Ironic irony, Stanley Cup edition

As the Kings wrapped up their title-clinching victory over New Jersey tonight, NBC's Mike Emrick made sure to throw some nonsense into the moment by trying to sound smart and clever (roughly paraphrased):

The Cup will make its rounds with the members of the team this summer, as every player will have some time with it in the offseason.  Ironically, it was the Devils who started that practice back in 1995!

Chris W is way better with the English language than I am, so I usually GChat him when I come across misuse of irony and ask him to concoct a way in which the situation in question could be modified to be made actually ironic.  I didn't even bother with this one, I don't even know if it's possible.  THE GAUNTLET IS SORT OF THROWN, CHRIS.  DO YOUR WORST IN THE COMMENTS.

As a freshly minted hockey fan, I can't say I have a lot of experience with a variety of play by play guys.  It's really just Emrick, the dudes from NBC's B/C/D teams (from earlier in the playoffs), and my favorite team's booth guys.  But to the extent that I can criticize him from my small sample size of time spent listening to his broadcasts, this is the problem with Emrick--he tries to sound smart and clever all the time, and he's neither.  Which is to say, he pretty much has the exactly same problem everyone who misidentifies/misuses irony has.

Also, one last time, why the hell not:

Nobody captures their identity better than Dustin Penner, their frustrating 6-foot-3 forward who's evolved into something of a whipping boy for the Kings faithful. One of the biggest guys on the team, Penner barely throws checks, much less punches. Every time he wades into the corner and goes through the motions of not hitting someone, you hear this chorus of pissed-off "COME ON, PENNER!" hisses coming from every direction. I always want him to do well, just because it's funny when he scores and the fans instantly flip that switch and pretend to be Penner fans again. But if you're trying to win the Cup? You need less Penners and more Ryane Clowe.

And sure, I'm the one who laughed uproariously at the idea of the Celtics making the NBA Finals, and then they almost did.  But 1) they didn't, 2) I blame Rose's ACL, and 3) I don't get paid to do this so neener neener neener and I hope Bill Simmons falls out of a blimp.

An FJM Special Presentation

To celebrate the opening of the 2009-2010 NHL season, I have done something horrific.

I have created 100% original content that contains no outside sports writing. You should probably get up and go now, as I doubt you will have time to BM during this riveting post.

This post started as a simple insult on my beloved Blues. It then very quickly escalated to a spreadsheet with rules. But before I feel that I can crown the worst team in hockey, there are some caveats about how I came to my conclusion. Remember that this idea was bred out of a google chat, so if I saw "we," I am referring to a Stars fan in Australia.

We started thinking about using win-loss records for every team, then dividing by the years they have been in the league. How simple! Until you think back on the last couple of decades. The league had win-loss-tie. Then win-loss-tie-overtime loss. Then win-loss-shootout loss. Clearly, this was not the way to do it.

In a flash of brilliance - most likely fueled by the blood of koalas - my friend comes up with using playoff wins. Playoff wins have been the way to the Cup, and you don't get to play Columbus or Atlanta 6 times in the playoffs if they are in your division.

We decided to add a point system to playoff wins. One point for every game won in the first round, two points in the second, three in the third and four in the Stanley Cup Finals. Pretty straightforward.

The days following the initial idea were spent trying to figure out different things. At first, I wanted to include a team's entire life in their stats. The Stars stats would include Dallas and Minnesota, The Devils would have Kansas City, the Coyotes would have Winnipeg, etc. But teams trying to sell themselves dump players and payroll, and relocating teams will often suck hard. My other brass ring in the argument for keeping pre-move teams out of the stats is Patrick Roy being traded to Colorado - I have to agree with the thinking that Roy would not have been moved to the franchise if they were still in Quebec.

My first formula for factoring against time was to add weight not only to playoff wins, but also to playoff losses. A team would get 1 point for a first round win, but lose 4 points for losing a first round game. The totals wouldn't necessarily be positive numbers, but it would show what teams win in the playoffs and what teams lose. My goal was to find the worst team in the NHL, not the best. After putting in the first set of numbers, I was talked out of this and convinced that a much easier formula of total points divided by years the team has spent in the league would be as effective.

A couple of quick notes:

1) I started the Original Six era in 1927, when the Arenas changed their name to the Maple Leafs. Really, I don't care too much about the Original Six, because with all of the alleged corruption and lack of other teams, there is no way that any of them would be found to be statistically worst in the NHL.
2) There were only 3 playoff rounds until 1974, so I worked in reverse. Stanley Cup wins were 4 points, semifinal wins were three, and quarterfinal wins were 2.
3) Only 2 games were played in early quarterfinal games, so if both teams won 1 game, total points were used to determine a winner. In the event of a two-legged tie, Each team was given 1 quarterfinal win for 2 points.
4) From 1974 to 1981, a preliminary round was played for some teams to get into the division finals. These were treated as first round games.
5) All of my win-loss data came from Wikipedia, so I have to assume it's accurate.

So with all of that, here is your Worst Team in the NHL data:



It's no surprise that Atlanta and Columbus are here, they haven't won a playoff game. I don't really think it's fair to crown these young franchises as the worst. There should be a "should have known better" decision to factor in here. And really, only one team is sticking out to me.

The Los Angeles Kings.

When you look at the teams that are surrounding the Kings, there is no excuse for them to be so low. The Wild are right there and they haven't been to the Stanley Cup finals in the little time they have been in the league. The Kings consistently fizzle out before the Conference Finals, have won one game in the Stanley Cup Finals, and are now The Worst Team in in the NHL. Way to go, guys!

Go ahead and argue away in the comments, but I doubt there will be anybody here to stick up for the Kings. I feel sick that I have accidentally crowned the Avalanche as the best team, but the numbers are what they are.

NHL Marketing Has Other Things to Worry About

I have SportsCenter on right now and with 2 leagues in the playoffs and baseball playing actual games that have meanings in the standings, Brett Favre has 3 slots in the "SC Rundown," MLB has 3, and the NHL has 1. What a joke. Looks like I'll have to watch Parental Control on MTV. If only my chronic unemployment would strike at The Hockey News' Ryan Kennedy. He thinks that this year's playoffs will be great for the NHL Marketing department. He is an idiot. You may now skip to the comments.

Not that the NHL would ever admit it cheers for certain teams, but the league must be beaming at the results of the playoffs so far. Because in terms of marketing the sport to casual fans, Gary Bettman and his buddies are looking at a huge summer.

Casual fans and NHL summer marketing... bikini-clad porn stars playing on ice? Casual fans rejoice! Nipples will be seen!

The only Stanley Cup final permutation right now that doesn't result in huge media coverage — let's call it the "nightmare scenario" — would be if Anaheim met Carolina. This is not meant to besmirch these two great teams; they simply don't have the name recognition that draws in the TV crowd.

Except that one of these two teams was named after a movie trilogy. Even non-hockey fans know the trials and tribulations of Gordon Bombay. And every other team left in the playoffs results in huge media coverage. The end. Evidence of this isn't needed. It's given to you as a fact, so accept it. Remember how I told you the NHL was on SportsCenter? We're 40 minutes in. Casual fans will not care about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, so let's hope it's an entertaining match up and not worry about TV ratings, okaythanks.

Even by the most liberal calculations, however — that is to say, not handicapping two low seeds against teams that "should" beat them in the next two rounds — there is only a one-in-16 chance the Ducks and 'Canes meet in the final. Otherwise, a huge pool of viewers is available in nearly every other scenario.

And every week, millions of people watch American Idol and Dancing With the Stars. It doesn't mean that all of the sudden karaoke and ballroom dancing are billion dollar industries. Just because people watch the games on TV doesn't mean that they'll go out and buy season tickets. It doesn't mean a large influx of new fans. It just means the games are less boring to people than repeats of Match Game PM. A huge pool of viewers will be available anyways because people aren't going out as much. The best case scenario would be if Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin could play against each other in some sort of playoff scenario. Even then, it will be forgotten quickly unless there are amazing individual plays or explosions.

In the Western Conference, you have two Original Six teams from big sports markets: Detroit and Chicago. As an added bonus, both teams come pre-packaged with feel-good stories: The Wings are the defending champions and the NHL's marquee franchise right now, while the Blackhawks are riding a crest of local goodwill as fans return to rock the home arena after decades of neglect. With both teams facing off in this season's Wrigley Field Winter Classic, casual fans already have a base of familiarity to work from, too.

Casual fans, of course, would know what "Original Six" means and why they would care. Hell, I love hockey and couldn't give two shits about the Original Six. Put that into NBC commercials for the playoffs. This team has been around forever and you should watch for that reason! The team has stayed economically stable for many years, thus the talent must be outstanding for this season! Does this guy know what marketing is? I ask because none of this seems to make the NHL more desirable to somebody who isn't a fan.

And if not the Original Sixers, how about Vancouver? The Canucks are now Canada's last hope at ending a national losing streak of 15 seasons and Canadians tend to pull for whichever team north of the 49th parallel remains, so northern ratings would be huge. Coupled with the fact Vancouver is one of the nation's biggest cities and has a fan base growing even more rabid as success on the ice echoes 1994 and you've got a good situation.

Yes, sell the Stanley Cup Finals to Canada. They won't know that it's going on, and they contribute so fucking much to American television ratings. Northern ratings would be huge regardless of who is playing. But you know where the NHL doesn't need to market to new fans? Canada. They watch, they buy jerseys, they play, they consume everything the NHL can give to them. In case you're curious - and you aren't - here's the ratings of the opening night of the playoffs in Canada this season. Canada averaged 1,732,000 viewers across 3 networks of playoff hockey. That's out of an estimated 33 million people living in that country. Here's what TV by the numbers had to say about US ratings.

