[boox909]

Congrats to my Canadian pals! Great game!

B. 

[Yoc]

Hurrray for Canada.  Done us proud boys.


-Yoc
happy Canadian

[Astaldo711]

Congrats! I would have love to see the US win, but there's no shame in lose to Canada! I don't watch football, baseball, or soccer but I LOVE hockey. I thinks it's because my mom's family is from Quebec.

[narfstar]

I am an American but was actually hoping Canada won their home country sport

[bchat]

When it comes to international hockey, I generally follow players, not teams.  I'm American but was hoping Slovakia could win it all (I can dream).  I'm glad Crosby got the Gold, but the real surprise to me was that Russia couldn't get a medal.  How do you have two of the best players currently playing the game and not make the Final Four?  And it was nice to be able to see Jagr playing again.  He's a great player that I wished had stayed in the NHL.

[OtherEric]

The teams I wanted to win Gold and Silver won Gold and Silver.  Don't press me about who got what. 

[Yoc]

I think I heard Jagr and Forsberg were using the Olympics to showcase/test themselves with possibly a return to the NHL as a goal.  Palfy and Demetra were big surprises.  Miller in the USA nets blew me away in the first Can/USA game.  A Very Good Goalie!  Russia like Finland vs the USA just got hit by a Mac truck before they had time to think and then it was too late.

I'm thrilled Canada won but after losing the lead I wasn't hopeful.  It was a lucky break the puck was interfered with by the ref giving Crosby a clean chance on a the surprised Miller.  But then again the USA got plenty of good breaks in gm1 vs Canada.  Luck of the bounce I guess.

[bchat]

Forsberg's best days are behind him.  I couldn't stand him being on the Flyers because 1) he was hurt so often and 2) The Flyers are a better team when they aren't built around one player.

I'ld be surprised to see Jagr come back to the NHL.  I heard when he first left that he wanted a lighter schedule & to be closer to home.  During the one game, it almost sounded like they were saying Jagr wanted to come back, but I think the Doc & Eddie O were talking about one of his linemates who wanted to break into the league.

Yeah, Miller is great.  Buffalo seems to be able to have one great goalie after another play for them (Barrasso, Puppa, Hasek), yet can't seem to get all the right pieces in front to be a serious win The Cup.

Palffy was a surprise to me too.  Used to love watching him play on the Islanders since he'ld grab the puck and do whatever he wanted with it.  I thought he was done playing when he left the Penguins ... guess I was wrong!

Unfortunately, I've been battling a bad cold and fell asleep for most of the game, only to be woken-up by my wife, who was cheering loudly when Crosby scored (she loves the Pens).  I'm glad he's got an Olympic Gold Medal, but it's time to get back to work and get his 2nd Stanley Cup ring!

[Yoc]

Hi b,
Brodeur is my favourite goalie so I wasn't happy to see him pulled but admit he had a so-so game vs the USA.  But the team had some serious bad luck that game too.
I grew up in Toronto in the 80s with Sittler and Salming who were great but the team was brutal.  So you know I'm used to a sad sack team like the Islanders have been for a while and Chicago were until they started to draft some high picks and now look at them!  Oh if only Toronto had a clue at the draft table.  Since about 1990 I've split my loyalty with the Montreal Canadiens which drives my Toronto friends nuts.  I just say 'hey, wander around in the Hockey Hall of Fame (a wonderful afternoon destination for travellers) and see how many Habs are in there.  The Habs have until about 1995 known how to build teams.  Now all I can say is maybe one of them might make the playoffs... maybe.  lol

[bchat]

Brodeur's a great goalie but I think he gets a little too much credit for "revolutionizing" the way goalies handle the puck.  It's like everyone forgets that Ron Hextall was handling the puck like a third defensemen well before Brodeur was even drafted.

I got into watching hockey after I started playing street hockey with my friends back when I was in high school in 1987.  I consider myself a "Hockey Fan" because I don't watch any other sport all that much unless we're visiting someone and they turn their tv on, or my wife decides she has to see what commercials are played during the Super Bowl, or she wants to get disappointed by the Phillies in the World Series.

