each of those years?

Thank-you for the clarification and I totally agree that the equipment needs to change. However we do have penalties for hitting someone who is defenseless. This would be the interference penalty. If the player does not have the puck and is hit there is a penalty, this is the only time a player is afforded the distinction of being called defenseless in the NHL. If you have the puck be prepared to be creamed. I would never support a penalty or other for otherwise clean hits that make head contact. It would never work in the NHL since the game is so fast no one can avoid crazy hits. Instead just make the equipment enable a player to not be extremely hurt from one of these hits. (Clean hits that make head contact do not include elbows, jumping, stick swinging, or other that are already against the rules) Oh well I guess we would have to agree on the point of changing equipment (please bettman do something right for the league...) and disagree that on penalties for otherwise clean hits that make head contact.

I am going to regret putting in my two cents but I am going to anyway. Your first comment came across as though you wanted hits that make contact with a players head to be ruled a penalty (or suspension, or worse) like the NFL rules. I can see by your second statement that you were not meaning to make that connection but please reread your original comment. You should be able to see that your point comes across wrong and causes confusion. I loved the hit, feel bad for Carle and feel that the league should do something about the big injury inducing hits. How do they fix them? Crazy old Don Cherry has been stating it for years. Get rid of the football style padding and move back to the protective soft style. The shoulder pads and elbow pads worn by most players today have a plastic coating that is as hard as a rock. Take a hit anywhere on your body with that and there is a good chance you will be feeling it for a long time. They should make those stupid pads against the rules and force players/manufacturers to bring back the soft (and just as protective) style. All the protection required without the rock hard shell. No one wants to see people getting hurt on the ice (unless they have done something to deserve it... Lemieux)

Alright I have a picture of me with Mike, don't you love my idiot smile! Oh well I was pumped to meet Babcock and get a couple autographs and a picture.

The cup is in Saskatoon Saskatchewan with Mike Babcock right now. I just got back from getting a picture with the cup, my old Wings hat signed by the Coach and I bought a new cap and got it signed also. Then of course I got a picture with the coach, I was a little sad that he was not posing with the cup but oh well it was very cool to meet him. I will post the pictures once I get them. The cup will be with Mike tomorrow morning also in Saskatoon as they do some more press and fund raising to help build a Children's hospital in Saskatoon. Good of Mike to come out with the cup for a good cause. I forgot to mention that he did a quick interview about having the cup in toon town on the radio this morning. You can download the audio from his interview from the radio station. http://www.newstalk650.com/audio/john-gorm...h-hour-1-part-1

I must say that if I were not a Wings fan then our favorite team would be at the top of my most annoying NHL teams list. I mean we win or are in the top 5 in the league each and every year. If anyone else ever wants to win they know they have to find a way to beat us. Even when they get an edge on us we go and sign their best players for less money giving us additional talent. I mean really is anything more annoying then the guy who wins everything and despite all your efforts you cannot best him. Detroit rules and we are proud to be the most annoying/successful franchise for the last decade+.

I agree that it would have been impossible/improbable and just plain stupid for the Pens to sign Hossa for fair market value alongside their other stars. putting 50% of the budget into 3 or 4 players (Marc Andre) is just crazy. However you cannot decide that Hossa is the odd man out, offer him a low balled contract and then get pissed off when he jumps ship. They choose Malkin over Hossa (likely a good decision in the long run) and now the fans are pissed off at Hossa. Give me a break!

This thread and anytime a Pens fan whines about Hossa leaving and taking less money just irks me. He left the Pens for MORE money per year. The pens were offering a longer term but $7 million per season. He took more money (7.4 million > 7 million) per year to play in Detroit for one season. Sure he gave up a longer term contract but as long as he can pull through a decent season he can sign with any team he wants next year for the same $7 million the Pens were offering. They wanted to give Hossa $7 million but Malkin $8+ million. Let me ask.. which player was better in the SCF? This is not meant as a comparison of Hossa to Malkin/Crosby nor as a bash to Malkin/Crosby rather a little analysis into why the Pens and their fans have no right to whine. The Pens delivered a slap in the face to Hossa by offering only $7 million per year and marking him to be paid less then their wonder boys. Hossa would have been third string in the media and on the team if he stayed with the Pens and the crappy contract offer was evidence of this. His veteran status and experience should have had him playing a leadership role for the Pens, not sitting backseat to the Malkin/Crosby show. Just to clarify I call it crappy because they were willing to pay so much more for Malkin who died in the playoffs. Pens fans need to wake up and give their heads a shake. If they really want a cup get rid of the dead weight coach (one of the worst there is), hire a decent coach and show some respect to the players (both current and former)

They picked up Jiri Slegr that season. For those kinds of details see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001%E2%80%93...ed_Wings_season He played 8 games with us for 1 assist and 8 penalty mins. Woo-hoo!