In total, VERSUS averaged a 0.38 household cable rating, 286,290 households and 392,384 viewers. Those figures are up 6%, 10% and 25% from last year’s opening night average of 0.36, 261,308 households and 314,368 viewers. The 314,368 viewer average for the night makes it VERSUS most watched opening night of the NHL playoffs since they started carrying NHL games in the 2005-06 season.

Impressive.

The embarrassment of riches in the East is just as palpable. The Washington-Pittsburgh series guarantees either Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby in the conference final and their second-round death match alone will bring in big headlines across the continent.

Remember what I said about SportsCenter? They both had hat tricks in the same game. And still, Brett Favre is the one making the headlines.

Having Ovechkin in the final would be tremendous for NHL marketers, especially since his personality and on-ice skills are so translatable to viral forms such as YouTube. If Crosby can bring his squad back to the final for another go, it would be just as satisfying.

They already have a Crosby/Ovechkin playoff meeting and they aren't marketing that. So how exactly would an NHL marketer magically make just one player in the Stanley Cup Finals sound so much better to the average American?

Boston, much like Chicago, is an Original Six team in a big American market that is experiencing a dramatic resurgence. The Bruins are skilled, tough and filled with great stories and personalities such as Tim Thomas, Milan Lucic and Phil Kessel. They're also a powerhouse No. 1 seed and the Stanley Cup possibilities involving the Bruins are pretty sexy — can you imagine Boston-Detroit or Boston-Chicago? Even the time zones work out for maximum exposure.

Amazingly, the strongest story going for the Bruins right now are the YouTube copies of their "Bruins Hockey Rules" ad campaign. Which is fantastic. Viral ads are what marketing is all about. Not Original Six teams.

While I'm here, though, something else in this paragraph set me off. Sports writers using the term "sexy." This isn't Seinfeld. Combining sex with excitement doesn't work. Sexy shouldn't stand in for underdog. Sexy shouldn't stand in for surprising. Sexy shouldn't stand in for thrilling. Stop fucking using it. It's not edgy or hilarious to say sexy. It's stupid and uninspired. "Sexy" is exactly the sort of drivel you'd expect to hear out of a TV tuned to ESPN.

Hockey is on a pretty serious roll right now. While baseball is dealing with an aura of being out of touch (i.e. the new Yankee Stadium ticket prices) and basketball no longer the dominant winter-spring sport, the coolest game on ice is starting to come out from under the radar. Big names in the final would boost the sport's profile even more.

Hockey is on a good roll for now, with arena attendance up. Baseball in New York City is out of touch - attendance should be down everywhere. It's just magnified because it's New York City and it's so expensive. Basketball what? I guess I missed that press conference where the NBA relinquished it's TV deal with ESPN and gave hockey the crown of "dominant winter-spring" sport. Big names only help those who have the means to help themselves. You don't have that when Versus is your TV rights holder.

Sit on the Business End of a Garden C.L.A.W. While Watching The View

From now on, if I post about Terry Frei, the title will be something that I would rather do than read his whole article. I was actually impressed when his article showed up in the RSS feed this morning, because it was very timely. I think what makes me so upset about him is that he's a national writer that only writes about the world around Avalanche hockey. I thought that maybe his article on ESPN.com was taken from The Denver Post, but it's very different (and can be found here.)

I was surprised to see the headline being about Brodeur's return. I knew he came back last night and had a shutout. I thought maybe this had surprised Terry enough to write an article about it. Then it turns out he shut out the Colorado Avalanche. So let's parade out the different parts of this national story that will piss you off, too.

NEWARK, N.J. -- The situation is not without its potential awkwardness, even if this is Martin Brodeur, the man who until Thursday night was only seven career victories short of both eclipsing and making history.

In their 50 games without him available this season, the Devils went 32-17-1. Scott Clemmensen made the most of his emergency recall, transforming his reputation from an organizational-insurance type to at least provisionally proven commodity as he and Kevin Weekes filled in.

If it eventually became arguable that he came back too soon, or that the Devils would have been better off, at least in the short term, if Brodeur were held out a little longer, it could have been at least slightly embarrassing.

Or worse.

So as Brodeur sat in the Devils' locker room following his 24-save shutout and New Jersey's 4-0 win in his return against the now-woebegone Colorado Avalanche, he didn't blanch when we brought up the issue of pulling his weight.

And at this exact moment all hope I had in Terry Frei's article left. It's going to somehow be about Colorado. Maybe Brodeur loves Denver's airport? Maybe he had something embarrasing happen at McNichol Sports Arena? Because it's not going to be an article about how a goalie came back from injury to shut out a team.

In one historical sense, it was a bit weird, at least with those with very long memories. It was slightly remindful of the night 29 years ago, when the Devils' predecessors, the Colorado Rockies, were what amounted to the Washington Generals, when they were the foils in "Miracle on Ice" hero Jim Craig's NHL debut for the Atlanta Flames on a flag-waving night in the old Omni. The Rockies put little pressure on Craig, and the first shot took forever to come, and it came from roughly Augusta.

On Thursday, another Colorado team minimally tested Brodeur, at least for much of the night. Chris Stewart got the Avalanche's first shot from near Weehawken -- OK, it was near the red line -- six minutes into the first period. This wasn't going to go down as the most heroic of Brodeur's three shutouts in his 11 games this season.

How is the fuck are these two situations related? Never in the history of the game of hockey have two games been so similar as these! It took a while for a team to take a shot and it came from far away! HOW IDENTICAL! If I didn't know any better, I would have thought that the Rockies and Flames were playing each other. I am so glad that Terry Frei has the memory of an elephant so that nobody could give a fuck about that game now as much as they didn't give a fuck about it 29 years ago. I know it's a shocker, but you can make goals happen by dumping in the puck. How about a goal from center ice?

All of that led a cynic (us)

Just you.

wonder if he had picked the Avalanche for his return because of the irony tied to his chase of Roy and the likelihood he wasn't going to have anything near the sharpest game of his life to make a triumphant return.

You know, kind of like walking before you run.

With 100% certainty, Martin Brodeur pulled out a pocket schedule and said "I want to come back against the Avalanche because I'm chasing Patrick Roy! He still plays for them, right?"

"It was just a good game for me to come back, as far as in the schedule," he responded. "As far as chasing the record, every day I'm going to have to deal with it. I'm excited about that, and I just want to get back. What's in my mind right now is getting back in top form for the playoffs. Winning it is what we're in the business to do, and hopefully, we'll get it done."

So the answer is no.

Once the record business is taken care of, and most likely it will happen in this stretch run, it will be on to the postseason for the Devils, again hoping to capture more of the spotlight in the area either one or two stops on the New Jersey Transit train -- depending on whether it's an express run -- from Madison Square Garden and Manhattan's Penn Station.

That will be a challenge. The Madison Square Garden Rangers just fired their head coach and sit a comfortable 2 points ahead of not being in the playoffs. I'm not too sure what Manhattan is doing here... the Islanders play about 40 minutes due east of Manhattan. They're also in dead last in the league.

While We're At It, Cancel EVERY All-Star Game!

Ah, the All-Star game. Remember being a kid and being excited that all these awesome players were playing together? Usually a player from your team would be playing there, too! Slam dunk contests, home run derbies, skills competitions... it was worth staying in on a Sunday to watch. Then you grow up and it turned into an excuse for taking a fantastic weekend nap with sports on TV. I'll TiVo Saturday's skills competition because the trick shots will be awesome and Versus might give me another goalie fucking up his hip.
Since the lockout, the NHL hasn't put out a single paper ballot for the All-Star Game and ever since, there's a big stink about people who don't deserve to go to the All-Star Game going. John Grigg is back to explain to us why fans shouldn't vote.

The NHL has reached the tipping point with All-Star Game fan voting. It needs to be scrapped. Now.

This wasn't a problem with the paper ballots because who brought a pen or pencil with them to a hockey game? Well they have the internet on computers now, and you can vote for anybody you want as many times as you want. This year you could also text the name of your team to some SMS short code and it counted as 1 vote for every player from your favorite team. So instead of throttling the input of fan votes down to say, a username/password combo and limiting each of those to a certain number of votes, we should abort the whole thing.

With the league insisting all 30 teams be represented, the game is already watered-down. With only six open spots available on each 21-man roster, allowing fans to determine the starters is akin to letting ice cubes melt in an already weak drink.

Letting fans feel like they have a say in something is SUCH a horrible thing. We shouldn't let fans go to the All-Star game. Instead, they should be forced to watch the game in large common areas with TVs that are tuned to Versus.

A few years back, the NHL got a glimpse of the future when a fan-based Internet campaign almost got journeyman defenseman Rory Fitzpatrick voted in. Conspiracy theorists suggest the NHL manipulated the results to ensure Fitzpatrick didn’t make the grade. The player himself was publicly uncomfortable with the possibility.

What Rory Fitzpatrick said he was uncomfortable with was that he was becoming a sideshow. From the CanWest News Service: ''It could have created more of a stir. I just tried to keep it fun and not stressful. If it got to be a distraction for the team or too much, I might have handled it differently.'' The NHL didn't do anything about the voting system because the Vote For Rory campaign made national sports headlines, and there's no way the league would discourage actions that make ESPN talk about the league.