The first few teams I became a fan of were the Flyers (the home-town team), the Canucks and the LA Kings.  Eventually, I gravitated towards teams that built from the ground up (good draft picks, smart trades, then free agents), starting with the Ottawa Senators when they entered the league.  I gave-up on The Sens when they 1) lost in the playoffs to the Maple Leafs for the hundredth time & weren't playing like they cared, and 2) hired Bryan Murray as their GM, at which point they traded away or let go of the majority of their talented players, becoming "just another team".  If they would just get rid of Chris Neil (maybe to The Pens or Flyers!), I could stop paying attention to them altogether!  My wife's always been a fan of the Pens, back when they had Lemieux & Jagr.  I didn't start following them too closely until they fell apart shortly before drafting Fleury, Malkin & Crosby.

Speaking of the Islanders, I feel they hit rock-bottom while they had Milbury as their GM.  He might have been a decent player and he certainly has a bit of charisma, but his hockey knowledge seems to be at the "casual fan" level.  I usually shake my head whenever I hear him talk during games, and he more than proved he has no clue on how to run a team.  How he ever kept his job as the Isles GM is a mystery to me.

As for Toronto, being a Sens fans for over a decade kind of forced me to dislike "TO" immensely for quite a while, but I haven't cared much about the Leafs for a few years after giving-up on The Sens.  I found it laughable at the start of the season when one broadcaster was going-on about how good the Leafs would be this year with their "solid group of four defensemen".  I thought to myself "I never heard of three of those guys, and the other one wanted to leave the team last year ... so how 'solid' can they really be?"  Solid enough for last in the conference, apparently (no offense to Leaf fans).

[darkmark]

You guys deserved it.  What I saw was very, very good.

[Yoc]

Hey bchat, sounds like you're more than an average fan of the game.
I know we'd have a lot to talk about over a beer and wings. 

Actually Hextall was far from the first - go back to the Habs and Jaques Plante.  They say the term 'wandering goalie' was invented for him.  I've seen some old game action pictures of him and it's exactly like Brodeaur firing the puck from behind the net.  Around the time the new Hockey Hall of Fame opened I stated to get seriously into the history of hockey.  There's some great books out there if you're interested in the evolution of the game.  The rule changes and the war in the 20s vs the Pacific Coast Hockey League run by the famous Patrick Brothers.  The Seatle Metropalitans and Vancouver Millionares were cup winners from that now long forgotten league.  They were still using the rover position when the NHL went to todays 5 and a goalie.  The Patricks also introduced numbers on jerseys and the penalty shot back when legends like Newsy Lalonde, Mean Joe Hall, and the Gretzkey of the era Cyclone Taylor still played the game.  I'd give anything to see some footage of the games from back then.
The Leafs are a joke.  The local paper ran a 42 item long list of why they've never won the cup since 1967.  Top of the list was slavish devotion of overpay fans not making them get any better.  They could put a pee-wee team in a Leafs jersey and people would still spend $250 on average a set.  Toronto now has the most expensive seats in the league and about the most putrid team to put on the ice.  Yay Toronto.   *pffft*

-Yoc

[bchat]

Hey bchat, sounds like you're more than an average fan of the game.
I know we'd have a lot to talk about over a beer and wings. 

I could talk hockey all day long.  Before the kids were born, I could rattle-off every team's roster, but "free time" isn't as plentiful as it used to be.

Actually Hextall was far from the first - go back to the Habs and Jaques Plante.  They say the term 'wandering goalie' was invented for him.  I've seen some old game action pictures of him and it's exactly like Brodeaur firing the puck from behind the net. 

I didn't mean to slight Plante's contributions to the game, but I feel Hextall took puck-handling to a whole new level.  I remember, early in his career, the Flyers were  killing a penalty and I heard the late great Gene Hart sound shocked when Dave Poulin passed the puck from the neutral zone back to a waiting Hextall between the circles, who handled the puck effortlessly.  And even though quite a few goalies have taken the odd opportunity to shoot the puck down the ice in the waning seconds of a game, hoping to score on the empty net, icing the puck was something Hextall did all the time whenever he felt he needed to do so to give his team a break or give them a chance for a line change.  That's not to say that I don't think Brodeur's a good puck handler, just not as good as Hextall, in my opinion.  I think Brodeur's over-rated in that aspect of his game & Hextall gets ignored by the sports writers because Brodeur has a bunch of Stanley Cup rings whereas Hextall has none.

Around the time the new Hockey Hall of Fame opened I stated to get seriously into the history of hockey.  There's some great books out there if you're interested in the evolution of the game.  The rule changes and the war in the 20s vs the Pacific Coast Hockey League run by the famous Patrick Brothers.  The Seatle Metropalitans and Vancouver Millionares were cup winners from that now long forgotten league.  They were still using the rover position when the NHL went to todays 5 and a goalie.  The Patricks also introduced numbers on jerseys and the penalty shot back when legends like Newsy Lalonde, Mean Joe Hall, and the Gretzkey of the era Cyclone Taylor still played the game.  I'd give anything to see some footage of the games from back then.

