NHL Thread - December

[Guest Czecherbear]

I hope somebody will jump to Bettman's face someday and tell him about no one giving a [damn] about selling the game to small US markets. THE GAME BELONGS TO THE NORTH!

Pittsburgh, Chicago

er

I didn't know that Kane, Toews, and Getzlaf have become Rory Fitzpatrick. I thought they were three of the best young players in hockey. Second of all, what is this Montreal-Detroit alliance?

[garfieldsnose 0]

Precisely. Not to mention Philly, as well.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

The Buffalo fanbase has been wicked strong since the lockout. We constantly do in the top 4 TV ratings for US cities. There were more people watching the Stanley Cup in Buffalo than any US city except the two playing for it last year. And we nearly caught Pittsburgh.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

Speaking of Buffalo...they have to play the Penguins on fucking versus again tonight. They did this exact same set up a couple of weeks ago and the Sabres managed to win the game despite one of the more lopsided officiating jobs in recent memory. I think it was 9 powerplays (including a full 2 minute 5 on 3 and two shorter 5 on 3s) to 3. I'm gonna guess history repeats itself and the Penguins get their win back.

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

Huge blow to Columbus and its Calder candidate: Derrick Brassard's out for the season.

[BifEverchad 0]

Huge blow to Columbus and its Calder candidate: Derrick Brassard's out for the season.

They still have Steve Mason!

[the max 0]

Kessel's point streak ends at 18 games, but I think he'd rather have the win tonight. Goals from Lucic and Krejci (EN). They've won 20 of 23. Where's that other shoe?

 

Oh and the Rags lost a 4 goal lead and lost in OT to Warshington.

[Matt Young 0]

The Kings practically doubled their opponent's shot total again but actually won this time, 3-0 over the Blue Jackets. It was Jon Quick's first NHL shutout, and snapped the Jackets' 5 game home win streak while ending the Kings' 4 game losing streak (though 2 of those losses were OT and shootout).

[Guest]

Quick looked pretty good tonight. He HAS TO be better than LOLbarbera.

[Matt Young 0]

Oh, for sure. With almost the exact same SOG differential, LaBarbera gave up 5 goals to Buffalo last week. There's a reason they're starting Quick now rather than him.

[the max 0]

Probably because they don't really have anyone else. I'm interested to see if they make the move to bring in Khabibulin.

[Matt Young 0]

Well, they don't have anyone else except Bernier, who they don't want to call up yet since they want him to get experience as a starter in Manchester. But still, any goalie currently on their roster is better than LaBarbera.

[bob_barron 0]

Nothing is more frustrating than knowing your team is facing the Sharks at San Jose. It's 2-0 6 minutes in.

[garfieldsnose 0]

Scary third period ends well for the Flyers. Two points out of first in the Atlantic. Considering the horrible start the Flyers had to the season and the sizzling start the Rangers had, this seems pretty crazy.

[Matt Young 0]

Nothing is more frustrating than knowing your team is facing the Sharks at San Jose. It's 2-0 6 minutes in.

 

It's more frustrating when your team is in their division. I'm just wondering if they'll actually be able to advance past the second round this year.

[bob_barron 0]

Sucks too, because the Nucks are out of first again. Luongo needs to come back ASAP, enough already

[Matt Young 0]

Yes, he does. I don't care about the Canucks, but with him out, I'm stuck with Marty Turco and Peter Budaj on my fantasy team.

 

On a somewhat related note, I'll actually be able to watch some Canucks games and other assorted non-Kings games in a few days, and in high def. I'm getting my HD dish and HD DVR installed Friday, so I can record HNIC and watch the Canadian teams as well as the games on Versus. I'm usually gone on Saturdays so I don't get to see HNIC.

[bob_barron 0]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=260821&amp...s=headlines_nhl

 

Move them to Winnipeg or contract them

[AntiLeaf33 0]

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=260821&amp...s=headlines_nhl

 

Move them to Winnipeg or contract them

 

I wonder if they seriously thought that moving a team to Phoenix, Arizona was ever going to work?

[CanadianGuitarist 0]

To be fair to Bettman, it wasn't a bad idea trying teams in the SunBelt, specifically in the mid 90's when hockey was at its peak. It was a bad idea to continually try it. Anaheim had some success for a few years, San Jose and Tampa aren't doing too badly. But, and I know I've beat this dead horse before, the whole thing strikes me as Bettman refusing to admit he made a mistake more than anything else.

