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NHL 2021


SeanDMan

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Matthews gets 40 in 49! Very, very unlikely anyone catches him (fuck off, McDavid, you're too good)... that will be the first Leaf to lead the league in scoring since the 50s I believe. 

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16 minutes ago, damshow said:

McDavid possibly getting 100 points in the shortened season is incredible, but 40 goals in the shortened season is also quite an accomplishment.

And a bunch of those games he had a bum wrist!

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1 hour ago, Ruki Returns said:

And a bunch of those games he had a bum wrist!

You're a bum wrist.

The fiasco around the dops and hockey ops is not gonna go away. NHL made the wrong call backing Parros, but Parros isn't the problem. It is Colin Campbell. How he still has a job after openly cheating on behalf of his son is a fucking disgrace.

NHL needs to scorch the earth and start from scratch. The old boys club jerking each other off over ole timey hockey eh needs to go the fuck away. There was a time when the NHL was primed to pass both the NBA and MLB and the NBA woke up, got their shit together, and put a stop to it. Now if the NHL isn't careful it will slip behind MLS and fade into sports obscurity to line up beside darts, imported snooker matches, and reruns of the little league world series.

And if they don't get rid of the assholes driving the clown car off the side of the mountain than they fucking deserve it.

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The league itself is certainly a huge reason hockey is nearly a non-entity in the sports landscape. There's aspects of "hockey culture" that are painfully exclusionary. We've gone over the stories of hazing and bigotry that plague kids at levels all the way up to the NHL before, but it's an incredibly good way to ensure nobody cares about your sport when you cling to the old time hockey belief and push it onto kids who want nothing to do with it. Not to mention, at least in the US, the typical die-hard hockey fan can only talk about how much tougher hockey players are and how they're "real men" compared to every other sport. Good way to sell your sport, dick.

I do think with ESPN and Turner now holding TV rights in the US as opposed to NBC there will be more incidental focus on hockey. ESPN used to never talk about it, but with it airing on their networks they'll certainly give it more coverage going forward.

Baseball and hockey both face significant issues with aging fanbases and both seem unwilling or uninterested in doing anything to correct it. At least hockey hasn't attempted to reinvent the sport with outlandish rule changes. That's one, maybe the only, benefit of the old boys club that rules the sport with an iron fist.

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3 hours ago, damshow said:

The league itself is certainly a huge reason hockey is nearly a non-entity in the sports landscape. There's aspects of "hockey culture" that are painfully exclusionary. We've gone over the stories of hazing and bigotry that plague kids at levels all the way up to the NHL before, but it's an incredibly good way to ensure nobody cares about your sport when you cling to the old time hockey belief and push it onto kids who want nothing to do with it. Not to mention, at least in the US, the typical die-hard hockey fan can only talk about how much tougher hockey players are and how they're "real men" compared to every other sport. Good way to sell your sport, dick.

I do think with ESPN and Turner now holding TV rights in the US as opposed to NBC there will be more incidental focus on hockey. ESPN used to never talk about it, but with it airing on their networks they'll certainly give it more coverage going forward.

Baseball and hockey both face significant issues with aging fanbases and both seem unwilling or uninterested in doing anything to correct it. At least hockey hasn't attempted to reinvent the sport with outlandish rule changes. That's one, maybe the only, benefit of the old boys club that rules the sport with an iron fist.

Hockey did reinvent their sport with serious rule changes when they came out of the lockout, reworking their financial systems to force more parity and overhauling a lot of neutral zone play with things like new icing rules, removing the red line and allowing two line passes, obstruction enforcement etc.

The problem being it came after a labour shortage wiped out their season, so they had to win their audience back instead of growing it.

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5 minutes ago, SeanDMan said:

Hockey did reinvent their sport with serious rule changes when they came out of the lockout, reworking their financial systems to force more parity and overhauling a lot of neutral zone play with things like new icing rules, removing the red line and allowing two line passes, obstruction enforcement etc.

The problem being it came after a labour shortage wiped out their season, so they had to win their audience back instead of growing it.