I have more books on the history of hockey than books on comic history.  I love reading about the history of the game, from the Ottawa Silver Seven winning one Cup challenge after another, to Clint Benedict forcing rule changes by falling on the puck "accidentally", from The Stanley Cup being an amateur trophy teams had to petition a challenge for, to the NHA becoming the NHL.  I'ld also love to see some old games when the "rover" was still used, players played the full 60 minutes and there was no "forward passing".  I'ld love to see how a guy like Joe Malone could score 44 goals in 20 games or how goalies played their position before they were allowed to fall on the puck.  Maybe someday, somebody will get around to putting that archive footage online somewhere.

The Leafs are a joke.  The local paper ran a 42 item long list of why they've never won the cup since 1967.  Top of the list was slavish devotion of overpay fans not making them get any better.  They could put a pee-wee team in a Leafs jersey and people would still spend $250 on average a set.  Toronto now has the most expensive seats in the league and about the most putrid team to put on the ice.  Yay Toronto.   *pffft*

-Yoc

It is frustrating to be a fan of a team that isn't run very well, or seems to be getting close to winning it all and then slowly falls apart for no good reason.  The Leafs had a good team for a while, which being a Sens fan at the time, made me dislike them even more.  If there was at least a ray of hope, a good draft pick or a solid group of young players, then at least Leaf fans could say "they're rebuilding", but that doesn't look like it's the case.  The Sens went from joke of the league to a top contender through solid drafting, smart trades & wise decisions in signing free agents ... and then with one move (a new GM), they started a slow descent into mediocrity.  It's why I've never been a "home town fan", because if the team closest to me isn't run very well, why waste my time cheering them on when I don't honestly believe they can do anything come Spring?  But it isn't just about wins & losses, it's about effort.  If the effort from the team isn't there game after game, what hope can someone really have beyond hoping for a change in ownership?  There's only so many "next year"s I'm willing to invest into a team.

[slingsla]

Me and a friend just went to see our first live hockey game (Rangers game).  I'm not a huge fan but my friend was a convert after the Olympics.  I gotta say, there is no other sport that demands such full attention and concentration.  I really got into it even though it was a rather low scoring game.  It's challenging enough to just follow the puck

[narfstar]

I have only been to minor league and my nephews teen games. I have always found minor or teen to be more exciting than pro. They are putting their all into not just for money. I watch no pro sports

[Astaldo711]

I love hockey. It's the only sport I watch. I don't know what it is about the game that draws me in. I love the sound of the blades cutting the ice, the sound of the sticks hitting the puck as it's passed back and forth, the way it can be so brutal with all the checks and yet so elegant at the same time as these huge, hulking players gracefully glide over the ice. I can't even stand in a pair of skates so the fact that they can spin around and skate backwards amazes me.

[bchat]

It's definitely different watching hockey in-person as opposed to seeing it on tv.  I haven't been down to a game in years because we're simply too far away.  I'm not a fan of watching minor league hockey because some of the minor league teams are terribly short on talent due to poor drafting or bad trades, making for some lop-sided games which I don't enjoy watching all the time.

And I'm right there with you, Astaldo.   I've played & watched most sports and hockey's the only one I care about.

[slingsla]

Speaking of pro vs. amateur, one sport where the amateur level is definitely more exciting to me is collegiate basketball over the pros.  Talk about an intensity and effort differential.  March madness is coming...

[Jedifish]

Speaking of pro vs. amateur, one sport where the amateur level is definitely more exciting to me is collegiate basketball over the pros.  Talk about an intensity and effort differential.  March madness is coming...

Can't wait! Go State!

[slingsla]

Which one is State?

[Jedifish]

Michigan State University. I really don't have high expectations. The chemistry just doesn't seem to be there this year. But never count out an Izzo coached team.

[slingsla]

Izzo does wonders with his teams sometimes.  You a Mateen Cleaves fan?

[Jedifish]

Izzo does wonders with his teams sometimes.  You a Mateen Cleaves fan?

Of course. He's a Spartan. He was a great college leader. Just didn't have the skills necessary to make it at the next level.

[darkmark]

I keep remembering a line from the Mad Hockey Primer:  "The rink is coated by a frozen man-made liquid.  It is called 'blood'."