 

Where was this financial help in the mid 90's when Quebec and Winnipeg needed it?

[Guest Czecherbear]

Provincial government couldn't afford to bail out the Nords, and the NHL wouldn't let the Jets be community-owned.

 

No, it was a terrible idea to put teams in non-major markets where you can't cultivate a hockey culture. Everyone has a basketball hoop in their driveway. How many kids in those areas can play hockey? If you can't play the sport recreationally or developmentally, it's just a way to fill arena dates. The circus coming to town, 41+ times a year. That's all the Hurricanes are: they're a major tenant for an arena so that NC State can have a big place to play college basketball. These teams aren't part of the cultural fabric of their communities, and so they're destined to fail.

[Guest]

The arena in Phoenix is about a forty-five minute drive from where the target audience for hockey fans in the area would be (white guys of all ages, obv). Needless to say, this shouldn't be a surprise. They're selling 14,000 a game which isn't very much at all, but considering that half that number aren't even able to get out to the arena, well, it ain't so bad.

 

Really though, I don't feel like getting into this argument again. Phoenix is a unique situation in that their owner has leveraged the franchise completely on credit. I don't know what will be done about that. The "southern teams are destined to fail" argument is fallacious. Boston is one of the best teams in the league, and their attendance is on par with the Tampa Bay Lightning. If a team sucks for large periods of time, fans won't show up. They weren't showing up in Chicago, and they haven't shown up on the Island. Chicago, Boston, and Long Island are not southern markets. It's not like there are other markets for these teams to go to anyway. If a market fails, that team doesn't need to move. They need to fold up shop.

[Guest Czecherbear]

I've been over this before, but note the expansion and relocation patterns of the NHL in the '90s:

 

1991: Sharks de-merge from North Stars, S.F. Bay Area gets a team

1992: Ottawa and Tampa Bay get teams

1993: Twin Cities lose their team to Dallas, Miami gets a team, Los Angeles gets a second team

1995: Quebec City loses its team to Denver

1996: Winnipeg loses its team to Phoenix

1997: Hartford loses its team to Greensboro

1998: Nashville gets a team

1999: Atlanta gets a team

2000: Columbus and Twin Cities get teams

 

How could you follow this league when it changed every single season? Makes arena football look stable. Every subsequent move weakens the strength of the league: you're expecting people in Phoenix to care about the Montreal Canadiens, and casual consumers in established markets have to ask who the hell the Phoenix Coyotes are.

 

The difference with Chicago and Long Island is that people still care deep down about hockey and their NHL teams, so the book can never fully be closed on the fans coming back. The Hawks are drawing 22,000 a night again. High school hockey remains a huge deal in the North Shore towns. The interest was always simmering, and now under new ownership, things look great.

[Guest]

The difference with Chicago and Long Island is that people still care deep down about hockey and their NHL teams, so the book can never fully be closed on the fans coming back. The Hawks are drawing 22,000 a night again.

That's easy to say when the team looks good. Nobody likes watching a shitty team, had Phoenix been better, the franchise would be in better shape. In the case of Phoenix, how can you blame people not showing up when they have to...

 

1. Get off work, two hours to spare and head to watch a bad team

2. Hoof it home through traffic for 45 minutes

3. Pick the kids up

4. Feed them

5. Hoof it back through traffic for 45 minutes

6. 10 minutes to park

7. 10 minutes to get in the building

 

If you're lucky, you'll get there before the opening faceoff. My dad did that a few times back when I was in high school, but when I was in high school during the year after the lockout, it was alright, because the Kings were fighting for the playoffs. I can't imagine how it would be to watch a team that hasn't done anything in forever. The same excuse could be applied to any bad team. Who wants to go through all that shit to watch losing hockey? Phoenix put the arena in a bad spot, so I certainly blame them for their problems. But not their fans.

 

Seeing as there are no markets to move the team other than Houston...best to fold them up.

