Stanley Cup Finals

I remember the Hanhuis (sp?) was knocked with a concussion and they asked the coach for his opinion.  He noted that Hanhuis was going into the corner with Getzlaf and that everyone knows that he is a hard hitter and that his player should have anticpated a big league hit.

People from across the league are getting suspended for late hits and only a few of them fall into the category of Matt Cooke.  I think they need to look at engineering an answer to the problem.  I hear over and over that today's players are bigger and faster (mass x acceleration).  Are there ways to alter the formula (make them skate with dull blades?).

I first read that post in 1972.  I'm pretty sure that critics of hockey were writing similar complaints in 1922.

But in the roaring 20's, there was no high tech paddings for players, and they played 60 minutes a game. There was no players union. Coaches did the teams' laundry. And finesse players were often targets of the other team's goons. Guys were carried off the ice on stretchers quite often. My grandfather said that if they did those things on ice today that they got away with in the old days, people wouldn't put up with it. There was real animosity for the visiting teams in the 20s and 30s. Boston arena wasn't a very welcome place for Joliat, Vezina or Morenz in those days. My father said the place was pretty loud and intimidating for visiting teams. I think today it's true even moreso. I've been to the Corel/Scotiabank arena. They play loud rock music, and the fans are on every non-call and bad call by the refs. It's like having an extra linesman in the stands for the home team. There  definitely is a kind of ambient energy for the home side to tap into during the game. That is unless the Habs are in town to play the Sens. Then it seems as if half the crowd is cheering for the visitors. 

As an American he displays the same arrogant and dissmissive attitutde towards Canada as that Torotonian Campbell had for Quebec and anything French. 

I will admit that comparing anyone to someone named Campbell is very harsh criticism.  

Many proud Scots all around the globe still spit when they say the name.  As for BC a Campbell shot Ginger down in cold blood in the hills behind Cumberland. 

Maybe the canucks should just lay-down sticks....

I think with the injuries to Vancouver, Rome got found out as a top four defenceman. I think he was tired, jacked up from Thorton mouthing off, had something to prove and made a mistake that put a player in the hospital. This was his second game misconduct so far, and in his previous games he gave away game-costing penalties. Four games sounds right for me.

The bigger story, of course, is how alien it looks that suddenly the NHL has decided to punish head shots and late hits. Torres, Eager, among other bad hits weren't penalized. So where does that put players now? Daniel Sedin mentioned that the players don't know where the line is--it was often blurry, but now it seems completely absent. 

God it must be infuriating to be a Canucks fan. Watching a team that good let in goals like they're crackers is excruciating.

Isn't it three hours early for them?

I've got another conspiracy theory. 

Designed to irritate the Canuck hockey fans that have whinged about HNIC(myself included), CBC in BC shuts it down almost immediately after the game and gives us a truly awful local BC 'Seeking Stanley' show that sucks so badly I go for the remote control faster every game.

Quote:

Don Cherry nailed that point tonight.  I agree with him about getting the gladiator-style shoulder pads out of the game too.

Guess who wears the type of shoulder pads that Cherry advocated on his show tonight?

Quote:

 

These journalists who are writing the 'Canucks are all tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists' are missing the more important point.  It might look like business as usual to the old-school Toronto-Boston original six crowd but to those outside of the loop, the NHL's disciplinary system looks more like the WWF than any other sports league.

There's a reason why Cnøcks fans are considered whiny.

It's rubbed off onto the CBC TV broadcasters. The performance of Hughson, Simpson and Healey (I used to think he was clever. Back when he was Toronto's goalie, he made a crack about that New Jersey player with the "70s pornstar sideburns." That was funny) tonight was fugging nauseous.

I guess I was wrong.  I thought the Nuckleheads would win this thing in five.

Now, if the 'Nucks don't win Game 5 with some conviction, this series is over.

12 goals against in two games?? Really??

melovesproles wrote:

Of course. It's because only Canucks fans whine, right!

No, but it appears to be their most prominent feature.

The Cnøcks are in a position similar to that of the Leafs back in 2001 or so, after Tie Domi elbowed Scott Niedermaier. I remember my reaction to Domi's cheap shot was that I didn't even want to win any longer. The Bruins are on a revenge mission, while the heart seems to have left Vancouver's team. The Cnøcks don't seem to have any will left.

Of course, all that may change once they get a whiff of the Pacific Ocean again.

What the hell was Stevie-boy Harper doing at that game in Boston?  Doesn't he have a job in Ottawa or somewhere?

"The Voice" on The Current gave Harper's presence at the game as the reason for the Cnøcks choking last night.

Scott Regehr on CBC threw Luongo under the bus this morning, faulting him for three of the four goals last night and said the Canucks should put Schnieder in net. Luongo is a tool, but if you can't win the cup with your number one, you don't deserve it. Put him in, or give it up.

Quote:

Told by a B.C. TV reporter that Canucks fans were complaining about the boorish behaviour of Boston Bruins supporters in Game 3, Lucic, a native of east Vancouver, said his own family members had been abused just as much during the first two games at Rogers Arena.

