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Playfair did the best he had. Calgary never really got quicker and more offensively minded when the rules crackdown hit....Playfair doesn't deserve the ax, but I wonder if Sutter may do it anyhow to shut up the racket from the fans. It is a crappy way to manage, but a lot of GM's do it...
Tell me about it... I'm a Habs fan remember :mark: :p :Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
Schmenke..lol...at least the management in Montreal knows when the fans are unhappy, here in Ontario, the Leaf's are run by people who just count the money and laugh....
Lets see, out of the 16 teams that made the play offs only 3 were Canadian, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa, which means 15 U.S. teams made the play offs, out of the 8 that will get to the next phase, 6 U.S. teams are already in the next phase, and only one canadian team, Vancouver and Dallas are still playing their series, which means that as much as 7 teams from the U.S. can be in the next phase, but the funny part is that not a single post on this page (13 posts) is from anyone from the U.S., 11 posts are from Canadians, and the other 2 are from guys from Finland, in fact, this will be the 14th post and Iīm from Mexico.
They have almost every team in the league but no fans?, a few cities like Detroit and Boston love their hockey teams but some cities like L.A., Arizona and Miami couldnīt care less about their hockey teams.
Lets see, out of the 16 teams that made the play offs only 3 were Canadian, Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa, which means 15 U.S. teams made the play offs, out of the 8 that will get to the next phase, 6 U.S. teams are already in the next phase, and only one canadian team, Vancouver and Dallas are still playing their series, which means that as much as 7 teams from the U.S. can be in the next phase, but the funny part is that not a single post on this page (13 posts) is from anyone from the U.S., 11 posts are from Canadians, and the other 2 are from guys from Finland, in fact, this will be the 14th post and Iīm from Mexico.
They have almost every team in the league but no fans?, a few cities like Detroit and Boston love their hockey teams but some cities like L.A., Arizona and Miami couldnīt care less about their hockey teams.
Jose, it is nuts aint it? What it is that hockey fans in the US are actually more in number than you realize, but with all the sports in the US, they have short attention spans once their team is out. Also, sunbelt teams are often fairweather fans at best. No, the Canadians on here talk about the hockey because it is part of cultural DNA. Show me most Canadians of the generation Schmenke and I grew up in, and I will show you someone who either played hockey or lived for Saturday night when their team was playing on Hockey Night in Canada or both.
Americans treat hockey as a fun sport, one they enjoy, and in areas like Minnesota, Michigan, Upstate NY and New England it can be a passion, but in Canada, we bleed hockey. The reason the NHL isn't in more Canadian cities is because the economics of the sport when you have multimillion dollar payrolls has priced it out of all but 6 cities in Canada. That said, the economics are not working in many American cities, but it is the dirty little secret the NHL wont admit. They would rather sell the game to rich disinterested Americans and fail than give it to a few more Canadian markets and make a little less. Winnipeg, Quebec and possibly another two teams could easily fit into the Greater Toronto Area, and all make money if the NHL was not at the 45 million dollar payroll level. Alas, things have gotten out of us Canadians control, but it wont change the fact no other nation takes as much pride or love in the sport, and plays it with passion. We are just happy that other countries outside the US now love it and care about it to a level that we can understand. The ironic part is, the US actually has more people playing at some level of hockey than you would guess at, they are only behind Canada slightly in total number of players in organized leagues...
Mark, you seem to love hockey, and by your comments it seems to me that you now well the different minor leagues of hockey (you have talk about the Oshawa generals for example).
I live in Monterrey, Mexico, which means that I donīt have any U.S. cities with NHL teams close to my city, so I donīt attend NHL games that often, but I live close to San Antonio, so I like to attend games of the AHL. Iīm relocating to Houston, Texas, they donīt have an NHL team but they have a AHL team (a very bad one, the Aeros were dead last), and driving 3 hours to Dallas to catch a NHL game will not happen very often.
How good is the AHL compared to the rest of the minor leagues?, how good is the AHL overall?, is it like AAA vs Major League comparison?
The playoffs are so not going like I predicted. The end of round one, Dallas out. :mark: And it doesn't help us a bit with the championships since we have too many forwards in Team Finland already. What we need is strong defence. And a good goalie. Not Kari Lehtonen.
The AHL is AAA basically. It is pretty good hockey, if not prone to some goon tactics on occasion, but overall, the guys there are just a notch behind the NHL. The thing to remember with this is that means they are still outstanding hockey players. The difference in talent between the NHL and AHL is not that apparent unless you played them one against the other, and with the top talent in the NHL being a lot higher. For the journeyman player though, a lot of AHL guys would be in the NHL if for fate being different.Quote:
Originally Posted by jarrambide
Note also, since you are moving to Texas, there is minor league hockey in the CHL and ECHL at various cities. Since franchises come and go, I haven't kept up on it, but it is about the AA or A equivalent. It can be a lot of fun, and those guys are hard working guys with no big contracts, so they are hungry and aggressive players.
As for my Generals, well, they were swept in the Eastern Conference Semi's of the OHL in four straight games by the Belleville Bulls. Next year will be different, we have a lot of young guys coming up and John Tavares will be really coming into his own. He broke Wayne Gretzky's record for goals by a 16 year old in the OHL with 72 (Wayne had 70) and with two more years of Junior eligibility left, we will have a Memorial Cup challenger for sure....
Now that you mention CHL and ECHL, Laredo (which is relatively close to Monterrey) has a CHL team, The Laredo Bucks, my cousin who thinks San Antonio is too far to attend a hockey game likes to see the Bucks, and if Iīm not wrong I think the Bucks are affilitiaded with The San Antonio Rampage (just like The Rampage is affiliated with Phoenix).