shrader

I'm a month away from the house as of today. The waiting game sucks, let's play hungry hungry hippos.

The rinks themselves have gotten bigger over those years. Prior to the modern arena boom in the 90s they were practically like ball parks, with each building having its own dimensions. That's a big counter to anyone who says they shouldn't change something because that's the way it has always been. That and so many other things have changed over the years. Net size really is the most obvious thing to discuss in this topic. It is a change that is not going to have any effect on the visuals of watching a hockey game. Most won't be able to identify any difference in the net when watching a game. The game will still be played the same exact way, as opposed to any modified rules being suggested. I do think there are some good rules floating around out there, but ultimately coaches will figure them out, they always do.

You chose an interesting term length there. 2 years is exactly what is left on Blashill's contract.

I should have been more clear. What I was hinting at there was if Babcock intends on signing a short term deal, he may very well not want to be in Detroit much longer. That would probably encourage the team to be a little more careful with Blashill and try to prolong his status as heir.

If that short-term contract for Babcock stuff is to be believed...

No one can talk to Blashill unless Detroit allows it. Obviously they're not going to do that as long as the Babcock situation is still up in the air.

32. We're not Detroit!

And I don't feel like it's a bad thing to be compared to Brian Flynn. I'll be very curious to see what happens to him if he ever makes it onto a team that actually has first line talent. Once he's not asked to do far more than he's capable of, he may very well turn into quite the serviceable bottom 6 forward. There's no shame in that.

Why is he better than Flynn? Flynn produced every year of his college career pretty well above what Rodrigues did, except his senior year. He didn't have a Jack Eichel to feed off of that year like Rodrigues did. Spenser Abbott was a very good college player but he was no Eichel. Those Maine teams were not very good, so his numbers are very good despite that. Sure he got to skate with Nyqvist a couple years, but he remained very productive without him. The Flynn comparison is a very good starting point on this discussion.

According to shrader, nfreeman will read message board posts tomorrow. You know, while they throwing around comments that equate to "the sky is blue", I figured I'd add some additional reporting to the mix.

Wait, what? I figured he would stick be an institution up at NoDak and would be there forever.

Montreal is in a spot where they don't need a coach to put them over the top. They're already overachieving, in my opinion. Unless they get some significant help up front, they're at their ceiling already. So that all falls on the GM, not the coach.

Was Goodell already in place for that one or was it still Tagliabue?

I had heard only the last post yesterday. Now it makes much more sense as to why Discovery would take that jab. I'd assume their twitter guy is in NYC.

There's a reason it is called revenue sharing and not profit sharing. The rest of the owners will have no issue whatsoever with the Sabres paying Babcock.

I know. But no matter what the outcome of the tournament is, no one in North America will care.

Damn, they're losing their entire front office up there.

The stuff I mentioned existed up until they instituted the NHL draft (1963). That changed everything.

Are they trying to get banned from the league? That one excerpt makes it look that way. I'll have to read that full thing later to get a better feel for it.

Originally, each team sponsored a long list of junior teams. If you played on one of those junior teams, essentially your rights automatically belonged to that NHL team. They might sponsor a random team out in western Canada where there wasn't an NHL team, but pretty much all of the local area teams would wind up sponsored by the NHL team in that area. So Montreal winds up with all the french canadians. I'm not entirely sure how the American teams were able to bite into the canadian market, especially the non-border towns (ie. everyone but Detroit). I had a great exchange over PM with millibank years ago where he explained the whole thing to me. He even mentioned how he had some paperwork from when he was a kid that assigned his rights to a specific team. Maybe he'll read this post and share his information.

A year or so ago, the wife and I got roped into watching the kids while her sister held a shower for her best friend. Somehow that babysitting duty turned into full participation in the shower for both of us. I had never met the woman once in my life. It was beyond awkward.

All but two came at a time when the league had less than 20 teams. Essentially their whole history is based off of a time where the game was entirely territorial. I run into this problem with most sports when they start to spout off the teams that have won more championships than anyone else.

You can sing children's songs to help make the shower more entertaining. I suggest "the wheels on your house go 'round and 'round"

I just hope these European nations don't put too much stock into victories in this tournament given that they can add players to their roster for the semi-finals.

JD's is on 55 across from the plaza with Harris Teeter, right? If that's the one I'm thinking of we had the strangest experience ever there. We walked in a couple days before Halloween and it was packed with kids having a costume contest. I never would have expected that as it was a bar, a thursday night, and the Panthers were also playing. I really don't remember the food because we both tried to eat as quickly as possible because we were the only people in the place who didn't have kids with them. I haven't come across Draftline yet, but I'll keep an eye out for that. The next one on my list was going to be CBC, but I just haven't found the time yet.