Posted on 06/17/2006 5:36:22 AM PDT by PurpleMountains
Tonight, on NBC, teams from the unlikely cities of Edmonton, Alberta and Raleigh, North Carolina, are playing game 6 of the Stanley Cup hockey championship – largely unnoticed except by rabid fans in those cities. The game of hockey, which requires the greatest skill set and personal courage of the players and is easily the fastest and most demanding of all team sports, has fallen on bad times despite the influx of Russian, Scandinavian and Eastern European hockey players with amazing skills that challenge the dominance once held exclusively by our Canadian neighbors to the north. The all-important television ratings have fallen so low that only the largely unknown and inaccessible OLN network has carried the quarter and semi-final games.
(Excerpt) Read more at forthegrandchildren.blogspot.com ...
The guy is nuts. There are a lot more US kids playing hockey than when Bobby Orr played. Hockey eventually turned me off when I realized that I cared more than the players did. In tonight's game that will not be the case and I will probably watch.
ML/NJ
I'll be flicking in and flicking out during the night.
Darn, I miss most of the goals.
Yes, he is.
My 12 yr old played in four states last year.
I sold three old pairs of his skates on ebay last week.
Texas, Florida, and California.
Youth Hockey is alive and very well.
Youth and AHL hockey (Wolves) is alive and thriving in Chicago.
Unfortunately, NHL caliber play is not there. Bil Wirtz has killed the Hawks. I will not step foot in United Center until Wirtz is no longer owns the team.
To give you an example, this is what we have had to put up with
Hawks traded
Ulanov for Enrico Ciccone
Spacek for a future bartender
Babchuk for a career minor leager,
and Moreau for the prototypical underacheiving out of shape rooskie Boris "Krispy Kreme" Mironov
GO OIL Eh?
Just like with the resurgence of the NBA, it will take a few years for the NHL to get there...
If they stay in their skates, keep the scoring up (as in, don't allow the defensive traps to squeeze the game) and continue to allow the fighters to fight and the scorers to score, things will improve in the next 3 years for the NHL.
Youth Hockey is alive and well. It will take a bit, but the system will correct itself.
Was he the genius who let Chelios go to Detroit too?
What's hockey? And why is it played in June?
nah that was Pulford. Whatever he has on Wirtz must be good.
Cheilos is a class act. My kid played on a team with his kid and Gary Suter's and Ed Belfour's kid as a squirt. We had a blast All of those guys were awesome
FYI: We had a tournament game one Sunday AM. Suter and Chelios flew back to watch the game and once it was over, immediately boogied out of ther to be on the ice to skate in FLA that night.
A Chicago columnist(who sometimes appears on ESPN)tried to make something out of it and generate some crap. Ever since that day will never pick up that paper..
I've heard about that.
I've heard some very good things about some of the Blue Jackets players in Columbus (mainly Jody Shelley, but some Rick Nash and even Fedorov when he got there).....
The NBA has resurged?
looking at the TV ratings, yes it has.
The playoffs this year in the NBA have REALLY been on another level not seen since the mid 90s......
I quit when Bird, Magic and Dominique left and the thugs took over.
Are people now accepting thugs , or have they cleaned up their act?
the thugs didn't take over until the mid-90s....
And really the NBA was watchable until 1998, which is when Jordan left.
They have cleaned up their act some, although there are still some problem children, but mainly the players are more skilled, the players who are the stars have their fundamentals down (which wasn't happening for a long time there) and it seems as if character does matter in the NBA again.
For you, maybe.
I was a fan in the 60s-70s when Wilt the Stilt, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Jerry Lucus, Oscar Robertson, Kareem and others rule the roost.
Had a brief return with Magic, Bird and Wilkens.
Since they seem to be passing up college ball, I doubt I will ever be a fan again.
you're wrong. they can't pass up college ball now.
Beyond that, some of them, (mainly Lebron) didn't need college, although him at Ohio State would have been fun to watch :)
Pretty much the NBA got fat of Jordan, Bird, Johnson and early Shaq and the league suffered for it until 2004, when things showed a sign of shifting.
As you pointed out....there IS a need for college.
Here in the South, the "Pros" are where your favorite players go after their "career" is over.
That's why I watched the NBA while Wilkens (a UGA grad) played.
Hot dogs with no background except hotdogging it on a New York playground hold no interest for me.
The ball hogs don't get drafted nearly as much as they did back in the 90s....and as for hot dogs, again, they have to go to college now. You won't get far doing that in college.
the leauge has changed.
Just look at who has been the MVP the last 2 years. A point guard who makes his teammates better.
If that is good I may follow the interesting players in their later career.
Since you say they have now put a stop to the kiddies going straight up, there may be hope after all.
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