This season the problem was taken to new heights. Eleven players - all either Canadiens or Penguins, including the yet-to-play-a-game-this-season Sergei Gonchar - surpassed Jaromir Jagr’s 2000 record of 1,020,736 fan votes. And just four teams - Anaheim (three players), Chicago (three), Montreal (four) and Pittsburgh (two) - are represented in the starting lineups for the Jan. 25 event.

My biggest problem this year is that four centers and two right wingers are starting. So left wingers can go fuck themselves. John Grigg cares not about positions, only about team representation.

Crosby led all vote-getters, topping 1.7 million votes. Malkin nearly matched him. The four Habs averaged about 1.4 million votes each. None of the other players with one million-plus votes were named reserves. The Hawks and Ducks starters averaged just 747,000 votes each, but took all the spots in the West.

How dare Montreal fans vote to see their players play in front of them when Montreal hosts the All-Star game this year! It's stupid that there's only four teams represented in the starting lineup. I would imagine that after the first shift, those players will be split up between other lines.

In the old days, chad-punching homers voting with their hearts rather than their heads were the problem. Now the NHL has to fend off computer-hacker homers to ensure roster legitimacy. Luckily, most of the starters are legitimate all-stars, but some are debateable [sic]; some laughable.

And only fans of these four teams were stuffing the ballot box? I'm pretty sure that fans of every team are encouraged by their team to stuff the ballot box. I would even go so far as to say that there are very few people that sat down in front of their computer and thought out the scenario of the All-Star game and only voted for the best players. I don't care who starts, because the actual best players in the league will be named to the team anyways. So I might as well vote for my team's best players.

Jonathan Toews will be good, maybe great. But he’s not yet Henrik Zetterberg, Marian Hossa or Patrick Marleau. Scott Niedermayer is a Hall of Famer, but Duncan Keith and Brian Rafalski are more deserving this year.

Replace an Anaheim player with a Chicago player. That's a smart thing to say when you've completed bitching about how only 4 teams are represented in the starting lineup.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere has a Conn Smythe Trophy and a Stanley Cup on his resume. But he’s had better seasons when he wasn’t named an all-star and is being outperformed by others, especially rookie Steve Mason. Mason, at least, will be in the Young Stars Game, but it would have been fun to see the wunderkind in the skills competition and the big game.

It would have been a lot of fun to watch the kid get lit up by the Eastern Conference's finest.

With that in mind, I offer a solution: Have NHL players, coaches and GMs vote on who should represent the best hockey league in the world at its All-Star Game. Then open the starting-lineup voting to fans a couple of weeks prior to the game.

With that as a solution, what's the point of opening it up to the fans at all? To fix fan voting, limit the number of times they can vote. From what I remember, there was a 25 vote limit per person for the MLB All-Star Game. Make fans vote for every position instead of just voting for forwards. Don't give the fans a consolation prize just because the NHL screwed the system up to begin with.

Make the announcement an in-game event. Make a big deal of it. Keep the starters secret and give them prizes of some kind (Alex Ovechkin. Come on over! You’ve won your very own Segway. Sidney Crosby, you get your own apartment!). Make it fun. With some spontaneity and humor, it could be the NHL’s Golden Globe Awards.

A Segway joke? What is this? Do they even make Segways anymore? Give starters priz - - what the fuck just happened to the article? The All-Star Game is enough of a show as it is. If there's one thing the NHL doesn't need, it's a version of the Golden Globe Awards.

Because, really, who cares who starts the All-Star Game, as long as the best players are there? And since the 30-team rule already makes that difficult, the NHL shouldn’t let electronic ballot-stuffers make it impossible.

That's right, he just spent this whole article complaining about the starters and then at the end, he throws up his hands and says "Oh well!" Then why write this? Why not expand the roster to hold 63 players on each side, and the teams switch every period? The first period is determined by fan vote, the second period is determined by the coaches, players, and GMs. The third period - everybody on the ice at the same time! That'll fix your 30-team rule complaint.

Terry Frei Defends Nashville

You know what I like about Terry Frei? Nothing.

In this, his most recent article, he whines about how Nashville is such a great hockey market but they're in danger of losing their franchise. The Predators are a team that I love to hate, and last night made it even easier for me.

NASHVILLE -- The advertising signs are painted onto the sidewalks on Nashville's Broadway, including in the block as you're approaching Jack's Bar-B-Que, several honky-tonks, and the statue of the crooning Elvis outside of the famous Legends Gift Shop.

See? Terry Frei doesn't just stay in Denver. If he hadn't been to Nashville, he wouldn't have known about all of these things.

Nashville defensemen Shea Weber, Dan Hamhuis, and Ryan Suter are pictured, arms crossed and looking appropriately solemn.

And you are told of Predators hockey:

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"It Stays With You."

What? It Stays With You? Like bad Chinese food and genital herpes? Or painful losses?

The same sign, in the form of a huge banner, is on the side of the nearby Sommet Center.

The issue, of course, is: "OK … but for how long?"

Right, the hockey team. Here's where we hear the soft SportsCenter piano playing over black and white photos of the players slowly being panned by a camera and spot light. Lay on the guilt trip of this horrible team.

The Predators, now in their 10th NHL season, have been an amazingly resilient operation, playing on -- and remaining surprisingly competitive -- through so much drama, a gifted and hockey-minded songwriter could come up with a CD full of songs about it all.

Nashville has singers! Gaw-haw! It's Music City! Stompin' Tom Connors is the only hockey-minded songwriter that should release a CD.

After managing to make the playoffs last season, despite what essentially was a clearance sale in the 2007 offseason, the Predators are off to a decent start again under coach Barry Trotz, and their 3-2 victory over Colorado on Thursday night got them to 13-10-2.

It's funny how every article Terry writes for ESPN relates to the Avalanche. Not that a lot of mine don't relate to my favorite hockey team, but I'm not paid to be unbiased. This article very easily could have been written without reference to the Avalanche.

Yet, after an official crowd of 12,717 against Colorado, the Predators are averaging 13,716 for their 10 home games, and that's 29th in the 30-team league -- ahead of only the New York Islanders.

Ah, but without the Avalanche, how are we supposed to gauge how poor the attendance figures are? If Nashville can't draw with a team like Colorado in town, how do they draw with somebody like the Red Wings or Sharks in town?

Said Suter, the 23-year-old Madison, Wis., native who is the son of 1980 U.S. Olympian Bob Suter: "Our fans are good fans. They're coming the best they can to support us. It's tough down there because the football team [Tennessee Titans] is doing so good. We're competing with them. We always have our base crowd. Some nights are more than others, but they're loud."

It's always fun to go see the bad team when the good team is very successful. All the really good seats are empty because the rich people that own them are watching the successful team play and win. The stands are filled with people wearing the successful team's jersey and listening to them on the radio or watching them play on the concourse. Cheers erupt at inappropriate times because of the successful team scoring.

I've always been scornful of the hockey media's tendency to make value judgments about consumers' prioritizing, and having double standards -- including the tendency to come up with excuses for falloffs at the box office in traditional markets, yet consider the same fluctuations in the "new" markets to be prima facie cases that they didn't deserve teams in the first place.

I've always been scornful of Terry Frei making no fucking sense. Fans have to prioritize because they can't be in two places at once. I can't think of reading an article where fans are ridiculed for choosing to attend one sporting event over another, regardless of which market they're in. This sounds like Terry wrote about it a few years ago, but recently went to Nashville and fell in love with it, so now he's calling for the heads of those that hate Nashville.

And what often is overlooked is how deflating it can be for ownership to have short pockets and inadvertently lean into the punch that the survival of the team is in question, which creates self-fulfilling prophecies. Why invest emotions and money in an enterprise that has one eye on the door?

How about why invest money in the first place when you're going to lose money? Life must suck so much for these MILLIONAIRES to be asked about their hockey team moving. Nashville's investors knew the situation was dire going in. I'm sure they had a team of advisers telling them not to do it. The question should have been "Why invest money in a failing investment?" I find it very hard to feel bad for any of these people.

But the facts can't be ignored: This is the franchise's 10th season. Hockey 101 should have been off the curriculum long ago, and the fact that many move into Nashville from other "traditional" hockey areas also added to the potential fan base, anyway.

Oh really, Terry? Transplant fans? Don't you hate transplant fans, you fucking hypocrite?

In this economy and these times, it's not shocking that other franchises -- including Colorado, where the 487-game sellout streak is in the nostalgia-drenched past -- are having problems at the gate, too.

There are other teams in the league than Colorado, I assure you. Yuppies would rather spend money on season lift tickets than watch a team not win their division. I wouldn't be surprised if that dog wearing a cape left for a better gig with the Rockies chasing Dinger around on the field.

So, no, the Predators are far from alone, but in so many ways, the savvy management of the franchise has been amazing. General manager David Poile and Trotz have been like golfers trying to putt with the gallery screaming, given all the potential distractions and disadvantages. But instead of throwing a golfer's fit, they just putt out and plow on.

Nashville has an attendance problem. So does Colorado. So Nashville, your team isn't moving anywhere, because with a sample size of two, all teams are having problems. Terry could have pointed to the Red Wings cutting ticket prices as a sign of bad things around the league. Canadian teams are halving ticket prices. Terry would rather stick to Colorado, because that's enough for his argument.

At some point, it's not a matter of a value judgment or placing blame, but an issue of wondering about whether it's going to work. No finger-pointing. No name-calling. No distasteful portraying of NHL patronage, or any sports patronage, as some sort of litmus test for the moral fiber of a market.

It either works or it doesn't.

The local ownership, albeit with Del Biaggio's 27 percent as an asterisk, has given the Predators a chance to prove their viability in Nashville. Or, more accurately, Nashville to prove its viability as a hockey market.

