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Insanite posted:Is this a good thing or a bad thing?: Opinions are going to vary, but more fans are starting to think that this is a bad thing. Staged fights like this are a pointless sideshow that slow down the game and, as you said, kind of strike me as a pro-wrestling kind of thing. In this instance, the coaches intentionally put their tough guys out there in order to mix it up. We've learned a lot about head injuries and the kind of damage these guys do to themselves, and while hockey is a dangerous sport anyway "goons" put themselves at more risk, and some develop serious mental problems. Here's an article from the New York Times about the death of a former enforcer, Derek Boogaard, and how fighting ultimately contributed a lot to his death: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/sports/hockey/derek-boogaard-a-brain-going-bad.html?pagewanted=all In my opinion, a staged fight is not a good fight, but if a fight is something that happens organically and there is some kind of significance behind why the two players are fighting, then I do get into it even though I disagree with the concept of fighting as a whole. One recent example I can think of is from a few years ago between Bruins forward Milan Lucic and defenseman Mike Komisarek, who was playing for the Montreal Canadiens at the time. If you don't already know, Bruins-Canadiens is arguably the biggest rivalry in the NHL historically and in recent years. So in addition to this natural dislike of the other team, Lucic and Komisarek kind of developed a little personal rivalry where they would take runs at each other, talk trash, get under each other's skin, and shove each other around, but they never actually fought. It finally did all come to a head in 2008 when, after months of stopping just short of fighting, the two finally went at it. Lucic won the fight and you can see how animated he got about it, you see Komisarek trying to get up and keep going, and it's because the two of them just had this burning animosity towards the other. It was almost like the personification of the Bruins-Canadiens rivalry in two players. Even though I'm not a huge fan of fighting, I did enjoy this fight just because of the rivalry between the teams and the two individuals themselves, I'd say it was a "good" fight because of that. Lucic and Komisarek have fought a couple times since this and I thought they were dumb fights, simply because there wasn't any significance to it. I hope that makes sense. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjZbNtzsQFY If you don't like the Bruins I dunno what to tell you, it's hard to suggest who to cheer for if the reason you pick a team is based on an indescribable feeling. I follow a few teams (meaning I watch at least 20-30 games a season, if not more) so here's some brief opinions on those: Boston Bruins - Boston is the best team in the NHL, and that's not a biased opinion. They have the league's best record and one of the most well-rounded rosters. I've followed the Bruins my entire life and I've never seen them this good, including the year that they won the Stanley Cup. They are a highly entertaining, highly skilled, physical, and still relatively young team, which means they are going to be competitive for the foreseeable future. They are also not very popular around the league because people like to hate Boston sports, Boston sports fans, and teams that have been successful recently. Washington Capitals - The Capitals are really bad and have been coasting by on the back of Russian superstar Alex Ovechkin, who is the league's best goalscorer and a highly entertaining player to watch. This year he was the only player to hit 50 goals despite playing on a team that did not make the playoffs. They have another fantastic forward in Nicklas Backstrom, but outside of that the roster is not very good and they are struggling with poor coaching and a lack of consistency. Nowadays I mostly hate-watch the Capitals because it's remarkable how crappy they've become in just a few seasons (in 2009-2010 they had the best record in the NHL) but they are still fun to watch because of Ovechkin. Minnesota Wild - I think Wild are fun to watch, but I can't really describe why. I suppose that for me personally, they just have that je ne sais quoi you are looking for. Minnesota has assembled a talented group of players, and in my opinion they have one of the best top 6's (first and second line forwards) in the league. They also have Ryan Suter, a defenseman who routinely plays about half of each game, which is unheard of. They have a good group of prospects coming in, and I think we're at the beginning of an era where they will be a consistent playoff team.