[Guest Czecherbear]

1. Get off work, two hours to spare and head to watch a bad team

2. Hoof it home through traffic for 45 minutes

3. Pick the kids up

4. Feed them

5. Hoof it back through traffic for 45 minutes

6. 10 minutes to park

7. 10 minutes to get in the building

 

I don't get this excuse bullshit. It's the same crap that Marlins and Rays fans give us. "It's hot out! It's rainy out! Driving is hard! Parking is bad!" That list isn't a Coyotes problem. That's an everywhere problem! Who doesn't deal with weather/driving/parking, you numbnuts? You think Quebec has teleportation consoles to immediately get people from St. Hyacinthe to downtown Montreal? Bullshit. The Coyotes suck because there's no market for hockey, not because people have to pick their kids up from school. What the fuck. "Well, I would go watch people play hockey, but Jesus fuck, it takes ten minutes to park!"

 

Just expand the MTS Centre so they can move back to Winnipeg. They won't have to compete very hard for entertainment dollars there. It's Winnipeg.

[Guest]

You think Quebec has teleportation consoles to immediately get people from St. Hyacinthe to downtown Montreal? Bullshit.

Because the Canadiens have missed the playoffs in five straight seasons.

 

The Coyotes have no market for hockey because THEIR TEAM HAS ALWAYS SUCKED FUCKING COCKS.

 

Expand the MTS Center? Really? That's not going to fly. They don't have corporations willing to drop the big bucks for those luxury boxes. Those boxes are what keeps the league running. There is nowhere to put a team. Why do you think the Jets got moved out in the first place? It's not as if the city has improved over the last 13 years. Winnipeg would be the smallest market in the league, and the notion that they could compete at an NHL level is silly. After all, it turned out great before. The Nordiques succeeded too. So did the Whalers.

 

Fold the team. The end. Other franchises shouldn't have to bankroll this shit. All franchises who get into this situation should suffer the same fate. The league overexpanded, now it is time to contract and keep the number of teams lower than 30.

[Guest Czecherbear]

I don't understand why you've taken it upon yourself to defend the placement of the Coyotes. It was a straight-up bad idea. Nobody wanted hockey there in the first place. It's not like football, where pretty much anyone can get into football. Instead of expanding the league to match the footprints of the other leagues, the NHL should have stuck where it worked, in the Great Lakes, Northeast, and Canada, where people watch hockey, play hockey, and have done so for years. If they had stayed small, they wouldn't have had the litany of problems they've had under Bettman. It always has to turn into warm-weather vs. cold-weather because these dopes take it as some great personal affront when we say "the Coyotes were a bad idea." Gotta rally around the motherfucking Coyotes. It's farcical.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

I've read many things about the history of the NHL and the owners were really greedy in the 90's. The league expansion fee was at $50 million and the owners wanted that money. The Ducks were basically created so that criminal that owned the Kings could get a territory fee and keep himself afloat longer.

 

The problem is that a lot people say contract this team or that team. There are fans but obviously not enough to fill up the building or get a significant television rating. The Coyotes problem is that they suck. They got a new building because the arena in Phoenix had horrible sight lines. A lot of Canadians end up retiring down south but they aren't coming to the games.

 

I think two teams should move to Canada. I think the Panthers and the Coyotes can move to Hamilton or wherever. The reason no one shows up to Islander games is that they suck and their building is horrible.

 

And people in Southern California don't play hockey at all.

Not all at..

http://www.calstreethockey.com/

http://www.centericearena.net/

http://s104.photobucket.com/albums/m165/MasterThrasher/

[bob_barron 0]

I missed a whole southern hockey debate.

 

I've told Czech that I think the NHL could do without the Panthers, Thrashers, Coyotes and Blue Jackets and the world wouldn't end. Of course the league would never go for that, but it's a pipe dream.

 

Anyone see My Winnipeg? The section about the Jets is really revealing. The fact that they built a new arena right in downtown, replacing a historic landmark and built it under NHL capacity is just so baffling.

 

Here's your new arena Winnipeg. Oh, an NHL team doesn't come with that.

 

It sounds like the owner got fucked on a bad lease, but he shouldn't have asked for Glendale to fund him a new arena in the first place if he had to sign a lease that stupid. Move them to Hamilton.

[AntiLeaf33 0]

And people in Southern California don't play hockey at all.

Not all at..

http://www.calstreethockey.com/

http://www.centericearena.net/

http://s104.photobucket.com/albums/m165/MasterThrasher/

 

See, that is the point of putting a team into a market that isn't a traditional hockey market. Personally, I have no issues with the teams in California since they are getting support. It's the teams in Phoenix and Nashville that are getting small crowds and that the community really doesn't give a shit about that I mind.