Terry already pointed out that Nashville has had 10 years. It should already have been proven if Nashville can prove they are a hockey market. What he hasn't done is shown us how to keep them in Nashville. That would be a very hard undertaking and would take millions of man hours and - - what's that? It's already been done on Puck Daddy? And every point has evidence? Well son of bitch, then how does Terry Frei still have a job?

The Hockey News Creates Stupid Ideas

My beloved sport isn't popular. That's why we've been best friends all these years... *single tear hits keyboard* The sport has become more exciting ever since they went and canceled a season on all of us. Perhaps too exciting. So says Sam McCaig, senior copy editor of The Hockey News. Why they let these people blog is beyond me.

A couple of days ago, a fellow THN editor asked me if I was still “down on the shootout.”

I promptly replied, “Yes.”

Sounds like somebody has a case of the Mondays.

However, back when the tie-breaking format was introduced in 2005, I probably would’ve yelled, “Hell, yes!” and immediately launched into a double-decibel rant about the NHL selling out the game and the shootout’s complete lack of credibility.

Complete lack of credibility? It's a game, asshole. How do you measure hockey's credibility? Man, I wish that I would have read that article.

“It’s a skills competition they ripped off from the All-Star Game!” I would’ve cried. “Nothing more than a novelty act!”

And I would have yelled back, "Hey, dipshit, the 1994 gold medal in the winter olympics was decided by a shootout! Shut the fuck up so I can eat my sammich!" And a novelty act? A novelty act would be the teams trotting out a three member circus freak panel to fight each other. A winner would be determined by blood loss.

"Hockey is a team game!” I surely would’ve shouted. “Let the teams decide who wins and loses, not an individual player on a propped-up breakaway!”

Because those teams played to a tie. So lets bore the fans who don't care about the sport anyways by having them play even more.

Not being smart enough at the time, I wouldn’t have even thought to bring up the fact that four-column records (win–loss–overtime loss–shootout loss) are a royal pain in the standings. Or that the “loser point” would forever relegate a trusty stat like winning percentage to the trash pile. (Now teams have a “points percentage,” which is like winning percentage…but completely irrelevant.

Hey, that's a great point. Unless you could reclaim that room by just adding the shootout loss into the overtime loss column. It's the same outcome, with the team getting one point in the standings. Or you could just be a shithead about it. We've seen where Sammy decided to go with that. And on the same note - way to waste space by separating your idea inside the parenthesis into two paragraphs. What a shithead.

A team could lose all 82 games in a shootout for a record of 0-0-82…And hey! Look! They’re .500! What a year! Stanley Cup, here we come! What do you mean there’s no shootout in the playoffs! Just wait…)

Caution! Sam's slope is very slippery. Or a team could lose 82 games in overtime, before the game is decided in a shootout, and still be 0-0-82. Oh, what's that? You're using three columns? Yeah, get fucked, Sam.

The truth is, though, I’ve mellowed on the shootout a bit.

A bit.

I have only gotten angrier in the last fifteen minutes. Sam has had three years to cool his jets.

I still feel the same way I did when it was thrust upon the league three years ago – that a player-versus-player competition is an awful way to decide a team game – but my passion has subsided with the passage of time.

So what about penalty shots during the game? That's part of the tradition that you're so fond of. Are you going to decry that? And let's also set about in eliminating the ability for a single player to get a breakaway during the game and facing the goalie by himself. Those are unfair because the whole team has fucked up and let a forward get behind the defense. While we're at it, lose the goalie. Why should one individual be allowed to only stop shots in this team sport?

I can even grudgingly concede – as long as you don’t throw it back in my face – that fans, for the most part, seem to like the shootout. If you’ve ever been in attendance for an NHL game that required one, you know the in-arena intensity shoots through the roof. And, definitely, entertaining the fans and giving season-ticket holders the feeling they got their money’s worth is important.

And it brings in fans that normally wouldn't watch a game. I could yell "Shootout!" in college and roommates would come in and watch, then go back to not caring about the NHL. It's good for the league and good for the sport. A larger fan base would bring more into the sport, and then the talent grows and the game gets better.

However.

What however? However, the game needs to be boring because the way it was is much better! The game should die a slow and miserable death at the hands of Sam McCaig! The streets shall run black and red with newsprint and blood! More fans = better for the sport. Shootouts make the game more exciting, so how is there a however?

Nothing is more important than maintaining the integrity of the game. And while the introduction of the shootout did not sink the league’s credibility, it was a shot across the bow. Think about it. The next logical step is to introduce the shootout to decide playoff games; say, for games that remain tied after one 20-minute overtime period.

Are you fucking kidding me? The overtime period(s) in the playoffs are still played 5-on-5. So the next logical step would be to go to 4-on-4 like they do in the regular season. A shootout is very far from the next logical step unless you're a blithering moron. And as for Credibility and integrity? You could have gone with TV and greed forcing the shootout to create artificial excitement and make games end on time so that FSN Final Score doesn't get bumped. Notice the lack of evidence to show that the league has lost credibility and integrity, which can't be measured. What can be measured, of course, is attendance and league revenue. Those have gone up since the lockout, and the excitement of a shootout could be a cause of it, along with redistribution of talent with a salary cap and revenue sharing. But the game lost integrity, scruples, and street cred. No hustle either, Skip.

Surely, we can all agree that would be a terrible day for the league. NHL playoff overtime is the best thing about hockey – you could argue nothing is more exciting in the world of pro sports – and the last thing the league should do is tamper with its most thrilling aspect.

Overtime playoff hockey was pretty cool when I could stay up and watch the games. A couple overtimes are still fun to watch. In Dallas, they stand through the whole thing, which is a pretty cool tradition for such a mindless fan base. There are a lot of things that are more exciting in every sport than playoff overtimes. Baseball has bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, football has last second desperation, and basketball has the last 45 seconds that turn into an hour with timeouts when the score is close. Fuck, even bowling has the 10th frame. Breakaways are the most thrilling aspect of the game. So stop bitching about the way it used to be. Didn't you see they changed the logo, Sam? It slants upward.

In fact, I think the league should go the other way and extend overtime during the regular season. Forget the shootout; how about 4-on-4 OT for 10 minutes instead of five? Or 20 minutes? Or play until someone scores; that’s what sudden-death overtime is all about.

And the arenas could play Brahms' Lullaby.

The naysayers might complain about games going too long – granted, no one wants to stay up until two in the morning on a Tuesday night in February to see who wins the fifth St. Louis-Nashville meeting – but the fact is, more than 40 percent of regular season games that go to overtime are decided within the five-minute frame. Plus, if teams know they don’t have the option to try and “hold on” for a shootout, they’ll be more apt to go for the win in OT.

Right now, 100% of the games end within a reasonable amount of time. Andrew touched on fairness in OT in football and now here it is in hockey. Shootouts are a fair way to end a game. In a long OT game, a bad penalty can be called and ruin the outcome of the game, fucking up Sam's precious integrity.

And if it’s really a big concern that far too many games would go on for far too long, why not go to 3-on-3 after 10 minutes of 4-on-4? There won’t be any triple-overtime marathons under that format, we can guarantee you. Granted, 3-on-3 is a little cartoony, but it’s much better than deciding games with a 1-on-1 format.

Actually, 3-on-3 hockey has been done before. And it was the greatest video game. Ever. But in the NHL overtime, I don't think that all of the sudden somebody will yell "BO-NUS!" and you'll get an unstoppable slap shot. Well, not yet.

Pretty much anything is.

How about games are decided by the drawing and quartering of senior copy writers from The Hockey News? Teams win by having the majority of the corpse. I don't want that to actually happen, but is that better? Pretty much anything is.

Bill Simmons: deuche who doesn't understand money

From his magazine article listing reasons he loves sports:

Reason No. 949: Gary Bettman
I thought about buying the NHL Package on DirecTV last week so I could have breakup sex with the Bruins for a year.

Right, that or so you could watch them play because you enjoy "seeing their uniforms so much."

Just admit that you're shamelessly jumping back on the bandwagon already and stop with the slow, inevitable march to the "I'M BACK, BABY!" column.

The cost? $169! Really, Gary? That's how you treat your "mostly blue-collar fans who can't afford good seats for games anymore," the ones you've already insulted 300 times over?

So much idiocy going on here:

1. Blue Collar fans can't afford good seats at most professional sports stadiums.

2. This package is cheaper than MLB Extra Innings ($199), NFL Sunday Ticket ($289), and the combination of FSC and Setanta ($300 annually) if you're down with European Footy.

3. If good tickets were available at the "affordable" rate of lets say $20 a person, it would cost a family of four $160 (not including transit and food) to see all of 2 games in person. Meanwhile, they could pay $9 extra and watch literally every fucking hockey game that year.

4. To use a Simmons-y type anecdote/analogy: remember when you were in college and and for the first two years, the local beer distributor had that really awesome price for 30's of Busch Light? Then a month into your junior year, they raised the price by $1 per case. You and all your friends said you were going to boycott the place out of spite, only to go back their that weekend to buy 50 cases for your Halloween party.

The $69 difference between $100 (the price for the NASCAR package) and $169 isn't going to stop a true hockey fan. Real fans are like substance addicts, they'll pay whatever price to watch their team play, regardless of whether or not they enjoy the uniforms. Somehow this fact eludes superfan Bill Simmons, who's probably paid over $169 on Laguna Beach and The Hills DVDs.