"It's funny (the Canuck fans would) say that, because after Game 1 people were throwing peanuts and popcorn at my grandparents," Lucic said Tuesday. "That's the lowest you can get. They're in their 60s."

Lucic said his uncle and an older relative had beer poured on their seats.

Link

Geez, this is rather bush-league behaviour.  I don't know about what it's like at big-league hockey games, but at good ol' Taylor Field, while the Rider fans holler at the opponents on the field, everyone's pretty good-natured towards the rare, brave fans from other teams in our midst.  At least that's been my experience.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

Geez, this is rather bush-league behaviour.  I don't know about what it's like at big-league hockey games, but at good ol' Taylor Field, while the Rider fans holler at the opponents on the field, everyone's pretty good-natured towards the rare, brave fans from other teams in our midst.  At least that's been my experience.

 

You mean they are good natured even when they are dumping loads of manure on under performing players lawns?

What are you complaining about now?  McCallum's done a good job for the Lions hasn't he?

I think I understand the meaning of those rags that the Vancouver fans wave around at home games: they're crying towels.

Our police use an even nastier version of the same type of body armour.  At the Olympic protest I had two police officers who kept leaning into me and the next morning my arms looked like someone had taken a bat to them.  Bruises all up and down my forearms.  

Quote:

While the women have to queue up to take a leak.

Speaking of Taylor Field, I've found that sometimes the banter while lining up to pee at halftime is just as entertaining as the games.

I have this private dream of starting up an "Original Six" league in town, where we'd play on outdoor rinks, and players wouldn't be allowed to wear helmets or shoulder pads or to take slapshots.  There'd be bodychecking, but just bodychecking-not "hitting;" you wouldn't want to catch a guy with his head turned trying to pickup a suicide pass, for instance.

Why not?

Like I said, this league is still in the dream stage, where it will probably remain.  I've twisted my back running into truck mirrors while walking through parking lots, so I have my doubts if I could still take a check the way I could when I was in my twenties.

Rebecca West wrote:

Catchfire wrote:

Of course, in those stadiums, the blokes piss in the sink.

While the women have to queue up to take a leak.  The cost of being the more civilized of the sexes.

You won't find me agreeing with Don Cherry much, but he's right on with the shoulder pads being used as weapons.  Some of those defense guys are more like gladiators than hockey players.  The kind of upper body armour they're making for players is so obviously designed to not only nail an opponent, but take him out in a check, even a clean one. It's disgusting.  Then again, there's a lot of money involved ....

I'm not sure, but I think they will say that the beefed-up shoulder pads were supposed to prevent shoulder injuries of all kinds that were occurring before the gladiator armour was introduced. But how interested were they in preventing injuries in general when it turns out the armour is contributing to the most dangerous kinds of injuries with concussions being the most severe? Bettman and Campbell et al should have been a lot more concerned some time ago. I'm thinking now the league's biggest concern is potential loss of revenues and fan base speaking up about it all over the place.

It's just too bad that people will generally not protest vociferously against a rotten political and economic system injuring so many more ordinary every day people who are not the focus of national attention come Spring time. I feel badly for these millionaire hockey players having such a crappy players union. But there are a lot more than them who have no one representing their interests at work and have to deal with everything from dangerous working conditions to company men in supervisory roles and treating workers like so many interchangeable widgets.

They forced basketball players to play safer and less aggressively in paving the way for stars like Air Jordan and Karl Mailman Malone to showcase breathtaking aeronautical rushes to the basket back in the 80s and 90s. People want to see the finesse players in hockey do their thing similarly. Otherwise why have leagues for the most elite players at all? 

Never mind those late goals.... here's something really historic:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/in-damage-c...

“As the Prime Minister is prohibited from flying commercial for security reasons, he will compensate the government for the cost of an equivalent commercial flight to Boston,” Thursday’s note from the PMO says. “Minister Moore will do the same.”

A check online of a return flight to Boston on Air Canada – at the last minute – is $2,629.03 (including taxes) for one person.

And CTV News estimated that it costs about $10,000 an hour to fly the Challenger, including costs of air crew, fuel and landing fees.

al-Qa'bong wrote:

melovesproles wrote:

Of course. It's because only Canucks fans whine, right!

No, but it appears to be their most prominent feature.

The Cnøcks are in a position similar to that of the Leafs back in 2001 or so, after Tie Domi elbowed Scott Niedermaier. I remember my reaction to Domi's cheap shot was that I didn't even want to win any longer. The Bruins are on a revenge mission, while the heart seems to have left Vancouver's team. The Cnøcks don't seem to have any will left.

Of course, all that may change once they get a whiff of the Pacific Ocean again.

Are you equating the hit on Horton with Tie Domi's elbow?  If so where do you put Scott Steven't hit on Lindros?

The Canucks are not used to a team as outright dirty as the Bruins, so I guess that is where the whining comes from.

were they really applauding schneider going in, or was it the customary applause you give the starter as he's replaced, especially when it has a lot to do with the team in front?