Sorry about the lack of links yesterday, but as I accidentally said into an open mic on Monday night’s broadcast during the second intermission; “I’m going to go out, get drunk, and make bad decisions”… and I did…
Hey look negotiating like adults: PHT
Expanded playoffs?: PD
NYE Hangovers are less fun without outdoor hockey: SN
USA/CAN part duex: TSN
A 24 game win streak sounds fun: BN
As Thelma and Louise speed off the cliff at the NHL office in New York and we await if we are deigned worthy of hockey this season, Sam, Killion, and myself would like to wish all of you a happy and safe New Year. Thank you all for helping make this post even possible, and we hope to actually have games to be writing about for you in 2013. And for the love of fuck, call a cab or make sure to take advantage of the CTA giving free rides tonight, as is their annual tradition.
Yeah, it’s a hockey blog. I get it. But there isn’t any hockey to talk about really other than a bunch of teenagers playing half a world away. And there’s probably no bigger sports story in Chicago than when the Bears hire or fire a coach. It’s almost as big of a story as when we get a new mayor. So allow me to chime in. After all, Desipio got to.
Season on the brink: (Sportsnet)
Did Bettman blink? (Toronto Sun)
Meeting Tomorrow: (TSN)
2-1 (CBC)
Alternative Year in Hockey: (Puck Daddy)
Have a Safe!! and Happy New Year!!!
Have two games I’d like to wrap up with our famed bullets, last night’s Hogs win over Chicago and this morning’s US-Russia game which I found surprisingly entertaining. First to our Piggies:
-One of the many things that I’ve been disappointed in being robbed of this lockout, and there may be hundreds, is getting to watch the growth of Brandon Saad firsthand. In reality, even just half a season in the A is probably better for Saad than being immediately chucked into the deepest part of the pool. But even from just a month ago you see a difference, as now Saad makes something happen on almost every shift. He did last night at least. As Chris Block has pointed out, the kid is unafraid to take the puck into high-traffic areas and work along the boards. That’s power forward stuff that you really can’t teach. He may get knocked around for a bit among the men of the NHL, but I doubt for long. Best player on the ice last night by some stretch, I thought. If there is a season, I don’t think there’s any doubt now he’s starting the season here and somewhere on the Top 6. I guess it’s been since Versteeg that we’ve had a rookie to get excited about, and Steeger kind of came out of nowhere. We’ve been waiting for Saad since he was drafted, and that’s one of the cooler things about being a fan of any sport, the youngster coming through the system.
Don’t Get Excited: (TSN)
Nuclear Legal War: (Hockey Prospectus)
Battle of Hockey SuperPowers:(The Province)
USA Roster Finalized: (TSN)
Drunken Hockey Fights: (Coastline Pilot)
No one in Detroit pays taxes, not even a guy that owns half the town:(Deadspin)
The Battle of Northern Illinois….or something, renews tonight with the Wolves’s third visit to the BMO Harris Metro Rock Something Else Center. The Piggies are coming off a comeback-win over Abbotsford on Saturday at home, where Nick Leddy and Brandon Pirri (twice) molested twine to see the Hogs overcome a 2-1 deficit. The Hogs have still lost five of seven coming into this, and face a week of divisional battles, with Milwaukee at home and Grand Rapids away to come after this.
The game is on if you have Comcast on The U Too. It’s standard def, and really crappy standard def, and you’ll probably get a little nauseous if you try and watch the whole thing. But then again, there’s nothing else to do really as we all save up for New Year’s or the Apocalypse or for weaponry for when the collectors arrive at the door.
-The World Junior Championships have started, but not really. All we’ve had so far is both the 49the Parallel Powers beating up on half the Axis to the tune of 17-3. I watched some of the US game today. Seth Jones likes to try tricky stuff, and Galchenyuk (the American who plays on the Canadiens with the Russian name) has a pretty sick release. That’s all I can tell you. The thing kicks off for real tomorrow, sorta, when the US plays Russia. We’ll probably have a thread for it or something.
-I was interested in seeing the Puck Daddy post today about the lack of season ticket holders league wide that are not cancelling the tickets. Buffalo and Pittsburgh have like a combined 60 cancellations or something ridiculous like that.
I don’t think anyone should feel required to cancel their tickets. I’m not, especially as I’m expecting a full refund in a couple weeks anyway. And while at the moment, if the season started tomorrow I wouldn’t be comfortable going into the building, I’m still holding on to the tickets. I think it’s because I don’t want to give the owners the satisfaction. I know that sounds weird, but follow me.
If I scrap my tickets, there’s little doubt they’d be scooped up by someone else in a matter of minutes. So after holding onto my money and keeping the interest on it in whatever account they put the season ticket money into to save, they’ll get to do it again. Fuck that noise. I’m going to keep my tickets with at least the right to sell games I don’t want — which might be all of them — and maybe toward the end of the year I’ll actually be turning a profit on it. I’m going to give myself the chance to at least get something out of it other than some empty feeling of righteousness.
I wonder if it isn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy that there aren’t more cancellations. We all think our tickets will be snapped up anyway, so we don’t cancel. The owners see that there aren’t a lot of cancellations, and hence pull shit like this. We see them pull shit like this, assume they think that they have a cushion of we cancel our season tickets, and we don’t cancel our season tickets. Maybe if I thought thousands of others were doing so I would too.
But I don’t think we’re wrong for not doing so. It’s a decision best left to when we really know what we’re dealing with I guess.
Up until this point of this bafflingly insipid lockout, I’ve kept an arm’s distance from getting too emotionally invested in the day-to-day goings on in these so-called “negotiations”. At my core, I knew that there was going to be a significant amount of time missed, and that everyone would be beyond aggravated with the principals on either side, but that ultimately it would be too foolish to waste this much time, or the entire season. But, no one has ever gotten rich betting on the NHL using common sense. Perhaps I was more deluded and emotionally invested than I thought, because selfishly, I really wanted there to be hockey today, and it’s really hitting home now that there isn’t.
The year that was: (TSN)
Passion not the same: (Sportsnet.CA)
No Contest: (CBC)
This should be interesting: (ESPN)
Still a Stern guy: (Chicago Tribune)