The Dreaded Return of Hockey or Terry Frei, Depending on How You See Things

It's tough to believe that in just seven short weeks, preseason hockey will be attracting 4,000 people with nothing better to do to arenas all across North America. So to get back in the swing of things, let's stop off at Terry Frei's latest article to see what's not funny.

If the New York Islanders get around to hiring Ted Nolan's successor by opening night, nine NHL head-coaching jobs will have turned over since the end of last season.

Haha! You see - because they haven't... they haven't filled the position yet! And they might not before the season starts! That would be awfully silly of them! And perhaps the Islanders can all wear different styles of goofy hats! That would be uproarious!

Barring a long-shot choice on Long Island, such as Providence Bruins coach Scott Gordon, three men will be getting their first chance running an NHL bench: Atlanta's John Anderson, Florida's Peter DeBoer, and San Jose's Todd McLellan.

In the past few days, ESPN.com has offered up Power Rankings -- the Kings and the Thrashers being at the bottom of their conferences helps explain why their next coaches have formidable tasks ahead of them -- and on the mind-games front, the Top 75 Fantasy Players.

Mind you neither of these are linked in his article so that you can see them, you have to go to ESPN.com's NHL Portal your own self. I can top Terry's laziness by just not nitpicking all of his article, which is exactly my plan, but give it a little effort. There's not an awful lot to do during the hot days of the Denver summer - besides Rockpile tickets or Elitch's - and that doesn't embiggen Mr. Frei to give us links.

Here's the third period, so to speak: Coaching rankings.

On the premise that it would be excessively presumptuous to rank them 1 through 30 -- after all, we're not talking about uniforms -- the rankings are done in groups. They are also purely subjective.

Because the Power Rankings aren't purely subjective?

He follows with exactly what he said, a long and boring list of every coach broken into three boring groups. I'll be taking a tasting from each menu.

The Elite ...
... or the men who get the most out of their rosters, regardless of how good (or otherwise) those rosters are.

Barry Trotz, Nashville
The only coach the Dallas Cowb ... er, the Nashville Predators have ever had has done a remarkable job under changing circumstances. He, along with general manager David Poile and associate coach Brent Petersen, is a testament to the positives of stability. Under less-stable leadership and in less-capable hands, this franchise would be a joke on the ice.

Man, if there's something that I hate more than Terry Frei it's the Predators. But I do not understand what joke he's trying to make with the Dallas Cowboys. Other than fans of both teams are glaring idiots. Just how elite are the Nashville Predators under Barry Trotz? In 738 games, 324 wins, 308 losses, 60 ties (remember ties?) and 46 Overtime Losses. A very elite .500 team.

The Proven ...
... or the guys you know can pull it off until their voices get stale, it's time for a change, or the general manager needs to save his job by making someone a scapegoat.

Andy Murray, St. Louis
If you don't believe he's one of the best coaches in the league after his work in Los Angeles and then with the Blues, just ask him.

Andy Murray isn't egotistical. He may not be the best coach in the league, but he never has said anything along those lines. His work in St. Louis has been stellar if you count half of each season as a whole. The NHL does not, and he could be axed if the Blues miss the playoffs... again.

The jury's still out ...
... or the first-time NHL head coaches who still have to show they can be productive in what passes in this sport for the long run.

Bruce Boudreau, Washington
What a story. Finally gets his chance after years of coaching in the minors and wins the Jack Adams Award. But after the newness wears off, can he prove it was indicative of a difference-making touch?

The Jack Adams Award is "Coach of the Year." Lumping him into the same category as Wayne Gretzky's head coaching abilities? Not such a great idea.

The Suspect ...
... or they'll have to prove some people wrong to be considered (back) among the elite.

Mike Keenan, Calgary. We all know the man is a quirky genius on many levels, and he stayed relatively low-profile last season, so he might have learned some lessons. But given his recent track record and volatility, he's still in this category ... for now.

Mike Keenan has proven what a glaring prick he is. Which should lump him into "The Proven" category. It's also a much easier joke. The difference being that I'm on Blogger getting paid nothing and he's sitting on top of a bed made of money with many beautiful women posting on ESPN.com, which doesn't let you use the work "prick." Advantage: Firejay. Prick prick prick.

Barry Melrose, Tampa Bay
This is in no way, shape or form a knock on our former ESPN colleague.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmullet.

How the heck can we know yet? ...
... or the first-time NHL head coaches.

Todd McLellan, San Jose
McLellan is in a decent situation; the other two aren't.

To call San Jose a decent situation is to call Fire Jay Mariotti is just a sports blog. Clearly, both are more than just that.

And what sort of audience posts comments on ESPN.com? nhldude11 let's Terry Frei have it with this barb: nhldude11: way to go terry frei... you forgot the islanders and the flames idiot.


In the first 12 words of this article, it is established that the Islanders have no head coach. And I had no problem finding the Flames. To be put in the position to defend Terry Frei is hard, but if you're that stupid to log into your account and leave THAT as a comment... just stop watching the sport, please. Arena football needs you, nhldude11.

Some Fair Weather Fandom Bruin

Greetings and welcome. My name is Jack, you might remember me from such blogs as firemichaelryangebhardt.blogspot.com and firecrackersthesilentkiller.blogspot.com , and I am the newest guy that will infrequently post rants here.

Because I hate Bill Simmons so much, and I'm wildly unprofessional, I've decided to dig up one of his columns from 3 months ago, and rip on him for it.

Some Old Emotions Are Bruin

Bruin like brewin! Ha ha!

I am an NHL widower. I have made that clear many times. I cared about the Bruins for years and years, and up until last week, I had stopped caring about them completely.

I wonder what could've happened last week that got you to start caring again?

Still, it's hard to shake your past. On YouTube right now, you can find a handful of tributes to Bobby Orr and Cam Neely, as well as every memorable Bruins brawl from the 1970s and '80s... Even with the Bruins gone from my life, that didn't stop me from digging these clips up and enjoying them all.

This is completely unique to the Sports Guy. Other fans who have abandoned their now awful teams like the Pirates, Orioles, Reds, Royals, Dolphins, Knicks, etc. don't have the appreciation for sports to enjoy reliving the glory years.

In all the time spent perusing Bruins clips over the past two years, I only avoided plugging two words into YouTube's search engine: "BRUINS CANADIENS." That would be like searching for "80 PERCENT OF THE BAD MEMORIES FROM MY CHILDHOOD."

I shudder to think what the other 20 percent are.

The toughest defeat happened in 1979, when I was 9 years old and still recovering from the Bucky Dent Game a few months earlier.

Boston fans are unique because they incur crushing defeats in close proximity.

Naturally, the B's got whistled for a "too many men on the ice" penalty in the final three minutes, which I remember thinking was a complete crock at the time; only when they re-aired the game on ESPN Classic years later did I realize the Bruins screwed up.

Maybe ESPN Classic will re-air this game and you'll realize what a whiney jackass you sounded like for complaining about so many calls.

There are so many things that separate hockey from other sports -- good and bad -- but no other sport makes you constantly think, "Uh-oh, this is good" or "Uh-oh, this is bad."

Certainly not football, where either team can score on any play. Certainly not baseball, where one swing can be either a grand slam or double play. And certainly not soccer, where both teams play continuous offense and defense for 90 minutes straight with only one stoppage. Bill would know that if he spent more time following his beloved Tottenham Hotspurs.

Every Bruins fan knew what was going to happen. I say that without a hint of exaggeration. He was going to score, we were headed to overtime, and we were going to lose.

Shouldn't the Canadien's fans have known what was going to happen because their team was the perennial juggernaut? No, because they are not special like Boston fans.

Every time they beat us, the Montreal fans would chant "Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nahhhhhh, HEY HEY HEY, gooooodbye" after the game. It never ceased to be infuriating.

Holy shit, I've never heard of fans doing that, nor have I ever heard of the opposing teams fans being infuriated by it. How unique.

After this particular game, I remember being so downtrodden and frustrated that the chant made me start crying, and not just that, but I kept crying and couldn't stop. My face was buried into our living room sofa, so only when I came up for air did we realize my nose had been bleeding the entire time. The entire cushion was covered in blood. Since my dad was going through a divorce and didn't have much money at the time, we turned the cushion over and he kept that sofa for another few years. Every once in a while, we'd turn the cushion over, look at the bloody stain and make jokes about it. It was almost like Guy Lafleur came into the living room and punched me in the face.

A. Adam Morrison would laugh at you for this.
B. It was almost like Guy Lafleur came into the living room and punched you in the face, but it was much more like you spazzed out and started crying over a fucking hockey game.
C. I'm pretty surprised Bill hasn't written a column called "When is it OK to cry in sports" and specifically mentioned this as an example of when it's ok.

So that's what I grew up with: The Canadiens beating the Bruins. We were the nail and they were the hammer. Nothing ever changed. When I graduated college and realized I had spent two solid decades of my life rooting for a franchise that cared about making a profit more than winning a Stanley Cup, that's the only way I was able to dump the Canadiens from my life -- by not following the sport as diligently. Once the Devils unveiled their hideous zone trap and Gary Bettman tried to turn a blue-collar sport into "NBA 2.0," it was an easy decision to cut the cord entirely.

Read that last paragraph and think about these things:

1. Bill dumped the Bruins because they constantly lost to their arch-rival and never won the championship in the first 20 years of his life. That doesn't sound like his experience with the Red Sox at all. AT ALL.
2. Bill dumped the Bruins because the Devils introduced a thugish, defense heavy style of play, and Gary Bettman tried to emulate the NBA. Meanwhile, Simmons continued to root for the god-awful Celtics, who played in the real NBA, where the Pistons dominated the Eastern Conference with a thuggish, defense heavy style of play.

