Yesterday we went through what the division had been up to before hibernation. Today, let’s swing around the rest of the conference. And we can pretend the Eastern Conference doesn’t exist, because for this season it really won’t. At least not until late June. And if the Quenneville-Kompon-Kitchen axis of dumbassery (QuenneKompchen?) shows all of its strength, that won’t be our problem anyway.
Are you ready? Let’s roll.
You may have forgotten it all, so I thought I would try and remind you what the rest of the division got up to before we all went into hibernation. Just a quick primer.
Scum – You may vaguely recall that Nicklas Lidstrom retired after last year. While this will cause a lot of gushing during every Wings game this year and a lot of whining about how much they miss him, none of that will come from Wings fans in the know (so that’s Graham and JJ from Winging It). Because as Hawks fans who got awfully familiar with the sight of Hossa and Toews torching him to the outside last season, Lids was a mere shell of the legend that we remember.
However, after a big push for Ryan Suter to replace him came up empty, the Wings are staring at a gaping hole on the blue line. They hilariously signed Carl Colaiacovo to do….something. Brendan Smith will be up full-time, whatever that does for you. And Kyle Quincey will be around for the full season. So….yeah, attack this.
But oh, will they whine about the travel in this shortened season. Lord how they will whine.
While we’re delighted to have on-ice issues to talk about again, and don’t want to get into financial messes and conundrums, you can bet that Stan Bowman is already sweating over one aspect while he reads through the new CBA.
And that’s the Hossa Problem.
Happy..Happy..Happy: (Chicago Tribune)
Captain Serious might be smiling:(Daily Herald)
Healthy Hoss:(Chicago Suntimes)
Apparently Jamal Mayers is tired already:(CSN Chicago)
13 Storylines:(NHL)
Why fans wont stay away: (CBC)
The new CBA: (Down Goes Brown)
Words cant express how happy I am to be linking almost real hockey stories again, not to mention none of these mentioned varience or escrow. Now the fun starts!!
Do I really need a reason to post a picture of Cliff Burton? I didn’t think so. He’s who I pray to, so I think he got this done for us all yesterday.
Let’s talk hockey. Fuck and yes. By now you all know the details of the CBA — cliff notes version: same cap this year, $64 million next year, two buyouts, eight-year limit on your free agents, seven on others, 50% variance. Ok then, what does all this mean for your beloved Men Of The Red And Black?
How do the Hawks stack up cap-wise?
Over the next few days, you’re going to read a lot of stuff from everywhere about what happens now. Do the fans come back? Should they come back? Should they forgive? What should the league do to try and start to make it up to us? It will go on and on, and you’ll hear every possible opinion.
From our perspective, I’ll just say that there is no wrong answer. If you feel burned and don’t ever want to come back, that’s fine. If you love hockey and the Hawks so much and that you’ll stroll right back into the UC when the season kicks off and not think twice, that’s fine too. There isn’t one path to what makes all of us happy, and whichever you want to do is how you have to go about it.
But for a lot of us, there is a conflict within us that we have to resolve. But that’s easily done.
Well, we’ll kick off this blog for real tomorrow. For now, I don’t want to say I’m excited or even relieved that these morons finally got around to giving us their game that they should have months ago. But screw it, I’m out of anger.
But what I will say is that Our Winter Of Discontent Sale is now a The Stupidity’s Over Sale. Season subscriptions of The Committed Indian gameday program will remain at $40. So get yours right here and help a business that was greatly affected by this lunacy.
Well, we’ll kick off this blog for real tomorrow. For now, I don’t want to say I’m excited or even relieved that these morons finally got around to giving us their game that they should have months ago. But screw it, I’m out of anger.
But what I will say is that Our Winter Of Discontent Sale is now a The Stupidity’s Over Sale. Season subscriptions of The Committed Indian gameday program will remain at $40. So get yours right here and help a business that was greatly affected by this lunacy.
Wow. It has been a while since we’ve had a game day thread for a game that actually means something, has it not? Hopefully it will not be much longer, though I do not know if most, if any, really care about all the idiots involved in the actual “professional” hockey league at this point.
And if you do not, well you came to the right place. This is our space to celebrate our teenage citizens as they battle for a gold medal after having defeated the always favorites up north. Forget all the asshats playing for more money than most of us will see fighting the even bigger twerps making more than all of us combined. This is just about kids playing for their countries and it is always a blast to watch… especially when it is for a gold medal.
Anyways, I am writing this while watching a rematch of the USA/Canada game and am somehow oddly looking forward to waking up early to watch the game tomorrow. I cannot say I have followed the tournament that closely this year thanks to the odd game time starts but I have got my coffee (and maybe a beer) ready to go for tomorrow. I will just leave this right here.
Lets Go USA
