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#1
05-31-2011
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How's this for fast? On the "Winnipeg" page on Wikipedia:
"On May 31, 2011, Mark Chipman of True North Sports & Entertainment announced the NHL's return to Winnipeg with the purchase of the Atlanta Thrashers from Atlanta Spirit, LLC, May 2011." 
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#3
05-31-2011
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#5
05-31-2011
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I love Halifax -- it's one of my favorite cities in North America. And there should be an NHL team somewhere in the Maritime Provinces. But I think they'd get a more Halifax-appropriate name. Perhaps the Halifax Citadels? (The Citadel is a famous fort in Halifax.) Or the Halifax Mariners?
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#6
06-01-2011
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Bob Ryan, a sports columnist for The Boston Globe, has a great piece in today's paper about Boston and its love affair with hockey, how despite decades of disappointment the Bruins were never too far from the top of the city's affections, and how the game has changed. It's a fun read.
Deep roots have kept us rooting By Bob Ryan The Old Guy was patient. The Old Guy knew you?d come around. Yup, Old Man Hockey knew that deep down in your heart, lodged in the depth of your psyche, there resided a little round rubber disk, right next to that little white ball with the red stitches. Football and basketball have had their moments of glory during the past two decades, but Old Man Hockey knew that the two sports permanently embedded in the local DNA were baseball and, yes, hockey. Old Man Hockey watched in sadness as other sports elbowed him to the side. But he had faith. He knew you just needed an excuse to reacquaint yourself with a sport that has extremely deep roots in these here parts. And you have. There was only one dominant conversational topic in our town last Saturday morning. ?Did you see the game??? ?Oh, what a game!?? ?Best game I?ve seen in years!?? ?Love that Tim Thomas!?? ?Can?t beat that playoff hockey!?? Or variations thereof. It has been 21 years since the Boston Bruins have even played for the Cup, and it has been 39 years since they actually won it. So much has changed, on and off the ice. Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito are in their 60s. Even Ray Bourque has hit 50. There was no music blaring in the Old Garden, and not much in the way of video, either. There was just John Kiley, bringing the Bruins out to ?Paree?? and rousing the crowd during languid moments with such tunes as ?Mexican Hat Dance.?? When Johnny ?Chief?? Bucyk skated around the Garden with Lord Stanley?s Cup held aloft following that 1970 triumph, there may have been six people sporting Bruins garb. Friday night, at least 75 percent of the 17,565 breaking every decibel record in the newer building were wearing something black and gold, none of it cheap. Being a fan now calls for a far more substantial financial commitment than it did in Ye Olden Days. And we?re not even talking about the price of tickets. The teams are surely different. The last Bruins team to win a Stanley Cup was led by a pair of extraordinary all-time talents who played a far different game. Phil Esposito led the league with 133 points (which sounded good until Wayne Gretzky came along). The incomparable Bobby Orr augmented his annual Norris Trophy with 117 points. The Chief, who played the regular season at a spry 36, had 83. Six other Bruins had more than 50 points. That kind of firepower doesn?t exist anymore, anywhere. Milan Lucic was this team?s only 30-goal scorer, sharing the team scoring lead at a rather modest 62 points with David Krejci. Patrice Bergeron had 57 points. Nathan Horton had 53. So much for 50-point men. But these guys know how to D-up, as we say in basketball. The Bruins led the Eastern Conference in fewest goals allowed with 195, and that?s the way coach Claude Julien likes it. The 1-0 Game 7 conquest of Tampa Bay represented Julien hockey at its finest. The top-to-bottom attention to detail was extraordinary. There were no sloppy passes, no careless puckhandling, and no letdown in forechecking. It was all backed up by Thomas, whose circuitous route to the 2011 Stanley Cup finals included watching the entire 2010 playoffs from the bench. Troubled by a hip injury that would require offseason surgery and facing competition from young Tuukka Rask, he did not play a second in the playoffs a year after winning the Vezina Trophy. Now he has been nominated for a second Vezina Trophy and he is heading to his first Stanley Cup finals. As Mr. Shaughnessy likes to say, you can?t make this stuff up. The last Bruins team to win a Stanley Cup was easy enough to like, consisting, as it did, of so many A students. But this bunch is lovable more for its collective strength and its downright vulnerability than for its stars. These guys study hard, but most of them are lucky if they can come up with a B. Only when they pull together can they get a lot done. Well, yes, there is a star aside from Thomas. It?s hard not to notice Zdeno Chara when he?s on the ice. The 6-foot-9-inch Slovakian plays about 7-4 when you throw in his skates and his stick, which enables him to execute poke checks when the play has emanated from Downtown Crossing. He won the 2009 Norris Trophy, and he has received his third nomination this season. It is a team with little margin for error, and it has arrived in the Cup finals with a large stain on its r?sum?. Most teams love power plays. Some thrive on them. The Bruins would be better off if they could adopt a football policy and refuse penalties. They perform much better at even strength. They set a record in the opening round against Montreal by winning in seven games despite scoring no power-play goals. They enter the finals having gone 5 for 61 (including a five-on-three goal) on the power play. They were fortunate indeed in last Friday night?s Game 7 with Tampa Bay: no penalties were called. But Bruins fans have learned to love them despite their flaws because the game they are playing is hockey and certain elements remain constant, especially in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Your father loved hockey, and so did his