I should've specified the post-lockout rule changes were mostly good. Late 90s and early 00s hockey was dreadful and way too defensive. The NBA did similar rule changes around the same time to increase offensive production but they didn't have a whole season wiped out. A whole year without the NHL did so much irreparable damage. But I would argue they maybe stopped some of the long-term problems by making sensible rule changes that did make the sport more exciting and fast-paced.

Meanwhile, baseball's rule changes to make the game "more exciting for younger fans" have accomplished none of that while alienating older ones.

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33 minutes ago, damshow said:

At long last we are finally getting a Toronto-Montreal playoff series. And of course it'll happen in front of zero fans during a pandemic. Sigh...

I'd be worried about the fans murdering each other at the end of the series. On paper the Leafs should win this... but my trauma of cheering for this team tells me we lose in game 7. 

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33 minutes ago, Ruki Returns said:

I'd be worried about the fans murdering each other at the end of the series. On paper the Leafs should win this... but my trauma of cheering for this team tells me we lose in game 7. 

I can't see it going too long, Habs aren't built to play the same team over and over again. I know NHL playoffs, anything can happen, etc. But this isn't one of those series (like Columbus upsetting Tampa Bay in 2019 or Montreal upsetting Washington in 2010) where you know there's a chance solely because of defense and goal. Carey Price isn't bringing out 2012 Carey Price ever again.

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25 minutes ago, damshow said:

I can't see it going too long, Habs aren't built to play the same team over and over again. I know NHL playoffs, anything can happen, etc. But this isn't one of those series (like Columbus upsetting Tampa Bay in 2019 or Montreal upsetting Washington in 2010) where you know there's a chance solely because of defense and goal. Carey Price isn't bringing out 2012 Carey Price ever again.

Plus Price is coming in rusty, post concussion if I am not mistaken. Weber is older, slower... 

 

STOP TRYING TO GIVE ME OPTOMISM. 

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2 hours ago, Ruki Returns said:

Plus Price is coming in rusty, post concussion if I am not mistaken. Weber is older, slower... 

 

STOP TRYING TO GIVE ME OPTOMISM. 

Montreal's a really good example in how to build a good team but how to never build a great team because there's always one leak on the ship. And, hey, now that they finally found centers they don't have a reliable top defenseman anymore. So here's to the next decade lost trying to fix that problem.

Meanwhile, Toronto's a good example of how to push all your chips into the middle of the table and stand up while the crowd gasps.

Totally different approaches to risk-taking between the two orgs.

Edited by damshow
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The situation up here is becoming hilarious. Details leaked about the Trevor Linden exit and basically he wanted to rebuild over 4-7 years and the owners wanted back in playoffs after a year or two. Owners got their wish, Linden resigned. Now the team is in quite a state.

It has gotten to the point where Canucks fans are offering ins as well as cash to the marketting department in Seattle to put up billboards in Vancouver as people vow to boycot the team unless the owners sell.

Oh, and we won our playoff series against Calgary. Not sure how the seeding works now and who we play in round two but it feels good to be COVID division champs!

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10 hours ago, damshow said:

Ovechkin blew up and started screaming Russian at someone (probably Samsonov) last night. Poor kid. He totally fucked up though.

What happened?

 

Also, the hit on Tavares was disgusting. Complete accident... but holy fuck. Seeing him collapse in the arms of the trainers made me feel queasy. He's not coming back this year. I hope this isn't a career ending thing. 

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31 minutes ago, Ruki Returns said:

What happened?

 

Also, the hit on Tavares was disgusting. Complete accident... but holy fuck. Seeing him collapse in the arms of the trainers made me feel queasy. He's not coming back this year. I hope this isn't a career ending thing. 

Samsonov left a puck sitting behind the net and turned his back to it, his defenseman, and the Bruins player who scored the winning goal. Terrible mistake.

Some Isles fans have been, ahem, in poor form the last half hour on Twitter. Absolutely horrific injury to Tavares and you really, really hope he's ready to play next season.

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