2008/2009 Hockey Thread v2.0

[Toe]

Maurice Richard is the man, even if you only consider the story of "The Sweater".

Toronto faces LA tonight at 10:30 on Leafs TV. I picked up a shift tonight, then realized I would miss the game, then realized that the game starts at 10:30 pm meaning I can watch almost the whole game anyways.

[Cactus Drags]

I'd subscribe too but I can watch the games online when they're played rather than a day late. But it looked really good, I went on and on about getting NASN but we never got it, now I have CFB and NHL at my fingertips should I need to.

But yeah, the hockey things odd because we have our own league that's on television but if you were to ask a random person to name as many hockey teams and as many american football teams as they could they'd struggle to name many if any hockey teams.

And I honestly can't figure out why hockey has zero following in the country.

NASN show a fair amount of live games. And you don't have to worry about feeds going down or owt

[Toe]

Toronto played a great game against LA. Despite going down by one very early, Toronto hung around and by the end of the second, they had control. Stajan and Grabovski scored in the third to give Toronto the lead. The only negative I saw in the game was Toronto going into a defensive shell once they got the lead in the third period. Luckily, Vesa Toskala is back at the top of his game (his third great game in a row) and kept the lead for the Leafs.

Tonight the Leafs take on the Sharks.

[Lowerdeck]

If you're having a debate of most popular hockey franchises, you have to keep the size of the Detroit fanbase in mind. I know at least in the United States there are always Wings fans at any away game they play.

Maybe it's because Detroit/Michigan natives have moved away from the place at a rapid pace to anywhere else?

[Plubby]

Does anyone know what Avery said to get himself suspended indefinitely?

[SeanDMan]

Does anyone know what Avery said to get himself suspended indefinitely?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?i...e=ESPNHeadlines

[SeanDMan]

Conversely;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD4ReELmq_s

[Plubby]

Bahahahahahahaha.

Phaneuf is probably just upset that it's true.

[SeanDMan]

He'll probably be more upset once the blood tests come back.

[Gabriel]

The NHL did Sean Avery and Calgary Flames fans a favor today by suspending him.

Dion Phaneuf would have murdered him out there, and I do not want him off my team. He did seem a tad distracted though...which sucked. Good game that we lost to Marty Turco. The Dallas Stars just happened to be there.

Avery is a cunt in all the worst ways. He thinks he's funny. He thinks he's better than everyone else. I don't think what he said was really all that horrible, but at the same time, you can't let players run around talking like that. Especially when they grab the media to issue that one solitary statement.

I'll be surprised if he lasts much longer in Dallas. The only person who seemingly still wants him on the team is Brett Hull. Now, Avery is an incredibly effective and capable player when he goes out to play Hockey... but 90% of the time he's really just going out there and waving around, jumping up and down, doing stupid shit and screaming "Hey! Look at me! Look what I'm doing! I'm fantastic!"

I just don't see how a person like that has any business in the premier hockey organization in the world. He's really not worth the trouble he causes, and that roster spot... that cap space... I could think of a million better uses for those things than wasting them on someone who doesn't seem to care whether he's playing hockey or playing asshole.

[SeanDMan]

He's a good addition to a roster, and a destabalazing element to the opposition during a game, but his cap hit is incredibly large for what he brings in terms of a boost to your bottom line. He's not worth what he's getting paid, and outbursts like this hurt a lot more than they could potentially help.

[RoyWill Rumble]

What I love about the story is that Avery ACTIVELY SEEKED OUT cameras. It's pretty hilarious and obviously the guy should be suspended, but let the cameras come to you, man.

[Cactus Drags]

I know he can be incredibly irritating and prove a distraction, but at the end of the day, he's a character, and the NHL definitely needs some faces people can recognise. Yeah, there's Sid, but he's bland, there's Ovechkin, but he's foreign and doesn't have the best handle on the language. If I were a player, I'd likely despise the guy, but as a fan, I'm amused by him. Yeah, the comments were off colour, and he probably deserves to sit for a game or so, but indefinitely is pushing it.

[The Sultan of Swank]

I thought what Avery did was wrong, because he was looking for a camera, but I still think it was hilarious.

I don't know how to describe last nights game as anything other than 45 minutes of absolute domination by the Habs, 5 minutes of great back and forth rushes, and a 10 minute clusterfuck of goals.

[Enter Blue Guy]

I tuned back into the Leaf game just in time to see Luke Schenn's beautiful check to finish the game. That's good enough for me.

Sean Avery cracks me up. Pretty boneheaded move by him before the game, especially when you deliberately find cameras. It makes sense why he got suspended, he went out of his way to make an unprofessional comment about a player on another team, with regards to a person who is in the public eye and who has nothing to with the league at all. Except that she has bung both Sean and Dion. And Mike Komisarek. But all he did was take a shot at his ex and her current Flame.

I'm pretty sure Avery just wants to get his name out there for something beyond hockey so he can cross over to a career that will make his name worth more than it would playing in the NHL.

Either way, I'm really looking forward to his next game against Calgary. Dion Phaneuf seems like a great guy to have pissed off at you.

[Plubby]

Please. Watch Avery own Phaneuf like Ruutu did.

[Toe]

Avery is a dick and deserves a suspension, but it says a lot about the league that THIS is the only way for the NHL to get coverage from a lot of different media outlets, including ESPN.

Edited December 4, 2008 by Toe

[Gabriel]

Avery is a dick and deserves a suspension, but it says a lot about the league that THIS is the only way for the NHL to get coverage from a lot of different media outlets, including ESPN.

Any coverage is good coverage really isn't true at all.

You're still trying to sell the game to Americans, and aside from coming out and saying "Tune in to see if Dion Phaneuf kills Sean Avery tonight!" there really isn't any good spin for this. It makes the game seem like a joke.

I really don't think you can sell the game to the US fans any more than it has been. Television coverage could be better, but unless they want the game to become a carnival sideshow attraction of ridiculousness, then they've done all they can.

We need characters, yeah... but we don't need guys pulling cameras aside to take a personal shot at someone that has nothing to do at all with the game of Hockey. If you're talking to the media, you damn well better be talking about the game. Sean Avery is in business for himself, and that's it. He doesn't give a shit about the NHL.

[TGWL]

Suspended Dallas Stars agitator Sean Avery flew to New York on Wednesday for a meeting with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and gave a likely sample of what he'll say by apologizing for comments about his former girlfriends.

"I would like to sincerely apologize for my off-color remarks to the press yesterday from Calgary," Avery said. "I should not have made those comments and I recognize that they were inappropriate.

"It was a bad attempt to build excitement for the game, but I am now acutely aware of how hurtful my actions were. I caused unnecessary embarrassment to my peers as well as people I have been close with in the past.

"I apologize for offending the great fans of the NHL, the commissioner, my teammates, my coaching staff and the Dallas Stars management and ownership. As many of you know, I like to mix it up on and off the ice from time to time, but understand that this time I took it too far."

[Gabriel]

He made a public apology because he had to. Not because he's sincerely sorry about anything.

The Dallas Stars won't even give him the opportunity to apologize to the team. They want nothing to do with him.