The Bruins would always be like family to me, but I wasn't interested in following them again until the team was sold. Honestly, I didn't feel like I was missing much.

If your definiton of "much" is championships, then no, you probably weren't missing "much." However, if your defintion of "much" is watching your team play, and building up equity, so that when your team does finally win the championship you can say "I suffered through the bad years, so now I can really enjoy this victory!" Then you missed a shit load of "much."

Look, sometimes a sport can just evolve in the wrong direction. It happened to tennis, it happened to pro wrestling and it definitely happened to hockey.

[shaking head in disbelief]

This was a sport that thrived on rivalries and feuds -- Montreal and Boston, the Rangers and Islanders, Philly and Washington, Montreal and Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, Montreal and everybody -- so by moving key franchises and adding too many other ones, fundamentally, they were killing the one thing that made the sport so great.

1. The NFL thrives on rivalries (perhaps you've heard of the Pats/Colts thing?), so one would think that when it re-aligned the conferences 9 years ago, it would've ruined the league. That or it would enter its most financially successful period ever.
2. Ha ha, Montreal was dominant. People like trying to beat the champs. Every team besides the Bruins should be renamed the Montreal Canadiens.
3. Philly-Washington but no Philly-Rangers? What?
4. Of these epic rivalries he listed, the only team that moved was Quebec, who became the Colorado Avalanche. Anyone who actually watched hockey in the mid-late 90's knows that the Av's/Red Wings rivalries was one of the most exciting in the sport at that time.

Strap in, because Bill is about to get really Bostony:

As a Boston fan, how am I supposed to get fired up during the regular season for a steady stream of Nashville, Columbus, Carolina and Anaheim? It's insane. It's illogical. Hockey should never have more than 22 teams, and half those teams should be playing in Canada, where it's the national sport and the citizens truly care about the game.

I. The Bruins shalt not play a team lest they be one of the original 6 or hail from Canada.
II. Cities lacking in sports history shalt not be granted sports franchises.
III. Canada shalt be granted more NHL franchises despite casting away the Edmonton Oilers and Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques. [I am a fucking retard]
IV. Boston fans shalt show their appreciation for the game by boycotting the Bruins, lest commandments I-III be fulfilled.

It's the only way to bring the sport back -- rivalries, bad blood, back-to-back games and everything else -- and as soon as they jettison a few franchises and move a few others back to Canada, I could see caring about the league again.

In typical Simmons fashion, the answer is right in front of Bill's face, but he can't see it. The NHL over-expanded and lost its ESPN contract, and what they need to do is lose a team or two and get that tv contract back. But Bill continues to be obsessed with the rivalries/Candian teams thing.

I write about sports for a living and couldn't tell you who won every Stanley Cup this decade.

I write about sports as an obsessive hobby and I couldn't tell you who has won the past 5 NBA Championships and NCAA Basketball titles. All basketball should be moved to Greece.

Even worse, if I quizzed my friends -- all of whom care about sports except for one -- I don't have a single friend who could rattle off those Cup winners except for my buddy Dave Dameshek, a Penguins fan who didn't get pushed away because of "Sixty-six" (his nickname for Mario Lemeiux) and then Sid the Kid and "Geno" Malkin. So that's not good.

Bill (with bad team): Doesn't pay attention to hockey.
Dave Dameshek (with good team): Does pay attention to hockey.

The NHL has evolved into a sport with all die-hard fans and no casual ones. They need to get the casual ones back. They need to bring back people like me.

This coming from a guy who wrote a column titled something like "I swear, not all Red Sox fans are casual, fair weather fans who only hopped on the bandwagon after 2004! Respect the hardcore Sox fans, pweeese!"

I mention this only because, for the past two weeks, I have been watching hockey.

Once again, why for the past 2 weeks has he been interested?

...the Bruins were pitted against the Canadiens in Round 1 of the playoffs, and even though I couldn't have named five Bruins, I found myself flicking over to Versus for Game 1 just because I enjoyed seeing the uniforms so much.

You were watching the team you'd said was dead to you because you enjoyed seeing the uniforms?

Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies Lies

...they were playing in Whatever-The-Hell-The-Forum-Is-Called-Now. Just like old times ... right down to the part when the Bruins lost. Game 2 happened on a Saturday and I caught the third period and overtime; we blew that one, too.

From Bill's rule #7 for being a fan: "Be very careful when using the word "We" with your favorite team. Use it judiciously. Just remember, you don't wear a uniform, you don't play any minutes, and you're not on the team."

I think it's safe to say that Bill dug up the grave of rule #7's grandmother and did terrible things to it.

But it wasn't until Game 3 that I found myself getting hooked

Guess what happened in Game 3. Write it down on a piece of paper and see if you're right. You can't possibly guess.

-- not for the excitement of the games as much as the ignominy of Montreal fans infiltrating Whatever-The-Hell-The-Garden-Is-Called-Now and cheering on the visiting Habs. Even worse, they had no problem throwing down with Boston fans in the stands. I mean, this was like something that would happen to the Atlanta Hawks or the Tampa Bay Rays.

Bet none of you had that written down, ha HA! Don't worry, it's all just cover for the real reason which is coming up.

Also, I really enjoy that Bill continues to think that it's so edgy that another team's fans would come to Boston despite how many tickets went unsold. What were those Montreal Fanboys thinking!?

No matter what has happened to hockey in Boston over the years, this was an unforgivable turn of events -- nearly as violating as hundreds of British people randomly showing up in Charlestown dressed in 1770s garb, heading over to the Warren Tavern and starting to push locals around.

Quite possibly, the worst analogy ever made.

If there are any English reading this (and there aren't), please, please do this. It would be one of the funniest pranks of all time.

I don't care what's happened to me and the Bruins over the years; the fact that (A) Montreal fans felt safe enough to come to a playoff game in Boston and (B) they could get THAT many tickets to a playoff game had to rank among the saddest moments in recent Boston sports history.

How could this have happend!?

Like everyone else who cares about Boston as a sports city, I was completely horrified.

It would've been prevented if those same people actually supported the Bruins.

And that's when I got sucked back in.

Which happens to coincide with:

We won an emotional Game 3 in overtime

Rule #18 for being a fan according to Simmons: "...you can't start rooting for a team, back off when they're in a down cycle, then renew the relationship once the team starts winning again. All those Cowboys fans who jumped off the bandwagon in the late-'80s, jumped back on during the Emmitt/Aikman Era, then jumped back off in the late-'90s ... you know who you are. You shouldn't even be allowed out in public."

followed by a number of postgame brawls on and around Causeway Street between Boston and Montreal fans, at least 50 of them involving guys named Sully and Murph teaming up to beat the hell out of someone named Pierre.

Yes, Sully and Murph didn't care enough to buy a ticket to the game, but they clearly ganged up on Pierre who cared so much that he took multiple days off work to go to Boston, watch the Habs play, and get in fights by himself.

Bill goes on to talk about how the Bruins have sent it to 7 games in dramatic and unique fashion, and how he might keep rooting for them if they win the series, generic Simmons bet-hedging.

For those that are wondering, the Bruins got blown out in game 7. Something like 6-1. Simmons then acted like this column never existed save for a few responses in a chat sesh, which Bengoodfella addressed pretty well here.

The Trials and Tribulations of Wearing Skate Guards on Ice

The skate guard is a pretty simple device. Made of elastic and cloth, it keeps your skates safe if you were walking around on concrete. But let's say your job was to go out on the ice at specific times. Say, I don't know, every TV commercial break. So the first whistle after the 14 minutes, 10 minute, or 6 minute mark (barring other factors including goals and penalties) you are going out and cleaning the snow buildup around the ice. You would be prepared! You would take your skate guards off and look like a skank! You wouldn't leave them on, would you?

You would if you were this Nashville Predators Goal Girl.



Now I know you only get to see her fall one of the three times, but it happened. You'll have to take my word on it. I also apologize for Bernie Federko's color commentary on the fall. If the local affiliate was smart, they would have played back the audio of all of the fans laughing at her. At the end, she looks up at Nashville's "megatron" to see if she's up there. She wasn't. But everybody saw.

I'm Always Up For the Challenge

I could explain my absence, but instead I give you Daryl Reaugh.

Here's a thought for your Monday morning:

Wouldn't it be a better game if every minor penalty was paid for with a penalty shot?

No. It wouldn't. But I'll still read on, because he might be going somewhere with this. (You already know he isn't, but it's fun to pretend!)

Instead of 5 guys standing around passing the puck and sporadically shooting it just put the pill at center and have the confrontation that thrills the paying faithful - shooter vs goalie.

The paying faithful is really only thrilled in this situation if they cheer for the shooter in the equation. So the idea looks to be that only the road team gets penalized so that paying fans are thrilled.

My epiphany would produce five to fifteen moments of signicance during a game. It would offer immediate gratification. It might be a stronger deterrent to the hooking and holding. And it would inevitably boost scoring.

NHL games do lack a lot of signicance.

His epiphany also would produce a lot more anger towards refs, because one or two penalties would decide the outcome of a lot of games. Wins and losses should really be decided by the players and not the refs. One could make the argument that refs already decide the outcome of games because of the power play, but that's not what I'm here to do.

So, tell me why its an idiotic idea.

You can't can you?

NHL adhere.

Razor be with you.

It's an idiotic idea.

I have a much uglier word for it, Sir: Misappropriation

I was encouraged by dan-bob to take all of the anger that I have brewing behind Outpost.com (This happened to me) and focus it at internet journalism. So I went looking for love in all the right places, and found an old friend serving up a very old complaint.

