Drunkard

Nice! It's also an excellent Slayer song from 1994.

I agree. I'm not predicting the demise of the NFL, MLB, NBA, or NHL by any stretch. They will find a way to adapt and survive. I actually like the way they do season packages for Sunday Ticket, Center Ice, and League pass or whatever they call the baseball and basketball ones. Let the die hard fans pay to see every game they want and let the people who don't want to pay for it more easily avoid the cost. Whenever the Sabres pull their heads out of their butts I will probably even go back to paying for NHL.tv because it's actually a good value in my eyes when the team isn't a tire fire. It's just not worth the money to me now. I will never shell out for Sunday Ticket ever again though because it's too expensive and no longer worth it to me. I won't pay for baseball or basketball either because I never watch them, but that's not a pricing issue because I have no clue what they charge. I'm definitely looking forward to true a la carte programming though. As I said earlier I had Directv for over a decade and I paid for crap I never watched like ESPN, the home shopping network, Oprah, CMT, and countless other channels, ESPN is just the most egregious example because they are so much more expensive than the other networks I was paying for without watching. Before I cancelled service I wrote down every show I had set to record off my dvr list. I think I had 48 shows in all and they all came from less than 15 channels with none of them being on a sports network. I'd rather pay those 15 channels $2 each than give some provider twice as much money only to have half of it go to fund channels I never watch. In fact the only show I had set to DVR I couldn't get with Philo (other than basic network shows I can get with an antenna) was Conan O'Brien but that could also be blamed on sports because it airs on TBS and either TBS still airs Braves games like it did 20 years ago or it has something to do with basketball playing on TNT and Turner owning them both.

I understand that, but over time the move toward a la carte is going to putting a bigger squeeze on both the individual channels that offer live sports as well as the providers who offer the streaming/tv services. ESPN has always been one of the most expensive channels and it used to be automatically included (and put in the bill) of basically every package unless you got the most basic of basic packages and that's regardless of whether you got your tv from Spectrum, Comcast, Directv, or whoever. With the way things are trending, sports channels won't be able to continually raise prices by from getting $11 from every single customer (even the half that don't watch any sports), they'll have to get $20 from each of the households willing to pay for their service. People not interested in sports will start avoiding packages that include these expensive channels like ESPN, MSG, etc. and they will have to make up the difference by increasing the prices on the (soon to be smaller) customer base. There will still be streaming services like Fubo that cater to sports nuts and services like Philo that avoid sports due to the higher cost to offer those channels. Right now Fubo runs $45/month and Philo runs $20/month with no sports. 10 years from now it could easily be $90/month for Fubo and $30/month for Philo. Over time, that may cause more people to ditch Fubo and other providers that cater to sports programming and the networks that offer live sports will have to increase their prices for sports programming to the providers even further which leads to the providers raising prices on consumers even further. Eventually, just like with the in person experience with sports, more and more people will decide it's no longer worth it and they'll kill off their next golden goose through greed.

I assume in your description the platinum goose is their model to stay fat and happy off tv deals, right? Or are you talking about the overpriced merchandise they sell? You know, the ones that are made in some Chinese sweatshop, right across the street from a different Chinese sweatshop that is making the knockoffs for a fraction of the price? If so, they'll kill that goose off too, it will just take longer. The bundling of cable tv channels has helped the tv market in general keep crappy channels afloat based off the demand for more popular ones but we're getting closer and closer to a la carte offerings with each year. I cancelled Directv earlier this year after more than a decade and I was honestly surprised at how close they are moving towards an a la carte system already. Spectrum offers a streaming service for all local channels plus up to 10 individual channels for something like $30 and just by giving them a working phone number, I was able to sign up for 2 free days of some streaming service called philo that offered basically every single non-sports cable channel (close to 60 channels) for $20 per month. It's amazing how much more bang you can get for your entertainment buck when you decide you're not willing to pay for 16 ESPN's so you can stay up to date on spelling bees, cricket matches, tennis, and 70 re-airings of Sportscenter ad nauseum.

