uh, NHL Hockey question...

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FrenchMovieTheme

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hey dudes, today some guy came in and was interested in printing some dvd covers and putting together packets for a film called Save Stanley. it is a "hockumentary" (as the cover said) and seemed pretty interesting.

anyways i got to talking to the guy and he said not only will there be no hockey this season, but there will be no hockey NEXT season either. wtf, i know no one knows for sure, but is this true? wouldn't hockey for all intents and purposes be dead @ that point?

that sucks dudes
 
Well, the lockout is showing no signs of stopping any time soon. So it is possible. There's still a long time to go, though.
 
No Hockey next season is certainly possible.
It looks really bad right now. The players and owners aren't even talking. I think they've only met once or twice in the last several months. Hell, they've probably only met a handful of times the last year.

It's like two kids giving each other the silent treatment: absolutely retarded and immature.

It's one thing to waste this hockey season and hammer out a good CBA. But to waste 1+ seasons is absolutely pathetic. If they did that, it would mean that this season going to waste was for nothing. Actually, they should've hammered out a new agreement LAST season...so this season, I guess, is already a waste.
 
Now is a pretty pivital time, there's a lot of pressure to get something done to salvage some type of season. But if that doesn't work and this season is cancelled the question comes up about what exactly is gonna get these money grubbers to ever agree on something and that's where the thought of not only missing this season but next as well comes from I think.

It's gotten so bad I'm actually looking forward to football games.
 
What's sad about this situation is that it was predicted by everybody in NHL circles over five years ago. Hell, people were chirping about this as far back as 1998. Yet what was done about it during that time? Absolutely nothing. Well, save for the just-expired CBA getting reupped for a second time.

If there's no season this year (which has been a safe bet for months), there'll be no pressure on these sides to get back to the table until December. And the owners will wanna make the players sweat some more anyway. Which would then give them two months to sort out a deal. There's no guarantee of that.

Now this is gonna sound callous, but the one glimmer of hope for this season being saved might well be the tsunami disasters. It sounds twisted, but I'll explain. It wasn't too long ago that MLB was also predicted to go anywhere from three to twenty months without baseball during it's CBA negotiations, and they were certainly on track to go that route. Then 9/11 occurred...and with the emotional tide from that tragedy still going strong, both sides realized that their own petty squabbles over their billions of dollars would simply look pathetic in comparison. So they managed to get a deal done, pretty much out of nowhere. Could the same thing happen here? As nations and people all over the world donate billions to help a region that's seen 150,000 people dead and millions of people homeless, can the NHL and PA still continue this idiotic dick waving contest over their own billions, and do it with a straight face in light of the tragedy? We will see.
 
With the NHL being in such disarray, why don't prople just get more involved with the AHL?

I'm not a fan of hockey, but it seems like a logical thing to do. Our local AHL team went to the Calder Cup last year (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins).

Fuck it man, if the pros and their owners want to be so bitchy, there's already perfectly good hockey still being played.
 
Shinobi said:
What's sad about this situation is that it was predicted by everybody in NHL circles over five years ago. Hell, people were chirping about this as far back as 1998. Yet what was done about it during that time? Absolutely nothing. Well, save for the just-expired CBA getting reupped for a second time.
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Yeah and nobody wants to do anything about it. Let's run down the list ...

The teams that were losing money are no longer losing money (or losing less money anyway).
The teams that were making money already have lots of money.
The players have money and can play elsewhere if they want.

Obviously, this can't work in the long term, but for the time being, it seems to suit them all just fine.

Mike Works said:
The only way to find out would be to flood Toronto
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I see this as a viable option and I live in TO. Just uh, could you let me know ahead of time?
 
Yeah, they're saying if there is no hockey at all this year, there may be no hockey next year too.

I said it before and I said it again, Canada should just adopt the NHL and keep it up there, with the big American hockey cities like New York, Detroit and such having expansion teams.

Nobody in Tampa Bay cares.
 
Meh I just can't generate any rage about this anymore. We've all posted about it already, and my feelings are pretty much the same - it sucks for the fans but unfortunately this is just the way labour negotiations go.