ESPN.com and Scott Burnside have the honors.

Just wondering where all the howls of derision were when the Philadelphia Flyers announced last week that they had signed third-year center Mike Richards to a 12-year, $69 million contract extension.

That's pretty good job security for a player who just established a career-best 14 goals. When the New York Islanders became a league laughingstock when they signed netminder Rick DiPietro to a 15-year deal coming out of the lockout, at least he had won a playoff game and established himself as a capable goaltender, if not an elite one.

Those howls, if Scott listened enough, came from anybody who follows hockey carefully, and throughout Canada (with the possible exception of Toronto.) And why was nobody paying attention to hockey? Why, oh why, were the masses of sports fans who have nothing to follow during weekdays in the winter not see this terrible event?

Mike Richards signed this contract on December 13th. Other notable things happening on this date?

(1)A-Rod signs 10 year deal


Let's face it, Scott. Yankees baseball news, especially from the media's half-drunk prom date, usually trumps NHL news.

(2) Mitchell Report

The day that Adobe Acrobat was updated in more offices around the country than any other in the year. But let's bitch about hockey being ignored. Let's complain about this contract being ignored. Because Mike Richards' contract is long and pays over $5 million a year.

Not to mention the second part of his whining. Philadelphia wasn't made fun of as throughly as the Islanders were. Let's examine this a little more as well.

Rick DiPietro is a goalie. For good reason, the team is good, great, or awful depending on your goalie. Ricky D isn't a very good goalie. Career win-loss is right around .500 (104-93-8T-16OTL). 554 minutes played in playoff games. 2-7. And yet New York Islanders GM Garth Snow signed him to a 15 year contract worth $67.5 million. Garth Snow is an important name here because he was a goalie. And if the Mighty Ducks trilogy taught us anything, it's that goalies fly together.

Mike Richards is a forward. While they are touted as the superstars of the sport, it's because goals are more exciting when they are scored and not stopped. When your team sucks, you can rarely blame one guy playing bad hockey as the reason why the score is 9-1. The entire line must be looked at to see if there is a reason that goals have gone down. Adam Oates left St. Louis and Brett Hull wept. Teemu Selanne retires (or does he?) and Andy McDonald gets shipped away from Anaheim.

You cannot compare these players to each other. They are not interchangeable parts in the NHL.

Seems to me that I just read something about substitution and bad players.

In other sports terms:

MLB: Pitcher vs. Catcher
NFL: Quarterback vs. Cornerback
Rugby: Backs vs. Forwards

BUT IT'S EXTORTION!

Richards has one point in six playoff games for the Flyers.

Who was the goalie? His point was an assist. His +/- was -5. So what he should have done was score 10 unassisted even strength goals. Because he can do that without a team.

But less than half a season is a pretty short testing period on which to base a 12-year contract. Still, no one batted an eye when the deal was signed. Why? Because that's the new NHL. Identify the young core of your team, and then roll the dice and lock them up to as long a term as you can possibly manage.

Then hope you're not wrong.

I'm sure there is no scouting involved in signing him to a 12 year contract. If only there was a league that players could play in before they got to professional levels that would gauge them against other players.

OHL Stats for Mike Richards:

233 GP, 115 G, 177 A, +/- of +75, and 56 points in 41 playoff games.

But nobody is making the Flyers the butt of jokes.

Blame the WGA, Scott. That must be the reason why nobody cared about this hockey signing.

A New Milestone in Blogging Laziness

Blogging is an amazingly lazy process. Example: I was about ready to go to bed and realized that it's been an extremely long time since I have voiced opinions in a post. So here I am, it's 1:15, and instead of holding my breath in anticipation of the forecasted six inches of snow that will bring the Saint Louis area to a screeching halt tomorrow, I went trolling the blogosphere for somebody with a Doug Weight/Andy McDonald trade post that I could carve up.

Enter St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jeremy Rutherford.

He reports hockey news and painstakingly handcrafts a blog for the P-D sports section. So, Jeremy, can you weigh in on the trade for us?

I’ve got a house full of people over for a Christmas party, so instead of blogging, I will post the story that I wrote for tomorrow’s Post-Dispatch

Oh, sorry. Wouldn't want to keep you from showing your article to your friends. My apologies. Go back to your cheese balls, and we'll touch base with you later.

The article really isn't bad, I guess. It's really just a bunch of facts. And who would want to read that in a newspaper, right? I hear a foghorn off in the distance... BOOOOOOR-INNNNNNNG.

Now please, somebody tell me that I'm inherently lazier than Mr. Rutherford for only boldfacing one sentence.

I am a real American, fight for what's right, fight for your life!

It's been a little bit since I hockeyed everything up a bit here, so let's get right to business.

Daryl Reaugh... what a jackass. Usually I just link to a post out of common courtesy, but you really need to take a look at this post. There's a picture in the post. It's Daryl Reaugh with Mike Modano. For starters, Modano is in the Stars' home jersey, which clearly spells out for the home town fans that the team plays in Dallas. But who really posts a picture of them standing next to a player like that?

But wait... there's more. He types, too!

Lovely ceremony last night for #9. He was showered with love, and praise, and admiration -and gifts, lots and lots of gifts. By the end of the night I figured all that was left was for his chat-line buddy President Bush to commission a fourth head at Mt. Rushmore.

(1) Are chat lines still operational? From what I remember, the last ones died out with young coeds singing "Pick up the phone!" at me at 2AM. Now all I see at 2AM are midget brothers flipping houses.
(2) Chat lines were guys talking to girls, right?

Oh, and then the one glaring omission:

(3) Holy shit, he thinks there are three people right now on Mount Rushmore.

This guy is making hundreds of thousands of dollars to make terrible comments about hockey for a national television station. He knows that Mt. is the abbreviation for "Mount." Three. A five year old says that sort of thing and gets on CBS. Perhaps he should get on the singles chat line with Modano and Bush to get his head put up there next to Modano's. But it only gets worse.

And to that end, where would you rank the Stars great American amongst Greatest Americans?

I don't have him higher than Lincoln, or Reagan, or Walt Disney...but I do rank him above Lucille Ball, Dr. Phil and Michael Moore.

I really love the sport of hockey. I moved away to college based on how close the place was to my team and the fact that they accepted me. I would never mistake a great hockey player as some sort of American hero.

Mike Modano has done nothing great for America. And for that matter, what exactly did Walt Disney do that was so great? Honestly, this guy has the mind of a five year old.

Am I the only one who found it strange that the NHL didn’t have a representative at the ceremony?

Yes, you are. He leads the country in scoring. It was a classy move by the organization. There is no need for anybody from the NHL to be there.

Turns out that the classy, and newly minted Hall of Famer, Jim Gregory was going to come but due to the league’s own limits on the length of pregame ceremonies (15 minutes) Stars officials had to say thanks but no thanks. (Apparently these same time limits were not in place during Mark Messier’s 45 minute retirement epic at MSG, but hey, who’s counting, and besides, that was just a cab ride not a flight during Thanksgiving).

Whenever Mike calls it a career I'm sure the Commissioner will find the time and muster the energy to get to Dallas, just as he did for Al MacInnis in St. Louis last week.

Teams can ask the NHL for more time before the game for a ceremony. It happens all the time. But the NHL is overlooking the Stars! They care for the Rangers more because they are in New York City, just like NHL HQ! It's a conspiracy! Burn them!

And a minor note - when Al MacInnis retired in St. Louis on April 9th, 2006, the NHL didn't have a representative. Gary Bettman only showed up for the tribute to Al going into the hall of fame and having a statue commissioned in his honor. Which Daryl Reaugh only knows about because he was sitting in the press box working for Versus, presumably playing on his GeoSafari and learning state capitals.

Let's talk about concussions

I have always hated Charter cable. No doubt you have, too. If this was a "Fire the Cable Company" blog, I'd put my story on here. But they very partially redeemed themselves this week with the inclusion of the NHL Network. I'm not too excited over it, because in their contract with the NHL, Comcast had to put the NHL Network in about 80 million homes. Within 10 minutes of watching it and the charming Canadians hosting everything, I knew that if I waited 24 hours, somebody would have a stupid article up about Eric Lindros' retirement.

Thank you, ESPN.com's Scott Burnside


The first time we met Eric Lindros, he wasn't in a locker room or at a fan event. He was in the back of a Durham Regional Police car back in late 1992.

Lindros, already a household name in Canada, had been accused of pouring beer on a woman in a bar named "Koo Koo Bananas" just east of Toronto in Whitby, Ontario. Lindros turned himself into police on a Sunday morning, but there must have been some Quebec or Sault Ste. Marie Greyhound fans in the local police force because a few calls were made to local media, including this news writer working at the time for The Toronto Sun.

Here's where my problems start with the article. Putting my hatred for Lindros aside, I had no clue that when he was drafted to play junior hockey that he refused to play until the team closest to his parents picked him. I just learned that watching the NHL Network's career retrospective on him. It made me hate him more. So instead of making a joke that the whole world can laugh at, you just make one that Quebec Nourdique fans will get a kick out of. I don't think they enjoy good jokes ever since they had their franchise relocated to Colorado where they promptly won 2 Stanley Cups.

You see, Lindros J.D. Drew-ed 2 different teams because he's a whiny bitch. No fact to back that up. Lindros is that kid in class right before the bell rings that would raise their hand when the teacher asked if there were any questions about the homework and ask if the teacher meant to assign problems 18-19 like she wrote on the board or 1-19 which would be a more logical assignment and then everybody would have to do all 19 problems.