father, and maybe even his father. Detroit fancies itself ?Hockeytown??? What a laugh. There is only one ?Hockeytown?? in America, one town where the NHL has been going on since 1924, one town where high school hockey has an eight-decade tradition, one town where you can stage an annual college hockey tournament featuring four high-quality teams located within a 2-mile radius. The Bruins are right in the center of this hockey consciousness, and have been since the ?20s. The first great NHL superstar was Eddie Shore, and guess where he played all those years? We had the great ?Kraut Line,?? champs just before WWII, and, of course, we had the Big Bad Bruins. We had Ray Bourque and Cam Neely. Granted, it has been a frustrating 21 years for Bruins devotees. There has been a lot of teasing, and little fulfillment, since the 1992 team advanced to the conference finals, only to be slapped around by the mighty Penguins. Only a year ago, the Bruins suffered the most humiliating series loss in NHL history. But you knew there was something good going on when this team pulled off a 6-0 road trip from Feb. 17 through March 1. That told you this team had an inner resolve other recent Bruins teams lacked. They showed that resolve again after losing Games 1 and 2 at home to Montreal. And here they are, playing the game you and your forefathers have always loved with spunk and heart. Old Man Hockey knew you?d come around. All you needed was a reason to care.
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#8
06-02-2011
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#9
06-02-2011
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#10
06-02-2011
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My nastiness comes from the derogatory comments that some players made it looked like the team might move to Winnipeg. Some of those players come from the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, but they could only make nasty comments about the possibility of moving to Winnipeg. They are a bunch of spoiled arrogant jerks who make far too much money and a have a highly overrated opinion of their own self-worth.
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#11
06-02-2011
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 Penguinsfan Jen
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#12
06-02-2011
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#13
06-02-2011
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Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out, jackass. 
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#14
06-02-2011
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#16
06-07-2011
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Kevin Paul Dupont, the Hall of Fame hockey writer for The Boston Globe, makes a compelling case against fighting in last Sunday's column. Thoughts?
Hockey Notes It hurts to say, but it?s time to give up the fight By Kevin Paul Dupont June 5, 2011 I am done with fighting in hockey. Time to get it gone. It took a very long journey for me to get here, roughly a half-century, including my years as a fan prior to covering the NHL night-and-day in the late 1970s. I also realize there is no going back now after skating across the pacifist?s green line. Granted, there is no green line in the NHL, but I offer it up here as a visual in the general context of 21st century green/sustainability. There was no epiphany for me during the Stanley Cup Final, the Bruins? first trip to the championship round in 21 years. No ah-hah! or gotcha! moment in the middle of the Hub?s hockey renaissance. If someone wants to say now that I?ve finally grown up, then fine, but I can prove otherwise with any number of adolescent habits that I still hold dear, including such things as ?Three Stooges,?? ?Looney Tunes,?? and ?Honeymooners?? reruns, not to mention a fixation with Friendly?s Awful-Awfuls and Fudge Flat Tops that should have ended in the ?60s. Most of all, I?ve evolved to this point because of the game?s culture, one that I?ve been saying and writing these last 18-24 months must change, principally because players today get injured too often, some of their brains damaged beyond repair, and fighting plays a part in that. That?s not to say all of that, but a part of that, and I now believe that taking out the fights ? as much as I will miss them ? is simply the easiest, most obvious first step to change the game?s runaway seek-and-destroy culture. Too much of today?s game is about hitting to hurt, literally to break the opponent, and that?s not just a danger to players but also to the game?s image, its marketability, and I think its sustainability. To abolish fighting won?t be a cure-all, but I believe it can be key in unraveling a complicated, dangerous, and ultimately losing environment. So I made that very case the other day to Bruins career tough guy Shawn Thornton, whom I respect as a person, a player, and a fighter (my kind of hat trick). He looked at me in dismay, and then in all sincerity, and with a good amount of animation and invective, told me I was nuts. He made his points in support of the sweet science (all in line with my lifetime position) and really couldn?t be swayed with my ?culture change?? postulate. ?I think if you take fighting out,?? said Thornton, ?you?ll see the game go to places where you?ll want it back just to stop the nonsense ? more stick work, more cheap shots, just all the junk. Maybe that?s my old-school thinking, but ..." Should anyone be surprised by that? Thornton is a sincere, passionate, honest guy, and he freely admits that he wouldn?t be making a decent paycheck today if he hadn?t spent roughly a decade beating up people in junior and minor pro hockey. He is more than a pugilist at age 33 ? in fact, quite a bit more than a lot of people think ? but he is unwilling to surrender his stance on fighting. Not even when faced with the hard truth, as shown by the continuing Boston University study on concussions in sports, that career hockey tough guy Bob Probert suffered brain damage, likely from trading too many blows to the head in his many epic punch-ups. The landmark BU study, centered on dissected brains harvested from deceased athletes, will have a profound impact on contact sports and their inherent risks to athletes? brains. The study is in its infancy, but I am already convinced