apuszczalowski

But thats the problem that needs to be fixed and why its not as much a problem with the Sabres as a team as it is a problem with the league that needs to be fixed. Usually in instances like this, its the retaliation that ends up being severly disciplined instead of the root incident that caused the retaliation. Who wants to bet that if Thomas would have been touched or breathed on heavily after that the refs would have thrown out the Sabres player that did it, or any shot at Lucic later would have resulted in a Sabres player being suspended? You see it all the time in baseball where a pitcher throws inside and hits someone or comes close to hitting the batter, the batter looks pissed and like hes gonna retaliate so the ump gives a warning. next inning the other team throws a pitch inside and they are tossed from the game. Bull*&%#If your not an experienced fighter and you go out and try to take on someone like Lucic who does it often, your chances are pretty great that your gonna get hurt. While else do you think that the Kings never let Gretzky get into a fight? Why do you think the Penguins don't want Crosby fighting anyone anymore?

Yeah, thats going to show them you mean business and aren't going to take crap from anyone............Its not going to help the team out losing more players to injury by getting into fights with guys they have no business in fighting You aren't going to make yourself look any tougher by going out and getting embarrassed in a fight while getting your @ss handed to you. If thats the case, people should be protesting the FNC right now for not hanging Andrew Peters number in the rafters for how many times he got into fights (and got his @ss kicked or "just held on") because someone messed with a teammate

Doubtful, you know that GoDD would still be out kicking puppies while shouting that Ruff should have been fired, while Deluca would be ranting about how the Sabres were too busy scoring goals instead of being physical and racking up Hits

Did you expect something else from a society where the idea to combat gun violence is to get more guns? The only people that still care about this incident or probably even remember what happened are Sabres fans who still want blood. Do you think the Bruins or their fans are gonna sit there and see it as payback for the incident if Buffalo turns around and knocks them out of the playoffs next season? In situations like what happened, you have one chance to retaliate for it, and thats right after it happened. The Sabres unfortunatly didn't do anything and suffered the consequences of being viewed as soft by the rest of the league which may have resulted in other teams pushing them around a little more because they knew they could. The only way to fix this is to learn from it and not let it happen again. You get a few guys in here who can push back and possibly be a deterent from things like that happening in the future. Its time to put this topic to rest with the new season and just hope it never happens again. ThirtyEight - I agree, any legal charges for an incident on the ice are a bit much, but what Chara did was not a hockey play. He knew where he was and he tried to hit him into the corner of the glass. LafontainetoMogilny - If you can't defer to the league or refs to discipline for incidents like this, why are the Refs or Shanahan needed? The players should just be allowed to police themselves on the ice then. Weave - I don't think the league allows teams to decided when their players can serve suspensions and they would probably have to say that the team would be permitted to allow guys to serve their suspensions after others come back. Basically, if they all jumped over the boards and cleared the bench, I think they would be stuck starting the 5 guys on the ice, and the remainder of the roster filled with Rochester players for 5 games....

More corrupt then any other sports league? Every league has its teams where all the good players want to go to. The NHL has The Rangers, Flyers, Bruins and LEafs (atleast in tehir fans minds everyone wants to go play for them) The NFL has The Patriots, Cowboys, Eagles, etc The MLB has The Yankees, Red Sox, etc All leagues have teams that seem to always atract the best players to them because they usually all have a few things in common. They are usually viewed as winning/contending teams every year, and they are located in the leagues bigger markets I don't think there are many concerns that an OHL team is going to take away or cost the Sabres much, if anything. I think the issue is that with the Sabres, theres not much extra disposable income/money/support to go around. Sure its a cheaper option, but its still not the same and just because you can't afford one, doesn't mean your going to go off and support the other. Most of the more successful minor league teams are from areas where there isn't a pro sports team near by (except for a couple of big market areas like Toronto).

Then she should have said Good instead of deep......