Needless to say, the picture made its way onto the front pages of newspapers and into newscasts across the country.

Police were later forced to apologize for the incident, which broke a number of protocols. But that was Lindros. Love him. Hate him. But try to find some middle ground.


N.O. No. I choose to sit on the hate him side of the see saw. Maybe it's his hair. Maybe it's how he might have ruined a fantasy team of mine. Maybe it's because his stats were always so high in NHL '98 but you couldn't knock him to the ground with an elbow to the forehead. Whatever it is, I hate Eric Lindros. The only joy I get from Eric Lindros is seeing him get hit. Here - you try to find some middle ground. See if you like him after this:



It's strange, perhaps even sad, that it seemed to take Lindros until the very end of his career to actually find that comfort zone, a place where he was accepted and comfortable.

I'm still not in the comfort zone, Scott. The only time I felt happy watching the NHL Network highlight package was that hit by Scott Stevens. Maybe players feel a different way, but I'm surprised he can form sentences. But let's get back to the article. I could go for days throwing one liners out.

Instead of appearing to care only for his own situation and best interests, as he did for much of his career, Lindros in the final days has morphed into a person who has selflessly given his time and is committed to the common good, albeit the common good of multimillionaire hockey players, but the common good nonetheless.

Worker players of the world, unite!

Lex Luthor looked out for the common good of the Legion of Doom all the time. All he was going to do was enslave the human race after he went back in time to steal all the great treasures of the world.

And Scott?... "worker players" typically don't holdout so they can be closer to home. Whiny douchebag players do that.

On Thursday afternoon, Lindros made formal what had been expected for months -- years if you count Lindros' forgettable turns in Toronto and Dallas since the lockout.

Because why pay attention to a high profile athlete who stopped putting up good numbers? There's another YouTube clip I almost put up here of a Stars @ Blues game from last year featuring Eric Lindros fighting a Blue with painful color commentary by Daryl Reaugh but I'll leave you to your own devices on that.

Lindros, who is expected to take on the role of the NHLPA's new ombudsman, was at the vanguard of the push to bring order to the players' association after the chaos that marked the union during and after the lockout.Lindros , always deceptively bright and thoughtful (qualities that might have been mistaken for being aloof or difficult at times), was on the search committee that recently turned up Paul Kelly, the NHLPA's new executive director.

All of this "Lindros: The Extreme Makeover" runs so contrary to the persona that Lindros either cultivated or foisted on himself over the course of his career.

What exactly would a players union ombudsman do? If there's an NHLPA blog, I think I should know about it. And why Eric Lindros? If I wanted an incontinent nincompoop leaving a trail of slobber because they aren't able to close their mouth anymore doing some investigations, I think Angela Lansbury is still available.

And so far I haven't seen any proff that Lindros has changed. Players like him now? So what? I have met a winner of the NHL's Clancy trophy, which is for being a humanitarian. He was a huge prick. He's the inspiration for many of my fantasy teams now.

I've suddenly run out of time, but there's one last bone I want to pick here.

Although the big forward immediately became Public Enemy No. 1 in La Belle Province, the Nordiques ultimately acquiesced and dealt Lindros a year later to Philadelphia for a package that included Peter Forsberg, Steve Duchesne, Kerry Huffman, Mike Ricci, Ron Hextall, Philadelphia's first-round choice (eventually Jocelyn Thibault) in 1993 draft, $15 million and future considerations.

The deal would ultimately pave the way for the Colorado Avalanche to win Stanley Cups in 1996 and 2001 and would spark debate over what might have happened if the trade was never made.

The Nordiques never would have won the Stanley Cup. I know what I said earlier, but
there was 1 think missing from that team until they moved to Colorado. Patrick Roy. The Montreal Canadiens would have never traded Roy to Quebec. Ever.

{Edit - Sorry about the horrendous formatting. Let that be a lesson to anybody thinking about blogging from a Mac.}

Daryl Reaugh Reveals Nuggets

A quick Amazing Kreskin impression:

Sticks.
Stones.
The words of Dallas Stars Color Commentator and official blogger Daryl Reaugh.

*tears open envelope*

Three things to use if out you're out of Charmin. HEY-OH!

Let's get down to business here. He's a ignoramus and I'm here to spell out why. His latest catastrophe is all about teams other than the Dallas Stars having a terrible message to send to people in their building. This, despite the fact that American Airlines Center has a Mariloff Diamond Ring showroom in the suites. No single event says "buy jewelry" quite like being at a game.

Here are some nuggets from the various venues where hockey, or some reasonable facsimile of the grand game, is played.

Nuggets indeed. We're in 100% agreement right now. Can we get together today?

The Sharks PR department was again busy last week, this time polishing the apple for their arena naming rights holder Hewlett Packard. A memo was sent out to all broadcasters imploring them to use the name "HP Pavilion at San Jose" when referring to the Sharks home rink instead of the popular and colorful "Shark Tank".

Guess not. I would imagine that a hockey team has a busy PR department every day during the regular season, with handling appearances, ticket donation requests, and shuffling away people who want interviews. I would also assume that the people who that the press to refer to the HP Pavilion as just that is, oh... I don't know, the company that paid $3.1 million a year until 2016 to have it named that.

Ironically, just days after the preachy e-mail HP Pavilion suffered a power outage that delayed the start of the Sharks-Bruins game. No word on whether they merely rebooted or switched the name to "Hand Written Note Pavilion at San Jose". (Suggestion to SJ PR; on hockey game nights clear it with Hewy Packard and call it "The HP Shark Tank". That'd be a nice little win-win for you little propaganda artists.)

Isn't irony used incorrectly here? I'm not a huge stickler for grammar or anything - - as I'm sure my fragments, run-ons, misspellings, and splices have shown - - but there's no irony here. Coincidence, yes. Maybe if the arena went out late at night and got a name change and then they had sent out the e-mail I would have been laughing.

The reason it's called HP Pavilion? Because that's a popular brand of laptops, Razor. It's not just a sexified Silicon Valley name for a building.

Suggestion to color commentators: Call it "HP Shark Tank" and sound like an uneducated yokel from Dallas.

Columbus has introduced a Civil War era cannon that is fired off whenever the Bluejackets score a goal. Its really friggin' loud, maybe too loud. Thank goodness Hitchcock's BJs

Get it?

offense has the sting of a moth and the lethality of squirt gun so it'll probably only be heard once or twice a night and then promptly followed by the announcement - "Columbus goal scored by number 61 Rick Nash"...

In four home games, the Dallas Stars - Razor's employer - have 14 goals. Columbus: 11. That puts them just shy of the league average of 2.87 goals/game. The civil war cannon should clear up once and for all what their team name means.

In Chicago Frank Pellico endures and delights on Hawk game nights as his fingers dance across the keys of that throaty pipe organ. There's just something about organ music and hockey that seems a marriage made for eternity. And its a welcome respite from the audio flogging fans get at every whistle. There is nothing more jarringly artificial than "cuts" from pop music followed by complete silence (or what the league refers to as "Continuous Action"). Take that 11 seconds of Maroon 5 played at a shockingly high volume and cram it in an orifice.

I've never heard Maroon 5 at a hockey game. Ever. Not even during warm ups when players choose the music. Music people at hockey games look to entertain with jokes. Player has long hair? Give the fans Aerosmith's Dude (Looks Like a Lady.) Is it Christmas? Show the other team's coach or a referee on the video board and play "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch."

Next topic, "Kiss Cam". I don't know what frustrated and voyeristic cupid started this but enough. The NHL did away with "sister kissers" when they introduced the shootout, I suggest the public displays of spit swapping or "tonsil hockey" get retooled as well. In its stead may I suggest "Fight Cam"?

What pro sports team doesn't have a kiss cam? It's an easy way to have a commercial break sponsored. I can remember the Avalanche putting Doug Weight and Scott Mellanby on their kiss cam and getting fined for it back in 2001. Weight kissed Mellanby and the fans laughed it up in Denver. Fans love Kiss Cam. Or a team can go with your idea and encourage fans to have misdemeanor assault charges pressed against them. Sounds like a great idea. The team wouldn't get in any trouble at all.

The Predators have once again spearheaded an early season trend that appears to have been adopted by almost every building in the NHL - empty seats.

Only 4 teams are below 80% capacity, and Nashville isn't one of them. Technically there are 5, but New Jersey hasn't played a home game yet. I can't say ESPN's numbers are entirely correct. 19,150 is capacity for the Blues, so that would put attendance at 100% with 3 announced sellouts.

At the Pengrowth Saddle Dome (see San Jose PR, synergy) in Calgary they ignite a couple natural gas flames to celebrate goals. When they go on the road they must forget to pack an igniter cause, like unlit gas, they stink.

Flames on the road this year: 2-1-1
Stars on the road: 1-2-1

If he's going back to last year, I can see his point (13-20-8,) but why bring it up now?

Here in Dallas I have no issues. We have good people risking lives, taking grenades in an effort to entertain you the fan in the off-chance that the hockey team does not.

I haven't been to a Stars game this year, but if they're using live ammunition this year I'm not going. I've only been to 2 Stars games in their new building. It's a shame, because they really do put on a good show and the arena is beautiful. More so if you're in the market for jewelry AND Mark Cuban flipping his shit over a call.

And besides, wouldn't the world be a much better place if we all paused for a few minutes each day and played a robust round of "Mystery Moustache"?!

I'll bite... let's put this in a real world scenario.

Listen Iraq, I know we came into your country and you don't really like us right now, but let's play "Mystery Moustache" real quick.

I don't think it'll work.