NHL Cancels Season

Vanity

[Loyalist]

Gary Bettman makes it official: 2004-05 NHL season has been cancelled.

Damn you.

[Alberta's Child]

I was wrong -- you ARE a hockey fan! ;-)

You'd love collegiate hockey, or Olympic hockey.

[Victoria Delsoul]

I like hockey. I've seen some hockey videos of Gretzky. He was great.

[connectthedots]

Would it be feasable for the players to support and play in a league with new owners and new teams and leave the current NHL owners with nothing of real value?

[Alberta's Child]

Absolutely. I got interviewed by a television station in New York City right around the time he retired, and when the guy asked me what my one lasting memory of Gretzky was, I told him about the one time I saw Gretzky play in person against my New Jersey Devils -- when he was on the L.A. Kings.

"He was so much better than everyone else that looked like he was playing with a bunch of children," I said.

[Victoria Delsoul]

And I don't think he ever fought. He didn't have to, he just played well.

[Mr. Buzzcut]

Gretzky's bro Keith played here in Rochester ... amazing how little they had in common hockey-wise!

My two greatest Gretzky memories are him scoring 5 goals against my Flyers to hit 50 in 39 games (1982) and his breaking Esposito's 76 goal mark in Buffalo (same year?)...

[Alberta's Child]

I've thought about that. This would probably be an ideal time to try it, but I don't know how successful it would be. Even though most NHL teams don't have a lot of dedicated fans, there is style a big mystique attached to the names of the older teams that would not carry over to a new league.

Would a lot of people in Montreal pay good money to see the Montreal Majors play the Toronto Tornadoes? I don't know.

[Ready4Freddy]

What is the NHL? /s

[Alberta's Child]

He probably never made a fist in his life. LOL.

He was also a relatively small player, and had to play a quick, elusive style because he didn't take hits very well. He had great vision on the ice, too -- he would make passes without looking because he knew where all of his teammates would be.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Wow, what amazing player.

[Alberta's Child]

The most unbelievable aspect of his career was that he still holds the single-season record with 92 goals even though he wasn't a "natural" goal scorer. He had great hockey sense and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, but he didn't have a particularly hard shot and wasn't a dominant player in traffic in front of the net.

Jari Kurri was my favorite player on those Edmonton teams. He was extremely underrated, and was probably the best all-around player I've seen -- he was a good passer, a lightning-fast skater, and had a laser-bolt of a shot . . . and played a strong defensive game, too.

[Alberta's Child]

Yep, he was certainly a legend on the ice.

[F16Fighter]

"Dryden is a liberal Canadian politician, so I'm a bit prejudiced about his negotiating capabilities in that respect."

Dryden's a lib?

D@mn him...

I'm never more disappointed then when I hear of a great professional athlete who's joined the Dark Side.

[Mr. Buzzcut]

I've always been (at the admittedly lower levels I've played at) a fairly decent goal scorer despite being smaller and not an awesome skater ... To me it was all about angles and putting yourself in the right position to receive the puck in an area where you have a good chance to score ...

Gretzky didn't have a hard shot, but you don't need to shoot 100 mph if you hit your spot.

Kurri was great ... as were Messier and Anderson and Coffey ... amazing the Flyers took them to the last 5 minutes of Game 7 in 1987 ... then Anderson snuck a backhander thru fricking Hextall's legs ... I need to go cry ...

[Mr. Buzzcut]

He probably never made a fist in his life. LOL.

He had Dave Semenko and Marty McSorely's fists ... no one was gonna let those magic hands get damaged!

[Mr. Buzzcut]

Would a lot of people in Montreal pay good money to see the Montreal Majors play the Toronto Tornadoes? I don't know.

Nah ... the Montreal Maroons v. the Toronto St. Patricks (I think those are old NHL names!) ...

[Alberta's Child]

The player you describe would have been a good 50-goal scorer like Dave Andreychuk, Joe Niewendyk, Jaromir Jagr, Alexander Mogilny, etc. about ten years ago. Their most important attribute was their ability to get away a quick shot on net without taking that fraction of a second to aim it.

To me, a classic goal-scorer was someone like Brett Hull -- who had all those attributes you described, and on top of that had a short rocket of a snap shot and a mysterious ability to disappear in the offensive zone and just show up out of nowhere in the perfect position to one-time a pass on goal. That was the difference between a 50-goal scorer and a 75-goal scorer.

[Alberta's Child]

I don't know how old the Maroons were, but I believe the Montreal Wanderers played in the NHL back in the early days, and may have been the team that folded when the league was reduced from seven to the "Original Six."

[Alberta's Child]

Actually, you're right. The Maroons were around a lot longer than the Wanderers. The Wanderers only played in part of the 1917-18 season, and I seem to remember reading that they folded in the middle of the season when their home rink burned down.

Maybe a lockout isn't so bad after all, eh?

[connectthedots]

I'm not a big hockey fan, but it seems like Bettman is the bad guy in this mess. If a new league was started or would bwegin organizing, it would put tremendous pressure on the NHL. I would thin the fan base is so mad at the owners that they would support a new league quite strongly. The threat of forming a new league is the only real pressure the players have aside from the lost profits of the teams that ran a smart organization.

All this seems so unnecessary since the last few stanley Cup winners did not seem to have the highest payrolls. on would think the other owners would get a clue.