I imagine it is a league wide trend other than a couple of outliers here or there (teams expected to suck end up surprisingly good and ticket sales get boosted or vice versa). Professional sports leagues in general have been killing off the golden goose that is fandom for decades. Prices are ridiculous and seem to rise faster than inflation year after year. Meanwhile tvs with high definition, or ultra high definition give you a comparable if not better experience at home, plus then you don't have to burn gas, factor in time to drive there and back, find parking, overpay for parking, deal with traffic, and get ripped off with $10 beers, $8 nachos, $9 burgers (or whatever they run these days). So you can drop a hundred bucks on a single ticket and spend 5 hours going to watch the product in person or watch the game on tv for $2 (per game) or less (depending on whether you have cable, Nhl.tv, Center Ice, etc). You're done in half the time, no extra gas, plus you can make that even less if you wait a while to start the game and fast forward through the nonsense. I'm honestly surprised attendance hasn't dropped more, especially when it seems like the only perks you get from showing up in person are coupons to give those greedy pigs even more of your money. For the price of going to one game or two in person you can get the entire season on television, even if you're out of market and have to pay for the package.

I agree. They all seem to get the same memo with the identical 2 or 3 bullet points and they all parrot the same responses to the media when they make the rounds on the news and political shows. This keeps their argument consistent and coherent to everyone in their camp and voters here the same thing over and over they start to assume its true even when it isn't.

I'd give them their choice of Scandella, Bogosian, and Hunwick. Heck, they can have all 3 or 2 of them if they want. I'd even retain up to half on the most expensive 2 since they are all expiring contracts.

Yep. Business as usual. At this point I think Trump still has at least even odds at winning re-election as well. I disagree with most of the Republican platform, but they are definitely better at winning elections and the Democrats have a fine line to walk between trying to broaden their appeal by angling to appeal to moderates while losing enthusiasm from the far left and going too far left to increase enthusiasm from liberals and alienating the moderates. The GOP is more consistent and most of their base (evangelicals, gun enthusiasts, pro military spending, the wealthy, and tax cuts above everything else people) will vote for him regardless of anything else.

If Ristolainen is a number 4 does that mean Dahlin, Jokiharju, Miller, and everyone else are a bunch of bottom pairing guys or is Ralph Kreuger just the 4th straight moronic coach we've had who has been over playing Ristolainen while having better options to take his minutes?

I think political Civil War is making it sound way more dramatic than it will be. McConnell knows the Democrats won't have the votes and he'll push it to a vote relatively quickly once it gets to the Senate. I also predict not one Republican will vote for removal and several of the more vulnerable (Red and Purple state) Democrats will vote to keep Trump once it's official that they won't have votes to remove him anyway. It's somewhat of a dog and pony show in the House but I think it will be extremely short lived in the Senate and then we'll be back to business as usual. Democrats were kind of in a no-win situation. Don't impeach him and you look weak, impeach him with no real shot at removal and you look impotent. Not exactly a recipe for success.

Who said you need to be happy about it or anything? My point is simply that it's much easier for guys like Dahlin and Jokiharju to look good when they aren't doing the heavy lifting. Those guys are being sheltered which helps them look better. I bet Dahlin and Jokiharju's numbers would turn to ***** if they had to put in top minutes with similar usage. Either that or Ralph Kreuger is a moron and doesn't know what he's doing.

He still gets perpetually dumped on while people sing the praises of players who are given easier opportunities to shine. The irony is those players only have a chance to shine precisely because we have guys like Ristolainen and McCabe to carry the water and play the tough minutes.

Yeah, many people have a tendency to over-value the flashy new toys and Dahlin and Jokiharju both fit that description nicely. They are offensively gifted but I don't think I'd put either of them on the ice to protect a one goal lead in the final minute of play when the other team is desperate to tie it up. Down a goal, sure, but that says more about their offensive talents than their ability to defend.

