Silent Hill

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I wouldn't completely surprised but I think Eddie O is pretty safe splitting duties. Although the more NBC hires permanent people, the less room there is for freelance or contracted announcers - with Doc and Strades hired full time there's no reason to bring in outside play-by-play guys like Ken Daniels, et. al. to call a game here or there. Of the NBC exclusive hires you mentioned: Doc left the Devils because he was tired of the daily grind and travel of an 82 game season. Not to mention the future is a bit wobbly for the Devils and will become downright bleak once Brodeur retires in the next couple seasons. Without stable ownership in Phoenix who knows what will happen next or where it will happen (Hamilton, Ontario?), I think Dave got out while the gettin' was good. Darren Pang left them a couple years ago for the very same reason. As for Pierre McGuire - who knows? He may be feeling lucky someone offered him a job at all. He's not terrible, he's just another talking head who used to be in the game, and those guys are easy to replace.

I think Doc Mike is great. He's got the stories (like locals Ken and Mickey do) but he's more aware of the play - Ken, Mick and Larry will tell a story for 45 seconds while play continues up and down the ice. Sometimes the story is worth it, sometimes it's not. Mike is a perfect balance between the American announcers that are "storytellers" and the dry Canadian announcers that only tell you what is happening on the ice. When I want a to hear some great stories and don't need the play by play as much, I turn on Ken and Mick. When I want some play by play and player/team info with only a few stories, I'll watch Doc Mike. Plus, Doc Mike is no homer and has a great goal call for both teams.

To the people that are saying that this kind of stereotyping and language is pathetic, sad, intolerant, and doesn't belong in the workplace...you've got to have the most boring locker room on the planet.

I'd like to think that the dust-up caused by the suspensions last year has caused the NHL to back off it's hard-line approach towards players missing the All Star Game. If the NHL is so hell-bent on punishing players who skip the game then fine the bejesus out of them ($50k? $100k), put it toward the emergency players fund, and fill the slot with players who genuinely want to go. The players don't have to play if they don't feel up to it, the AS Game doesn't get players that don't want to be there, the NHL/NHLPA get some cash to take care of their own...it's a Win/Win.

Let's not forget that at an engineers gathering/party something that was working fine (TV, radio, remote control, furnace, blender) either gets broken while trying to "improve" it or blown up. Or both. The jersey style they regularly wear is fine...a classic. Why try to "fix" it, change it or gussie it up?

May ====== tremendous waste of roster space and money. At least Maltby knows how to skate, who to get the puck to, and has a general idea of where the opponents net is located.

If you're stupid/unfortunate enough to get your license suspended, don't compound your idiocy by getting behind the wheel of a vehicle. And if you're idiotic enough to do that, don't forge paperwork work to get your license back. And if you are stupid enough to do *that*, don't exponentially multiply your stupidity by working as a driver. The driver isn't Mother Teresa here, just another law-breaking imbecile who is lucky that he didn't kill anyone and shouldn't have been driving, period. He didn't deserve to get beat up for this, for sure, but already I question his veracity.

If this were a 3rd line player on Edmonton, Carolina, or the Islanders it wouldn't generate this much animosity here. Go ahead, hate on Kane, call him the worst sort of offender, and continue to spout off about seeing him prosecuted, punished and ostracized but at least come clean about your reasons - he's a rising star on a hated rival. Don't fly it under the flag of under any other premise. By the way, another guy who was driving people around with a suspended license...Richard Gnida. Remember him?

And it looks like the cabbie has an MO of locking people in the back seat of the cab until they pay him. Which makes it difficult to reach your wallet in some cases. Sounds like everyone over-reacted - cabbie locks a couple kids in the back until he gets paid, kids can't get at their wallets and want to get out to pay the guy, cabbie won't let them out, kids in back freak out and demand to be let out...and away they go. Doesn't justify the beating but if some cabbie locks me in the back of the cab I'm going to be pretty ticked off myself, especially if I've had a couple ginger ales. If it plays out like this I, for one, don't believe Kane should be vilified for it.

Yeah, it's one thing to be seen wearing the sweater and shouting out the team name...it's something different when start intimating that you have some kind of direct, authorized affiliation with the team. But despite that logic I think it would still be in the best interest of everyone if the LA Lakers could look into getting a court order against Dyan Cannon. Yikes!

There are three sides to every story...yours, mine and the truth. I'm sure the cabbie was being nothing but cordial and respectful both to the Kane's and the other drivers on the road - he was the paragon of cab drivers to the point where he was a defacto limo driver, politely answering any questions and keeping to himself when not specifically addressed. When the destination was reached he humbly asked for the fare, but - alas - moments before picking up the Kane's he gave all his spare change to the nuns and didn't have the 20 cents. Perhaps the cabbie offered to only charge $13 dollars and give a full $2 change to Kane's at his own expense, despite his having to work 3 jobs to support his pregnant wife, 5 kids and mother-in-law in a one bedroom apartment while getting his doctorate in "Third World Children's Charities" at Harvard. But the evil Kane's were offended by the drivers implication that they couldn't afford this pittance and were insulted to the point where they didn't want to tip him at all because of his cheeky-ness. The cabbie woefully told the tale of the 3 jobs etc. etc. but the Kane's merely let out manical, Joker-esque laughs and set upon him whooping it up and cackling deviously the entire time. So...er...let's wait until the whole story plays out before the speculation gets too out of control. But, of course, it's too late for that.

Craig Simpson is a lock to win this.

20,000 people is the perfect arena size - not only for hockey but for other events like concerts, basketball, and such. Detroit proper needs an arena that size, anything bigger and you're competing with Ford Field (40,000+) and the Silverdome (40-50,000 for a concert). Smaller venues are pretty much taken care of - Cobo, Pine Knob (or whatever the hell they call it now - it's Pine Knob to me), Fox, etc. One other thing you may want to explore is what they've done at a couple other arenas (I think the Palace does this) and put "luxury boxes" under the arena. Basically, they're swanky meeting rooms under the venue, so they're high security areas where high profile celebrities can watch the game on High Def monitors with all the amenities of a luxury box but without all those pesky people bothering them. You rent them to corporations on off days for their corporate meetings (like hotel meeting rooms only much cooler) to generate some extra revenue.

Hudler's 2-way game has improved dramatically and there's no reason to think it won't continue to do so under Mike Babcock, who leans on him pretty hard. It always looked to me like he was over-efforting his defensive play when he was bumped up, a way to show Babcock that he is responsible defensively. I'm hoping that will change once Hudler is more confident defensively and Babcock trusts him a bit more, allowing Hudler to not worry about being benched if he makes a defensive mistake. It's a trust thing and they have to work it out.