One thing I don't get though is the notion that the lockout will ruin hockey in the US and the league will totally disappear and never return in some markets if they lose a full year. Honestly, having been to Atlanta, LA and Dallas during hockey season I'm pretty sure that while there might be a bit of a lull when hockey comes back the essential disinterest in the game actually helps them rebuild. It's not like those markets have hundreds of thousands of mad hockey fans feeling betrayed, they have a few thousand slightly put out casual fans who are just seeing more movies this winter and don't really care - they'll be just as casually interested or not in 2 or 3 years as they are right now anyway. The NHL teams are mostly novelties in those towns, so the only ppl really upset about the lockout are the die-hard fans who'll mutter and pout but will return anyway. It does hurt long-term building of fanbases but shit it's not like Carolina has the luxury of worring about what's going on in their fanbase 20 years from now.

What's killing the game in those markets is the low scoring, dull style that many ppl don't like. The NHL could stay locked out for 2 full years, but if they come back with a CBA they like, lower ticket prices 20% in apology for being gone so long and actually take the oppurtunity to change the rules to open up the game and make it more exciting again (bigger nets, much smaller goalie pads, hell I don't even care what they try anymore but no 2 line passes/bigger ice/shootouts won't cut it) they'll be in MUCH better shape than if they'd had no lockout at all and kept limping along.
 
calder said:
What's killing the game in those markets is the low scoring, dull style that many ppl don't like. The NHL could stay locked out for 2 full years, but if they come back with a CBA they like, lower ticket prices 20% in apology for being gone so long and actually take the oppurtunity to change the rules to open up the game and make it more exciting again (bigger nets, much smaller goalie pads, hell I don't even care what they try anymore but no 2 line passes/bigger ice/shootouts won't cut it) they'll be in MUCH better shape than if they'd had no lockout at all and kept limping along.
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I know you're just tossing around ideas, but personally, I don't think that more goals == more excitement. It all depends on why more goals are being scored. If we're getting more goals because the goalie has a harder time stopping them, I don't really see how that's any less dull. I'd like to see something implemented where we can see an increase in scoring chances.

For me, the dullness isn't due to the lower goal count, but the incredibly boring style of play. How do you fix that? I have no clue.
 
I love how when a player asks for a huge contracts the owners are helpless and there is nothing they can do. But when we need a new CBA the players are helpless and cannot win. It's such a load of bull the owners have shown time and time again they are the greedy ones that will find a way to screw up the system to further there own ends. The owners will cave before the players.
 
To hell with the money issues. I'm so sick and tired of seeing Nick Kypreos spout nonsense during "LOCKOUT 2005 - DAY 107" updates on Sportsnet, I just change the channel. Call me when the owners and/or players decide that enough is enough. My concern relates to the game itself. If - IF - the following season is going to be a washout as well, I want the owners to take advantage of the lull and make the fundamental changes the game needs in order to survive over the next decade.

1. Remove that first row or two of expensive seats to expand the surface, give the players room to move and create.

2. Bring back the no-touch icing calls so good guys like Pat Peake don't have their careers cut short.

3. Bring back tag-up offsides, instead of the flow-killing nonsense we put up with today.

4. Change the instigator rule as it stands now. Let the players police themselves. As it is, injuries from bullshit hacks and slashes are running rampant, and God help the player who takes it into his own hands to protect a superstar from some yappy punk (I still love Jarko Ruutu, but come on) - the guy who should get pounded into oblivion gets away with murder. I'm not saying we need to have a bunch of goons on the ice - with a larger ice surface, you'll need guys who can still play at a high level while looking out for the Naslunds and Sakics of the league. Less Dave Semenko and Gino Odjick, more Wade Brookbank.

5. Wider blue lines. This has been used to great success in the AHL to keep the game flow going in the offensive zone. How many times have you seen a guy stretch to keep the puck in at the blueline only to have it juuuuuuuuust squeeze out, prompting a whistle? Ridiculous.
 
alejob said:
Soccer rules the planet already, except the US.
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I know it's hard for you guys to remember sometimes, but Canada is not part of the US. And we have this sport called "hockey" that we're rather fond of. kthxbye.
 
Bigger ice != more flow, more creativity, more anything good. The nice thing about the NHLers in Europe is how many of them complain about the big ice making the games less physical, more trappy and just duller overall.