Yeah, How did that work out for Chara again? Thats right, no suspension AND no charges, just people making jokes and making fun of the Habs and their fans for running to the police........ I put more blame on the league and the officials for what happened then the Sabres players. If your going to talk big about trying to eliminate headshots and serious injuries to players, you need more severe punishments for things like this instead of letting it go and those guys get away with nothing, while someone else may get a penalty for something similar later on. The League suspends Chara for a trying to take of Pax's head against the glass, and Lucic for bulldozing Miller instead of letting him slide cause he didn't mean to, players might start thinking twice about doing this kind of stuff. Start throwing in extra fines to teams of the players that do this and the owners will start making these guys accountable. The players should have to go out and try to settle things on the ice physically against the other team if the league were to be harsher with its discipline. It makes them look bad becaus they stand there talking big about wanting to eliminate serious injuries from the game, then let incidences like these go without punishment because the player doing it isn't a fringe player that may hurt a team if suspended

Yes, they would still be deep, just not as good.My only problem is that I would hate to do anything that may help out the Flyers

Now that just ruins it, Its just dirty and wrong to have "puck Bunnys" younger then legal age......... Missisauga and brampton also have an NHL team next door in Toronto, Owen Sound does not. i don't know about the marlies attendance, but I could see it being decent because of Toronto having a bigger population with more diposable income willing to spend money to watch the Leafs future stars players

I'm sure an OHL team would still draw a crowd to games with general hockey fans and families looking to get out but not being able to afford a Sabres game for the entire family. But I don't think they would attract enough to make it worth doing. As I said before, tehy would need a new arena for the team to play in, unless theirs one locally that could hold 5 about 5k a game. (Niagara was only given the Ice Dogs on the condition that the current arena (The Jack Gatecliff in St. Catharines) be a temporary one and a larger arena be built in a few years (working on that now). The FNC is too large for OHL and the arena would most likely operate at a loss, even if they sold out most games.

Just because theres 4k people waiting for season tickets to the Sabres, that doesn't mean they are just looking for any hockey tickets. Bandits support is because of the cheap tickets, and the sport. They play a different sport and have no ties t hockey besides playing in the same venue As for the other comment someone had about getting support from Southern Ontario, Niagara already has the Ice Dogs in St. Catharines, I don't think you are going to take fans away when they will need to cross a border to go watch the games. Its different when you have a major sports team, or a sport thats has no closer major team. I don't think an OHL team will work because I don't think Buffalo is a big enough city with a ton of disposable income. When teh Sabres are playing, they will be king and thats where the money will go, not to a minor league team. Of course, all TP has to do is announce he will bring a team and fans will be running to his side to do whatever he wants..... And it would also involve having to either build a new arena for the team to play in or find some large local arena they could use. They would probably lose way too much money just selling the lower levels of FNC, considering the costs required to open and operate the arena.

I know Pegula doesn't own teh webster block, but he also isn't currently leasing it from the City either. So in negotiations the Bills are asking that part of the lease agreement includes renovations, they still don't own the stadium themselves, so your saying that Ralph should have to pay to upgrade something he isn't the owner of? Would you pay your own money for repairs and upgrades to an apartment or condo you are renting/leasing or would you tell the owner that they should be paying to upgrade things? Yes paldino has some properties that he hasn't done anything with, but he also has stuff that he got done, it all depends, like almost all developpers, on the roadblocks in place holding them back. If his proposal is approved, I would have just as much faith in him getting it done as I do TP doing it because when developpers get approvals to do what they want that helps them make money, they do it. This is a high profile, big reward investment, without any roadblocks, it will get done.

Ralph doesn't own his stadium, the county/government owns it and its part of their lease agreement. If TP had nothing to do with the project and say for example, it was Quinns proposal to build the TP Proposal against Paladino, would everyone here still be in favour of it?

Would the Devils have messed with and ran another teams goalie? So the other team has a guy who takes a run at your goalie and injures him, so to show you won't take that, you make a run at the biggest guy on their team that can handle taking a hit or a beating to show them that you won't be messed with? Yeah, I'm sure that would have taught the Bruins a lesson if someone (or even the entire team for that matter) skated over and gave Chara a good hard check into the boards. There were 2 options for the Sabres teams to do after that hit. They wither turn around and go "Eye for an Eye" and run Thomas, or they send guys out to hit and fight Lucic.