I agree. It's hard to argue that guys like Jokiharju or Dahlin are our best defenders when the coach doesn't even trust them with tough minutes. Until you can put on your big boy pants without being sheltered by others who are really carrying the water, you can't be considered the best defender.

Bernie is my favorite candidate, but I personally struggle with trying to figure out which candidate has the best chance of beating Trump. I think the best bet is to diversify the ticket by pairing an uber lefty like Sanders, Warren, or Yang with a more moderate candidate like Biden, Buttigieg, or Klobuchar. It wouldn't hurt to try to split the ticket by gender and race as well in order to boost enthusiasm from more demographics. I think voter enthusiasm is critical to maximizing turnout. Low turnout always favors the Republicans but only time will tell. Once the herd starts thinning out it will be interesting to see who takes the lead and who he or she picks as their running mate.

I didn't like any of the options for question 2 and because I refused to pick one, I couldn't cast my vote. The Bills may not be as big of a mess as the Sabres, but they are a paper tiger at best and have no real shot at contending for a title. I refuse to give McClappy credit for anything and I won't spend a dime on the team while he's still employed. I've wanted Botterill gone since the O'Reilly trade and I didn't like the Kane trade because it was stupid asset management (if they had no interest in re-signing him they should have traded him much earlier and not just sit on him until 17 games before his contract ran out). To say the return was good because it was only for 17 games of Kane ignores that fact. A late first and Danny O'Nobody is a crappy return for a top 6 forward in his prime like Kane. I want the next GM to have experience as a GM in the NHL before taking the job and he should decide whether to keep Kreuger or kick him to the curb. My personal preference is to shitcan him and bring in Gronborg but that will be up to the new guy. I hope the new GM prioritizes the center position because it's severely lacking at this point and we're right back to pinning our hopes to kids years before they are ready thanks to fatter, dumber, Pugsley. It should be normal to have guys like Mittelstadt and Cozens to spend a season or two at wing while they adjust to the NHL and the team should have enough centers on the roster to make that possible. One injury at the position to Johansson (who we're lucky he was even able to handle the job to begin with) and we're giving his minutes to a guy who wasn't even good enough in the coach's eye to get ice time all season before injuries (Rodriguez).

Let the bread and circuses commence!

Yeah, I could never say for sure because I'm not there, but based on his history, I wouldn't be surprised if he's lying.

Most likely.

Exactly. I work on a military base and those photos always get updated right away (within a day or two of the new leaders assuming command). It's not like they even have to snail mail them out to people. They generally get sent out in a mass email and whomever is responsible for the signs in each building (usually some administrator) prints them out and replaces the old photo(s) with the new ones.

What's obvious is that Botterill is in over his head. I'm actually not getting worked up about it at all though. I held off on buying NHL.TV this year so I haven't spent a dime on this disappointing product. It is nice see the masses start to turn on fatter, dumber, Pugsley though. The Botterill bunker is growing with each day. By March the arena will be half empty and the crowd that actually bothers to show up will either be quiet or booing. For the record I'm not worried one bit about Gilmour because we still have 10 other defensemen. I'd rather he not trade Ristolainen and Reinhart because I have zero confidence in him to trade any asset of actual value. I'm not screaming for him to make a move because I think he'd just make things worse by trading a good player for magic beans and garbage depth. I was just trying to explain why others are growing impatient. The team was absolute garbage for 5 months after the winning streak ended last year and the only moves at forward that were different from last season was replacing Pominville with Johansson and adding Vesey. That wasn't enough given how the team performed from December 2018 through April 2019.

Plus, he'll be back on IR before February.

Only 11 months to wait. They should easily win back to back games in October 2020.

They should fired fat Pugsley and let Krueger take his spot as GM. Then Kreuger can hire that bearded Viking guy Modo campaigned for and he can put the fear of Odin into them.

Bogosian's contract expires at the end of the season and we can retain up to 50%. That won't be hard to move at all, come deadline time, unless he's back to being injured.