Bish I don't think any, or even all, of your ideas would change the game much at all. They'd be nice mostly (except bigger ice, which I disagree with) but the changes would be cosmetic if you're looking for more offense or less defensive play. There are only a couple of realistic ways I see to use the rules to combat the dull defensive style of modern NHL teams. One is to outlaw certain defensive tactics (like in bball zone coverage and man to man or whatever they did - but in hockey it'd be very hard to do and might not work anyway). Another way might be to artificially increase scoring to the point where teams decide it might work better for them to win games by trying to score more than their opponents rather then the currently effective way of allowing the least.

The number of goals scored is irrelavant really as long as the style is exciting to fans, but teams won't play fast attacking hockey unless they think that's going to give them the best chance to win. If goals in general are hard to come by, then attention to defense will win you games but if scoring is up significantly then you can't assume that a trap will give you enough offense to win so you have to attack a little more. The most exciting games you'll see are the high school level, mainly because the kids are good sized and pretty skilled yet dumb as stumps and won't play team D if you put a gun to their heads. You just don't get that in the pros, so maybe making the nets bigger and artificially increasing the number of goals that way would help force teams open it up, I'm not talking 13-7 games but if teams were averaging about 5 goals per game then I think the actual style of hockey would change back to what we had in the late 80's.

And it would piss off goalies, which I like. God I hate those fuckers.
 
Someone wipe out Jaques Lemaire from the face of the planet and watch hockey will once again become the fast paced game it once was.
 
Mike Works said:
Aww, you're just pissy because you've had to deal with Lalime all these years.
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:lol :lol :lol

Changing the flow of the game starts with calling slashes, hooks and holds. You even breathe on a player that doesn't have the puck, you're gone. No questions, no excuses, no bullshit. You force this shit down their fucking throats until they get it. Do that and it won't matter how narrow or wide the ice is, though I'd still like to see more room for the players to operate. Oh yeah, blow two line offsides the fuck up too...don't know why that was ever created in the first place.
 
Someone wipe out Jaques Lemaire from the face of the planet and watch hockey will once again become the fast paced game it once was.
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That would work, if you ignore the fact that defensive trapping styles were becoming more widely used in the minor and collegate levels at the time anyway. It would have come back to the NHL sooner or later with or without Lemaire.

Besides, the reason so many teams have switched to a defensive style is because there isn't enough talent to go around. I'm sure every team would switch to play the run-and-gun style of the old Oilers' dynasty if they could but there's no way that's possible in a 30+ team league. Maybe if the League shrank back to the original six but which fans will volunteer to contract their teams for the greater good? Any takers? :)

Besides, even in the 1980's the NHL was mostly a niche sport in the U.S. anyway. Making the nets twice as large may raise scoring but it's not going to miraculously save teams in Pheonix or Carolina. The NHL's entire focus in the 1990's, to expand into southern markets and "grow" the sport, was almost a total failure (Dallas and Colorado were the only real successes and those were relocated franchises). It's a shame that Bettman didn't lose his job for that let alone the CBA issues.
 
Man.. im with you guys. The lockout sucks and sucks even more. How dissappointing, i look forward to hockey season every year, but now :( I have to scroll through pictures of Peter Forsberg elegantly skating past anyone in his way, Martin St.Louis swiftly roofing a wrister past Broduer, and McGinnis crushing a slapper from the blue line- only for Dallas Drake to redirect it down, short side and in. It's a shame.






*slowly falls into empty hockey net*
*starts to cry, uncontrollable* :'(
 
darscot said:
I love how when a player asks for a huge contracts the owners are helpless and there is nothing they can do. But when we need a new CBA the players are helpless and cannot win. It's such a load of bull the owners have shown time and time again they are the greedy ones that will find a way to screw up the system to further there own ends. The owners will cave before the players.
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what you don't understand is it's a business. A business where they win. If my marquee player comes up to me and goes "hey! I want more money or I'm going for free agency!" wtf would you do? Let him go to free agency? He's your STAR PLAYER.

The Players/Players union have a stranglehold on the league and it must be stopped. It's sick.
 
People who say the players had a strangle hold are full of shit. They don't have legit free agency until 31, which means the team has that player's rights for what, 13 years? Owners simply bid against themselves most of the time. Having said that, arbitration is the single biggest reason for the ridiculous inflation...but again, who not only agreed to it, but reupped the CBA twice along the way? The owners.

It'd be nice if the owners admitted that they've been nothing but greedy, incompetent dumb fucks the last ten years or so...that admission might be enough to soothe Goodenow's giant ego.
 
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