that it is going to be a game-changer in many sports, especially hockey and football, perhaps lacrosse. I don?t know if that?s going to take a couple of years, a decade or longer, but as the study expands, evidence mounts, and knowledge grows, parents and the public at large will grasp just how dangerous it is for kids and adults to keep getting smacked upside the head. If I am correct, the public eventually will perceive that head contact is to sports what cigarette smoking is to general health. ?I?ll agree with you, our sport needs a culture change,?? said Thornton. ?It needs to happen and it will be difficult. ?I think a large part of that is the equipment ? the big, killer shoulder pads and elbow pads. I think if everyone wore the smaller pads, like me and Rex [Mark Recchi] wear, you?d see fewer concussions and a lot fewer injuries all around.?? All of that is good and necessary, I said to Thornton, but that won?t stop brain injuries that are the direct result of fighting. The NHL continues to peck its way through its concussion data and likely won?t make the numbers public. Recent published reports, noting the league?s extensive study, suggested that some 8 percent of the NHL?s concussions the last few years were a direct result of fighting. ?OK,?? said Thornton, ?if that?s true, then that tells me that 92 percent came from other causes, right? I say let?s work at fixing the 92 percent. ?Guys are going to get concussions, and if a guy?s got his head down, and gets popped on the chin, nothing?s going to prevent that. I really think a lot of this is that some of the equipment has to be downsized, softened maybe, and the culture will change around that." And what of Probert? There is no guarantee that his brain degenerated because of fighting, but many are willing to accept the prima facie evidence that Probert?s lifetime penalty card (3,300 minutes) included too many concussions meted out by opponents? fists delivered to his skull. Probert, 45, died less than a year ago, succumbing to a heart attack while boating with his family in Ontario. BU?s Sports Legacy Institute announced in February that it found Probert?s brain was damaged by chronic, degenerative disease. ?I can?t think about that, the danger, and go out there and do what I do,?? mused Thornton. ?I can?t think about all the fights I?ve had, either. I just can?t go there. ?I?ve worked hard, really hard, to get here. I had to fight to get here. If I hadn?t done all that in the American League, at a time when that?s really all I did, then I?m probably still back home, working in the steel factory.?? I?ve supported hockey fights forever, in every print and electronic platform at my disposal, and have returned countless e-mails to readers, some of them incensed educators (pre-K through college), telling them what I still believe to be true: that players enter the game, and play it, and in some cases fight within it, by their own free will. I?ve also said that fighting sells, that many fans like the fighting more than the hockey, and that, for better or worse, for decades it has helped define a sport in the United States, which, even today, essentially remains largely a non-traditional hockey market. For a lot of people in the Lower 48, the idea lingers that paying to attend a hockey game is buying a ticket to a fight. Many of my Canadian-born pals, some in this beautiful city, think that?s funny, even ridiculous. But they come from a place where virtually every child, boy and girl, has a hockey stick placed in one hand at the same time the other is otherwise occupied by a binky. Canadians don?t just get hockey, they are hockey. They are born into it. Now, I would say most Canadians don?t consider themselves hockey purists or elitists, or too refined or possessive about their sport to think fighting is a problem. Based on 30-plus years of conversations with friends in Canada, I can tell you many of them very much like the fights. You might be familiar with former Boston coach/Canadian icon Don Cherry?s love of a good, honest dustup? On the whole, Canadians can probably take it or leave it, and there are probably slightly more in the ?Grapes?? category. But hockey just has too much hurt in it now, too many broken bodies, fueled by a mentality among the players that big hits and big fights make them big players, fueled by marketing departments that show endless in-arena videos of crunching body slams and brutal bouts. To its credit, the league has done away with the bloody donnybrooks of old (I?ll confess to liking those, too). Fighting really is, for all the talk it garners, a very tiny piece of the NHL puzzle these days. It has become a piece easy to remove, and getting rid of it is essential, I?m convinced, in dialing back the overall emphasis on seek-and-destroy and placing more on skate-pass-and-shoot. It?s not all that bad in and of itself, but I think it serves as a crusty, barnacled anchor for violence, for danger, for broken bodies and ravaged, irreparable brains. Just time to go away. Hockey is a great sport, and it can thrive beyond the green line. I?ve crossed, and hope you?ll come, too.
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#17
06-07-2011
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It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't
Hockey fights are very popular don't believe me? just check youtube The fighting in hockey put people in the seats and what team owner hates when that happens You have to walk a tight rope to cut down on the amount of fights but you still have to allow some for the non true hockey fans Hockey fights sadly are about the only thing that makes it on ESPN's highlights programs Penguinsfan Jen
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#18
06-07-2011
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#19
06-02-2011
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#20
06-02-2011
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#21
06-02-2011
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#22
06-02-2011
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#23
06-02-2011
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#24
06-02-2011
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I'd still like to see Balsillie buy Carolina (the team and not the states) and move them to Hamilton.
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