schulzte

accidental double post again, sorry.

Can we please trade Pierre for someone else? I decided this weekend that he officially sucks. Lets claim an NHL superstar fakes drawing a penalty, and then....whoops....I didn't look at all the video angles....sorry Sid, I just slammed you character on the National Game of the Week for no reason; sorry about that. Pierre is a feminine hygine product (I won't elaborate, I don't want to get vulgar, per the request of the webmaster). I like Darren Pang O.K., he was pretty good in his ESPN days. Can we please trade Pierre in for him? Milbury is also a feminine hygine product. Can we trade him in for somebody who didn't suck at life as a G.M.? Can't NBC steal somebody from CBC or something?

Comparing college and NHL icing rules, I prefer the college no-touch rule. There is supposed to be something of a consequence for icing the puck (that is why it's icing), and I think the no-touch rule punishes a team more for wanting to ice the puck, because they are automatically going to get the puck back in their end. The goal of having the icing rule is to prevent icing, and no-touch puts more teeth into it. Even Don Cherry, the neo-con of hockey is a proponent of no-touch icing.

NHL average attendance per game in 2007-08: 17,147 NBA average attendance per game in 2007-08: 17,141 Hockey is winning by 6 fans per game! (Winter Classic probably helped) Also, we rag on Phoenix and Nashville for low attendance, but the NBA has 6 teams under 14,000 in attendance per game, while the NHL only has one. Somehow we never hear about those numbers, just that the NHL is struggling in Southern markets so much.

To all the Ovechkin critics: Please list three players more deserving of the MVP this year. I would like to know who is better, because I don't know of any. Personally, I don't like goalies winning the Hart trophy. Goalies have their own Vezina trophy, and its like baseball with the Cy Young Award. A pitcher should have to be an outlier to win the MVP as well as the Cy Young. Same with goalies; to me a goalie would have to have to be statistically far better than any other goalie to be my choice for the Hart trophy on top of the Vezina trophy. Not saying it should never happen, but it should be rare. Not that goalies are less important, its just different.

Alexander Ovechkin is the MVP of the NHL this year and it isn't close. There is a 40+ point differential between he and his next teammate. He is +19 on a team that has given up more goals than it has scored. No one has score 60 goals in 12 seasons! This argument that a MVP must come from a playoff team is flawed. Just because the Caps might miss the playoffs means that Ovechkin is less valuable to his team? I don't buy that at all. Why not just make the Captain or highest scorer of the President's Trophy team automatically be league MVP every year if that is the case. Well, that would work for the Red Wings, but its a silly idea. If the Caps missed the playoffs by 20 points, that would be one thing. But they are in the race thanks to Ovechkin, the 2008 NHL MVP.

Becasue goalies could survive a skydive from 10,000 ft. without a parachute with all of their equipment. Let's get some offense back in this game.

1) Steve Yzerman 2) Ryan Miller 3) Darren McCarty 4) Mario Lemieux 5) Mike Eruzione (Or anyone else from '80 Olympics) Sorry about dupicate, I don't know how to delete

1) Steve Yzerman 2) Ryan Miller 3) Darren McCarty 4) Mario Lemieux 5) Mike Eruzione (Or anyone else from '80 Olympics)

All teams being equal over time, the odds of getting an all original 6 cup final in a given year is 28-1, so don't hold your breath. On the other hand, if its been 1979 since there has been an O6 final, that makes it 29 years. I guess were officially overdue.

10 points in 13 games is more than I was expecting, even at the AHL level, thats not bad. He more left in the tank than most thought, I believe.

Natural Grass is not an impediment, as Lambeau Field has hosted an outdoor college hockey game, I believe it was Wisconsin vs. Ohio State

2007-08 NHL Attendance 2007-08 NBA Attendance BTW-Love Spartan Basketball, not a basketball hater. The NBA is the lowest form and least entertaining basketball played on Earth. Walk the ball up the court, dribble, dribble, dribble, post up, post up, run the shot clock to 3, draw a foul. Wow, that's great.

My level of interest in the Detroit Pistons is somewhere in between Canadian Women's Curling Championships and Senior Golf (the curling on the high end). Here a plan for a New Red Wings Arena to check out if anyone is interested.

New York Islanders, at 13,423 per game

Complements to this article. Vs. is now what ESPN once was, a small cable netwok with fringe sporting events. ESPN has got so big for its britches, and Vs. has positioned itself to be its major competitor. CNN used to dominate cable news, and now Fox News regularly (and regrettably) outrates CNN. History can repeat itself folks. Look, the Red Wings are on cable all the time, and NBC acts like it cares about growing the game and has been highlighting the hits and grit and fights (gasp) that the NBA will never have. Its not all bad, so Screw ESPN!

