Posted on 12/06/2007 10:30:47 AM PST by WOBBLY BOB
If Detroit isn't Hockeytown anymore, then what is? First off, let's make this perfectly clear: We're talking south of the Canadian border. The six most passionate NHL hockey markets include – in no particular order – Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. Hockey is a religion and then some in the Great White North, and there's nothing wrong with that in our book. We just wish there were more NHL outposts in Canada. If you've never taken in a game there, put it on your to-do list. All six markets are different, and a trip to any of them is worth every cent.
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Sid's great, no doubt, but the best player in hockey?!? He's not even the best young player in the league. That honor goes to :
AO can shoot, pass, and HIT!
Sid's a bit more of a pretty boy ('cause it's not nice to call a prima donna like Sid a whiner, now is it?)...
As I recall, ESPN dropped the NHL — not the other way around — I do not recall that they offered ESPN2 as an alternative.
A number of minor league hockey teams left Canada for the USA as well. A fan base is one thing — disposable income is something else. Although now that the Canadian dollar is roughly equal to the US dollar, maybe more of those Canadian cities could support hockey teams.
Hi, Scott. Nice to hear from you again. They were up 3-0 after the first, then promptly gave 2 back in the 2nd. That first pass out of their own zone stinks.....
NHL Center Ice Package from Directv is a blessing & a curse.LOL
Yeah I’m tuned in.....Center Ice customer since 1997.
Shesh, they better not blow this one,damn it.
You can take the boy outta Guilford....LOL
Can I tell you how much I dispise The Bruins? Why, it's almost as much as my hatred for The Flyers.
Now that I’m out in Cal I have to have it...I think I may have missed maye 10 games in the past 10 years. ;)
I’ll check in after the game, fasten your selt belt!
HABS SCORE!!!! 4-3
Opppsss,Make that 4-2...they need this win big time.
This statement is blatantly incorrect. In all my years as a serious hockey fan I've noticed that there are really only about 7-8 NHL markets that I would describe as truly "passionate." They include the Original Six teams (minus Chicago), plus Philadelphia and Edmonton -- and maybe Ottawa, too.
Calgary and Vancouver are not serious about their NHL teams. The fans in these places only pay attention to their teams when they are winning.
Wayne Gretsky played in Indianapolis for the Racers when he was 17 or so. He attended Broad Ripple High School, of all places. He tore the league apart but then the b00b owner, Nelson Skalbania, sold him to the guy where Wayne ended up being a star. What might have been in Indianapolis..... too bad.
Winnipeg would probably be one of the top NHL franchise if local fan support was the measuring stick. The problem is that the NHL made a decision back in the earlyh 1990s to abandon those smaller markets with passionate fan bases in favor of U.S. markets with larger potential television audiences. In what may well go down as one of the dumbest business decisions in the history of sports, the NHL decided that a U.S. metro area with 5,000 serious hockey fans among a population of 4 million was a better place for a hockey team than a Canadian city with 500,000 serious hockey fans among 800,000 people.
... and to think the NHL scrawled “Mighty Ducks” onto the Stanley Cup. They ought to throw it in a river or something.
For sentimental reasons, I'd say the true "Hockeytown, USA" is Eveleth, Minnesota. It's a town of several thousand people up in the Iron Range region of northern Minnesota that is host to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. It's other claim to fame was that something like half the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team grew up within 75 miles of the place.
But he’s a bit of a puck hog, IMO. Sid is great and he also makes players around him better, Alex doesn’t.
BTW, I’m a season ticket holder of the Hershey Bears. So I’ve seen a couple of the Washington players here in Hershey.
The Caps got a heck of a good man in coach Bruce Boudreau. He turned the Bears around, making the Calder cup finals in both years in Hershey, winning it all once.
Pens score a shorty! 2-2 in Calgary! WOO HOO!
Awesome pictures of Malkin, Crosby, and Fluery.
Overtime!
BTW, Fluery hurt his ankle in the first.
Dany Sabourin is in net.
I hope its not nothing serious
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