this thread is worthless, but so is Sports Talk

6/15/2006 11:55:49 AM

wow on a list to get suspended just because I don't support the canes, what a bunch of closeminded rednecks

6/15/2006 12:11:06 PM

haha

careful hipocrite

6/15/2006 12:11:46 PM

oh, we don't care if oyu don't support the canes... it's that you go out of your way to be an ass about it, that's what you're on a list to be suspended for

6/15/2006 12:14:00 PM

This whole series is funny to me because:

Usually no one in North Carolina gives a fuck about the Stanley cup.

Usually people up North follow the stanley cup closely.


And this year no one up north gives a fuck about the cup and people down here are cup crazy.

The sports bars arent even SHOWING these games on television up there instead they just put the yankees, mets, & red sox games on all the TV's...

The NHL is dead. The ratings for these games are unbelievable. 600,000 for game 1? I mean wow... this league is dying.

6/15/2006 12:15:39 PM

the league was already struggling... and this is the post-lockout league, which is in even sorrier shape...

i mean... first they alienate the fans, then they wind up having the whole regular season on OLN which NOBODY watches, so people do'nt even notice that the season has started again, and now they're spending most of their publicity expanding into new markets (which alienates the old markets)...

basically, the fact that anybody AT ALL outside of Raleigh and Edmonton would be watching this series should be counted as a minor miracle...

oh, and iirc game one was on OLN... which, again, nobody watches...

6/15/2006 12:18:04 PM

Saturday night's game 3 on NBC got a 1.7 rating. The Saturday night game between Tampa Bay and Calgary in the 2004 finals had a 1.4. Is it something to brag about? No, but the ratings thing is overblown.

And mshaul, I don't know if you were referring to my comment or not, but if so, I wasn't even talking about you.

6/15/2006 12:26:11 PM

oh i definitely understand why the league died.

i mean i was one of the biggest canes fans around their first 5 seasons... watched or went to about every game.. coulda named every prospect in the farm system..hell i spent 2 hours a day on hockeyboards (now defunct) just to keep up with the offseason moves during the summer...

and now i dont even watch the stanley cup finals games... i just drink and socialize and look up at the screen when i hear the horn go off.

I jsut dont see hockey regaining the momentum it had in the mid 90s anytime soon. The NBA is stocked full of young stars and talent and is just gonna drown the NHL out completely.

I do understand these things are cyclical though. Hell it was barely more than a decade ago when the NFL was considered a dying league.... The NBA was all but left for dead until 2-3 seasons ago and MLB certainly experienced some rough years before the home run boom.

I think the difference between this league and the other three sports though is that those leagues were all more firmly entrenched in their place than hockey ever did.... i think hockey as a nationwide sport was nothing more than a brief novelty act and i dont see them recapturing that market in the next decade at a minimum....

I mean seriously 600,000 people? I think reruns of Loveboat get that many people for 1/100th of the cost.

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 12:33 PM. Reason : a]

6/15/2006 12:32:07 PM

Quote :

"Usually no one in North Carolina gives a fuck about the Stanley cup. Usually people up North follow the stanley cup closely. And this year no one up north gives a fuck about the cup and people down here are cup crazy. The sports bars arent even SHOWING these games on television up there instead they just put the yankees, mets, & red sox games on all the TV's..."

The Yankees and Red Sox are jockeying for first and the Mets are playing their best baseball in something like 8-10 years (since whenever the hell they last went to the World Series), so it makes sense that there's a lot of attention being paid to baseball up there. On top of that, like you said, there's no connection to the two teams other than that the Oilers generally get a lot of Rangers fans cheering them on when the Rangers are out.

Also, things may have changed, but I'm pretty sure the last time I was in NJ, OLN wasn't a part of the Comcast basic cable package.

I'd imagine, however, there are more Northerners are watching the Stanley Cup finals than the NBA finals

6/15/2006 12:36:20 PM

Vulcan i wasn't refering to you, funny thing is both times i went to support the canes with friends they lost, first time i went to rbc center to watch on the jumbotron, even wore red, they lost and yesterday i went to champs with friends wore red again(was very close to wearing my sabres jersey) and lost again, im definately going out saturday in support of the canes lol

6/15/2006 12:39:09 PM

we're not even at the allstar break in baseball so thats kinda nuts to think one game in a 162 game season would replace all interest in Game FIVE of the cup finals.

The game was on NBC last night so that OLN comment doesnt fly either.


I'm just saying in three Connecticut sports bars last night there wasn't one tv turned to the Stanley Cup Finals.

I realize they hate the Canes with a passion up there but you'd think theyd at least be curious as to whether they win it all or not.... like they'd be interested in rooting against them at least.

I just cant imagine people in Cleveland boycotting the Super Bowl 5 years ago you know...

6/15/2006 12:43:43 PM

^^ see, that's being an ass

6/15/2006 1:19:26 PM

The 600,000 viewer comment you made DOES pertain to OLN, though. Last night's game on NBC received a 3.0 rating. I don't see how anyone could expect any better, especially when you consider the fact that there are two small market teams, one of which is in Canada. I know NBC certainly isn't complaining, since they get the rights for free.