1) Crawford (Duh) 2) Jacque Lemaire (Hate the Neutral Zone Trap) 3) Mike Keenan (Slimeball) 4) Ron Wilson (No, Nabokov is not as good!) 5) Red Berenson (HA, he used to coach the St. Louis Blues, so my obligatory U of M dig is still legit!!)

Too bad MSU couldn't sweep, but bye bye #1 ranking for U of M. MSU is right back in the CCHA race.

ESPN Article Scott Burnside and Damien Cox had an interesting idea about the All-Star game, and I think it would be great. Back in the day, the All Star Game format was that the Stanley Cup Champions would play all the rest of the All-Stars in the league and host the game. So this year the Ducks would host the game and play one unifed team of All-Stars from the rest of the league. Conventional thinking would say the Ducks would get creamed, but it would be an interesting game! And the Ducks would have home ice and have been playing together all year. The record of the games when this was the format was: All-Stars 13 Defending Champs 8 1 Tie What do you think?

Imagine if the Wings won the Stanley Cup, and in doing so, was rewarded with hosting the following year's All-Star game at the Joe. The Wings would then play against the 25 best players from the rest of the league, meaning true superstars, not the watered down lineups the East vs. West game produces. The Wings would have 3rd liners playing their guts out in a rare chance at an All-Star game, and the home crowd would be behind them, so the home team would really have incentive to play hard and win for the home fans. I'm telling you, this could be a really great idea! I don't think the All-Stars would win every year. I think this would be quite a spectacle!

A few observations about the Winter Classic today 1. I'm a huge Ryan Miller fan (MSU '04 myself), but I was hoping today's game would be about 8-7, and Crosby would score about 5 goals. I didn't care who won, I just wanted channel surfers and non die-hards to see a few more goals. 2. I view this as a kamakazie move by Bettman. What did he have to lose? The ratings won't be great, but why not try to catch a sports oriented audience? I was hoping Michigan would be getting beaten by 30 and people would switch to hockey...but that didn't happen. 3. I though Costas might not take this game seriously, but he was first class as usual. He could make me interested in a Nebraska bass fishing tournament. His story about Goldthorpe and the Syracuse minor league team was great. Milbury is kind of a tool though. NBC should have gotten a bigger, hall of fame name to help (not Brett Hull though). HE NEEDS TO ANCHOR THE STANLEY CUP FINALS!!!! 4. This game needs to happen in Michigan. The MSU/U of M and Red Wings/Maple Leafs double header would be great. And as much as I hate to say it, it should be at the big house. Their season is over early, and they don't know how to grow grass so we wouldn't have to worry about wrecking the fieldturf. I would set it up differently though. I would put the hockey rink on one end of the stadium, and turn it on a 90 degree so it went across the field instead. The field at Michigan Stadium is only about 230-250 feet across, so the fans would be much closer to the ice. Then just use half the stadium and set up some temporary bleachers along the other side boards. You could still have a crowd of 60,000 plus and the seating arrangment wouldn't be nearly as bad as it has been at past games. 5. Doc Emerick has grown on me. His line "occasionally, spontaneous fighting does occur in this game" was funny. It was like an inside joke between him and the diehard hockey fans watching that the channel surfers might not have picked up on.

NBC is really giving hockey a shot here, and its an interesting strategy. What's the worst that can happen? They've sold the game out, and nobody is expecting much in the way of ratings. There may be a more captive TV sports audience on New Years Day than any other day of the year other than the Super Bowl. If this game gets a 3 share it will be deemed a success. Bob Costas is anchoring, too. With NBC out of the College Football picture, this is huge for hockey and I don't really see any negatives here. If I'm joe sports fan and I'm watching the Capital One bowl and Florida is beating Michigan 52-20 (as this writer hopes), I'm might be inclined to do some channel surfing. This is what NBC might be banking on. I hope it works, because I'm watching hockey this New Years, and I hope others do too!

I disagree, Niedermeyer loses votes because of his extended off season. He certainly won't gain anything. If he were to become Bobby Orr reincarnate and score 70 points in 50 games and have a +40, then maybe. His per game numbers won't be any better than Lidstrom's though.

It's down the road a bit, this should be a very intriguing GLI this year, with MSU as the national champion and #5 ranked team (yea!), Michigan as the #1 ranked team in the nation (boo!), and Tech a much more capable underdog than in previous years. There should be more interest in these games than there has been in a long time. A Michigan State-Michigan final might be as big a college hockey game in this state since the Cold War. Agree or Disagree?

Check this out! My head just about exploded when I saw this report. This may be the best non Stanley Cup hockey event since the 1980 Olympics if it comes to fruition. Detroit News Article