You could call it art because of the way it piled up as it fell and it becomes an attraction/landmark

I actually agree with you on this, although I'm not surprised that the majority would side with TPs idea, no matter what it would be. Either option is really subsidising rich investors.

That cost is basically free if you just stop maintaining it for a few years.......

Yeah, and delivering a hard check to Chara is really going to show the Bruins that you can't mess with our Goalie!

So sending guys out to go hit Chara, who had nothing to do with the hit is OK, but sending them after Thomas, Bostons goalie, is not allowed? Atleast going after Thomas says to the other team that if you run our goalie, we run yours. Going after Chara does nothing except makes you look like your trying to make the other team think your tougher by going after the biggest guy on the ice. That only works if you actually beat down Chara though

The guy obviously has not intentions of leaving Phoenix, but he wants to make sure that they are going to stay with a new owner. He doesn't want to continue to play with the ownership mess/issues going on overshadowing the team and is giving the potential new owner the chance to show him they are serious and a deal is final before he re-signs. If the deal falls through then he is gone, and more then likely so is the team as I believe even Bettman has said if this deal doesn't work out, the league would be looking for other options including relocation. The league needs to continue trying to make southern teams work if they want to grow the game and compete with the other major sports leagues. The problem in Phoenix has been that in tha last 5+ years, they have had instability at ownership which kept them from having a competitive team, they built a new arena in a poor location, and are in one of the worst hit areas when the economy/housing buble burst. What the team needs is some stability in the ownership with someone who is willing to spend a little to put a competitive team on the ice and get fans interested. When theres issues in the ownership and threats of relocation, it drives fans away. For an example, look at the Sabres during the end of the Rigas era when they went bankrupt. Fans were staying away and it wasn't until they went on the run after the lockout that the fans came back and a waiting list was put in place for season tickets. It does appear that if this deal does not go through (and its not looking like a sure thing), the Coyotes days are numbered. Then it will be a race to see what city can get a new arena done and a group of investors in place to grab them. Seems like the front runners right now would be Quebec City (groups of investors are being assembled, arena being propsed with plans being put into place), Kansas City (arena already in place, not sure if theres investors ready though), Seattle, and maybe Hartford (heard there was an investor looking to bring the Whalers back). Some might bring Hamilton up, but I think the Leafs and Sabres will keep that from happening, and Jim Basillie has been blacklisted from the NHL ownership club (although now he has the time to devote more of it to an NHL club since RIM threw him out)

I understand the dislike of somerumors/information being posted by the less reputable "sources" like Eklund, but this is a rumor thread The recent debate between whats is a rumor seems to have some people mixing up rumors with insider information. Chz, you made the comment about the tweet being after Rutherford said on the radio they were interested in Semin. Thats one of the main ways how rumors are formed. Someone hears something somewhere, then they pass it on.

That all depends on the market I think and if his goal is to win a cup before he retires. If his goal in this deal is to get on a team to win the cup, the Rangers or Flyers aren't out just because they are a large market Only way its a selling point is if they were close and are good friends, then that might help. Otherwise its probably not going to matter. Just because they were teammates at one point doesn't mean that he will want to go to that team

Money isn't everything to some players (I know, sounds rediculous with what they get paid), And Doan sounds more like IF he is going to leave Phoenix, its going to be to a place he feels comfortable going to and either a place thats a serious contender (Philly or NY) or to somewhere that he has a connection/family (Montreal since he is Prices Cousin). Its quite possible that he isn't interested in going to Buffalo because he has no tie there and doesn't want to go somewhere new/unfamiliar at this point in his career unless he is quaranteed a shot at the cup. Personally, unless the Jamison deal for the 'Yotes completely collapses, he is staying in Phoenix.....

well, then thats it, we all know that he is a Yankee now then............Baseball needs a salary cap!

But Ralph is Cheap! As for the players, as bad as this is going to sound, I don't think this is really special to just Buffalo. Pro Athletes and sports teams are always working with charities. We had a photo of Boston Bruins players dressed in some embarrassing Halloween costumes