6/15/2006 1:21:15 PM

Quote :

"the league was already struggling... and this is the post-lockout league, which is in even sorrier shape... i mean... first they alienate the fans, then they wind up having the whole regular season on OLN which NOBODY watches, so people do'nt even notice that the season has started again, and now they're spending most of their publicity expanding into new markets (which alienates the old markets)... basically, the fact that anybody AT ALL outside of Raleigh and Edmonton would be watching this series should be counted as a minor miracle... oh, and iirc game one was on OLN... which, again, nobody watches..."

I watched OLN!

OLN outbid ESPN. The one thing ESPN announcers fail to mention when saying that no one watches on TV and it is due to OLN is that OLN are starting to compete with ESPN for programming, so their opinion is biased. OLN offered more money for the NHL coverage, ESPN had a chance to match, and chose not to. I'm sure the NHL would rather be on ESPN regardless of what Bettman says in press conferences, but the reason they're not is because ESPN chose not to air it, and that is a business decision. (OLN are aiming for some MLB coverage that ESPN has when a certain contract comes up later this year. Unlike the NHL coverage, ESPN will match OLN's offer, because they have nothing else to show in the summer, which from a financial standpoint makes sense). There are as many people watching hockey on OLN as there would've been watching hockey on ESPN2 though IMO.

I'm wondering how long it will be til the A-class teams leave the NHL and its B-class teams, or at least discuss it. The league really just needs to fold franchises like Florida and Atlanta with no interest, or move them to areas where there are hockey fans. There are a lot of franchises that it just seems the NHL is trying to take an AHL city and turn them into an NHL city. And the league suffers as a result.

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 1:47 PM. Reason : .]

6/15/2006 1:46:13 PM

Hockey markets are ridiculously hard to judge, IMO.

Denver and Atlanta both had NHL teams in the late '70s/early '80s that both ended up moving to markets in the north. Since the Nord moved south to Denver ten years ago, they've essentially sold out every game. Since the Thrashers came into being, they've been reasonably popular but by no means a big draw, even with Heatley/Kovalchuk.

Considering how unpopular the Rockies were, it'd be hard to predict the success of the Avalanche, and based on the success of the Avalanche in contrast to the Rockies, it'd be even harder to predict the lack of success of the Thrashers when compared to the Flames.

6/15/2006 1:53:14 PM

Quote :

"Since the Thrashers came into being, they've been reasonably popular but by no means a big draw, even with Heatley/Kovalchuk."

A friend of mine disagrees!

6/15/2006 1:59:47 PM

^^ You fail to notice one difference: the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup their first year in Denver. If that happened in Atlanta's case, they'd be more popular.

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 2:01 PM. Reason : .]

6/15/2006 2:01:08 PM

The Flames were popular too!

6/15/2006 2:04:24 PM

The Nord were the best team in the East in '95 and they still had to leave.

6/15/2006 2:04:25 PM

well Atlanta is pretty notorious for being an awful sports town so i cant imagine why you'd ever put a hockey team there.


And its not like black people like hockey so the demographic doesnt make sense either.

6/15/2006 2:14:02 PM

does ne1 have any news on weight?

6/15/2006 2:29:06 PM

Someone posted on the Hurricanes.com board (I would quote it but I can't get it to load now) that at the airport today Weight wasn't moving his arm, and someone was carrying his bags for him. Doesn't sound too good. They did say Aaron Ward looked fine, though.

6/15/2006 2:39:47 PM

so do you dress the Fridge or LaRose Saturday if Weight can't go, also assuming Aaron Ward is in the lineup.

6/15/2006 3:04:30 PM

Quote :

"And its not like black people like hockey so the demographic doesnt make sense either."

Bullshit.

6/15/2006 3:05:02 PM

YOU DON'T LIKE HOCKEY, YOU JUST SAY YOU DO TO PISS ME OFF

6/15/2006 3:11:11 PM

larose sucks dick.... 1 point in 22 playoff games. vasicek has come in the last 2 games and had a much better presence than larose will ever have.

6/15/2006 3:51:19 PM

...........

6/15/2006 4:04:40 PM

Quote :

"The reason we lost was that damn coin..."

What was that all about?


I heard that the Canes put a coin that said "Whatever it Takes" under the ice in the rink, and the Oilers (including the coach! or so says the interweb) took skates and chipped it out of the ice, leaving a hole at center ice.

6/15/2006 4:05:31 PM

First of all, I agree, fuck them for touching our ice... and this was from espn.com talking about smyth taking the coin out of the ice.

["I don't know, I am not going to get into that right now," MacTavish said. "As Ryan is prone to do, he doesn't miss a lot out there. He surveys every inch of the ice and he did that today.


"Whether he found a nickel or a loonie or whatever, I don't know."

The coin karma began at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics, where Canadian icemaker Trent Evans planted a one-dollar coin at center ice of the E-Center. Both the men's and women's Canadian hockey teams went on to win the gold medal. The loonie is now displayed at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.