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Apr 14, 2014 15:08
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the posted:What I don't get is why one of the guys who isn't fighting doesn't go get the puck and try to score. What does he have to lose? Play stops when there's a fight. HELLO LADIES posted:It's important to note that a lot of what fans consider "staged fights" aren't actually staged. Maybe not in this particular case, but there's an entire etiquette around when to fight the other guy, like it's considered Not Cool to fight a guy at the end of his shift if you're at the start, because that's not a fair matchup, and plenty of guys have expressed the opinion that when they absolutely know they're going to have to fight that game anyway, they prefer to get it over with as early as possible. There can also be multi-game chains of causation for fights that get started early, stemming from an incident(s) even as far back as the previous season. A lot more of the fights are "organic", or at least have a narrative of significance constructed around them by the fighters, than many anti-fighting fans seem to want to credit. There have been so many changes to the rules around fighting, mostly at the behest of the league/owners, that the "spontaneous street justice for dirty play" fights can be a lot more dangerous in hockey terms (penalties, etc) for the guy who starts them and that's entirely subject to ref discretion, so in a lot of ways the timeframe for those incidents has gotten stretched out, specifically so the refs can't get as involved. I guess what I really mean is that I personally don't buy into the whole "team's need to have an enforcer, respect The Code" kind of thing. I suppose that teams having goons or enforcers is what I actually have a problem with. Whenever those useless players are hitting the ice it's because they're supposed to be looking for a fight. That's all they're good for, that's why coach puts them in the game. To me, that makes it staged, because no one thinks they're going out there to score goals. Everyone knows they're going out there to hurt people and start a fight, everyone knows they're paid to sit in the penalty box for more minutes than they'll get ice time, and it's garbage. I have less of a problem when your average player happens to get in a fight, I still think it's dumb, but it's their choice to do so. These guys take regular shifts, contribute to the team's success, etc. They're paid to play the game, not solely to punch other people. Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Apr 14, 2014 |
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Apr 14, 2014 16:16
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HELLO LADIES posted:Not really, when most of the people who throw that term around inevitably follow it up with how they hate those fights because they're "not about anything" and "not the same as guys defending their teammates/sticking up for themselves", plus they also seem to think "staged" fights are always just cynical sideshows with nothing to do with player self-policing. Some are, but most aren't. If people don't believe deterrence and self-policing is real or actually works, cool, more power to 'em, but the idea that semi-planned fights AREN'T deterrence but spontaneous ones TOTALLY ARE is bullshit. It's a false dichotomy. My point is that having goons on your roster is a relic and it doesn't have a place in today's NHL. It's a waste of a roster space, and sending them on the ice to fight absolutely is a sideshow. When you send out the guy who's paid to fight, it's a staged fight, even if people want to claim he's "sending a message" or "keeping the other team in line".
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Apr 14, 2014 17:41
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Admiral Goodenough posted:That's awesome, thank you! Most of the time yes. Theoretically a team could sign a player who will go back to college, juniors, or the minor leagues and trade him before he ever suits up for them. A player's rights could also be traded, although this doesn't happen very often. Aside from a handful of players good enough to make the NHL right away, most are going to go back to college or juniors, then when they are old enough they will play for the minor league affiliate of the NHL club that drafted them to further develop. Their first NHL experience will then generally be as an injury call up or a while down the road when they are good enough to make the team out of training camp. Teams retain exclusive rights to a player for four (I believe) years, after that they become a free agent. One notable example of this is Blake Wheeler, now of the Winnipeg Jets. He was drafted by the Coyotes, but chose to play in the NCAA for three years, and never signed an entry level deal. As a result, he became a free agent and signed with the Boston Bruins. Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 22:45
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Admiral Goodenough posted:Ok, so the IIHF world championships happen soon, right? Is it as fun to watch as the Olympics? How are players selected to the national teams? How come the Olympics make the NHL go on a break but the World Championships don't? The World Championships aren't a big deal because the Olympics are the premier international tournament for hockey. Europeans seem to take worlds a bit more seriously, but since the Olympics have allowed NHL players the significance of the world championships has decreased in North America. Additionally, the world championships take place at the same time as the NHL playoffs, and players have almost always preferred to participate in those instead of the international tournament. In lockout years like 2004-2005 you saw really great competition because more top players came than normal, but this usually is not the case. I don't think they're as fun to watch as the Olympics, but they are interesting because you'll see more national teams that normally do not make the Olympic tournament such as France, Italy, Germany, and Kazakhstan, among others. A lot of these countries have an NHL player or two and it can be fun to watch this smaller hockey nations play. Sometimes you get cool upsets too. Last year France, who has a single NHL player, beat Russia, a team of mostly NHL and KHL all-stars, in the preliminary stage. Players are selected by being invited by the national team. Some players go, some decide they'd rather spend the offseason doing other stuff. As a result you get rosters which are a mix of borderline NHL/minor league players and bonafide NHL superstars. Additionally, if a team is eliminated from the NHL playoffs, a player will sometimes be invited to join the national team roster even though the World Championships are already in progress.
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Apr 23, 2014 13:31
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I think they honestly just post the job online. I swear I've seen it before when browsing the NHL jobs site, daydreaming about working for a team.
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Apr 24, 2014 01:12
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I always thought this story from Phil Esposito's autobiography was amusing, it's about the first time he played against Gordie Howe. Esposito was a rookie at the time and Howe would have been in the league for almost two decades by this point.Phil Esposito posted:Two nights later, we were in Detroit, and who did I find myself standing next to when I got on the ice but Gordie Howe. Geez, he was my boyhood hero. I’m looking at Gordie and I’m saying to myself, “drat, that’s the great Gordie Howe. What am I doing out here?" Jamwad Hilder fucked around with this message at 14:20 on May 12, 2014 |
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May 12, 2014 14:18
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