The Tampa Bay Lightning created their own version of the good luck charm as then-Zamboni operator Ryan Welty took a miniature pewter Zamboni key chain charm and buried it at center ice in the St. Pete Times Forum in January 2004. The Lightning went on to win the Stanley Cup.]

they did take it out, the but the zamboni guys in charge of the ice put another coin back before the game. i dont know if it was the same one, but they did put another coin back at center ice.

6/15/2006 4:11:06 PM

That's kinda neat.

When I saw the story (on a canadien site), they made it sound like it was perilously close to the top of the ice, so he took it out so no one tripped over it.

A friend of mine who worked last night at the RBC said they showed it during the game, he was standing there, repeatedly using his stick to try and get at it.

6/15/2006 4:21:46 PM

yeah they showed a clip of that on nbc. and then one of our people using a drill to make another hole and put the thing back in.

6/15/2006 4:30:54 PM

Hey, can you people please get out to damons or to the game? The post count went up crazy during the game with useless 1 word comments. Anyhow. I hope we win it saturday and a 3.0 rating is damn good for hockey. If it makes it to monday get out to the rbc, damons, etc. and lets have some fun.

6/15/2006 4:34:03 PM

I haven't read every page of this thread so I don't know if this was discussed, but did anyone hear the fans chanting USA, USA!?

wtf point does that make? I know we're the American team in this, but the canes are made up of guys from all over the world.

6/15/2006 4:52:01 PM

I was at the game and I don't really recall anyone chanting USA or anything like that.

6/15/2006 5:09:15 PM

the only thing i heard on the tv was "LET'S GO CANES"

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 5:42 PM. Reason : which could be mistaken for USA if the speakers on your tv are wonky]

6/15/2006 5:34:54 PM

Quote :

"The chant is 'Let's go 'Canes."

That and the word "paraphernalia" will make me kill those announcers.

6/15/2006 5:47:19 PM

lalalala life goes on...

6/15/2006 7:39:47 PM

Question for all the Hurricane haters in this thread (mshaul etc):



[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 8:41 PM. Reason : better quality image]

6/15/2006 8:35:03 PM

^ Ha! I remember seeing that guy during the Oh Canada song er whatever... but anyway I was like, "damn! that dude's into it!"

6/15/2006 8:51:51 PM

The main problem now in my mind is that the NHL doesn't market its stars worth a shit. Guys like Jermone Ignila and Vincent Lecaviler should be household names but they aren't. Another problem is simple geography. A lot of folks say the league overexapanded, and that's a good point, but they have to be sucessful in the booming southern and western US markets to have any sort of sucess in the US. Of course, hockey will never catch on there as it will up north because of climate, which means not as many youth involved. Down south, kids will never be able to head out to the neighborhood pond in the winter and play a pickup game of hockey like they can baseball, football, or basketball.

[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 10:40 PM. Reason : kjlljg]

6/15/2006 10:40:12 PM

Quote :

"wtf point does that make? I know we're the American team in this, but the canes are made up of guys from all over the world."

Team makeup:

12 Canadians:
Alberta - Cam Ward, Craig Adams, Glen Wesley, Mike Commodore, Ray Whitney
Ontario - Aaron Ward, Cory Stillman, Rob Brind'Amour, Eric Staal, Justin Williams
British Colombia - Mark Recchi, Andrew Ladd

7 Americans:
Washington, D.C. - Kevyn Adams
New York - Erik Cole
Michigan - Doug Weight, Chad Larose
Minnesota - Matt Cullen, Bret Hedican
Illinois - Andrew Hutchinson

2 Czechs:
Frantisek Kaberle, Josef Vasicek

1 Swiss:
Martin Gerber

1 Swede:
Niclas Wallin

1 Ukrainian:
Anton Babchuk

1 Russian:
Oleg Tverdovsky

So 7 out of 25 are American.

6/15/2006 11:08:35 PM

I think they will win it in edmonton, stillman seemed too pissed(from what i've heard) to not make up for his uber-shittiness



[Edited on June 15, 2006 at 11:58 PM. Reason : gfds]

6/15/2006 11:58:11 PM

it was equally staal's fault, not just stillman but between the both of them they will do more than make up for it

6/16/2006 12:09:27 AM

staal put us in OT, thats why he was dead tired

maybe if the rest of the team was banging like whitney and staal were, we would have won in reg.



[Edited on June 16, 2006 at 12:19 AM. Reason : -0-fgh]

6/16/2006 12:18:22 AM

oh i agree, but on that specific play staal was not blameless and stillman doesnt deserve all the scrutiny

6/16/2006 12:21:29 AM

I didn't see what staal did, all I saw was stillmans lazyass pass and the goal before i got the hell out of there.

6/16/2006 12:23:07 AM

staal coudl have easily played some defense buy he attempted to chip the puck past pisani but it hit pisanis body and he got his break away

6/16/2006 12:36:35 AM

1. Craig Adams is from Brunei.
2. Chad LaRose is not a point scorer. The fact that he has only one point doesn't matter at all.
3. Cam Roy-rd!

6/16/2006 12:48:45 AM

larose is pretty useless

6/16/2006 12:51:14 AM

larose isnt useless, but after vasicek played well there is no place for him in this series

6/16/2006 1:00:53 AM