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Abel to Yzerman

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Stealing The Work of Others

by IwoCPO on 09/23/07 at 08:58 AM ET
Comments (2)

Seems like a good day to visit other hockey blogs, steal their best stuff and grudgingly attribute it to them rather than take credit for it myself.  First, Center Ice Online has fifteen days to get it together before a few of us have to decide whether to drop the equivalent of fifteen twelve-packs of Rolling Rock on their product.  After last night, it’s hard to justify it.  Several crashes, intermittent audio, frozen pictures and a couple tantrums.  For the second time in as many attempts, I stopped trying mid-way through the second.  I’d rather not watch than deal with the frustration.  If the glitches aren’t straightened out by 9 October (when the free preview is supposed to end), I’d suggest they extend it until they’re sure what they’re offering is worth the investment.

The Free Press has a reader-feedback deal this morning, showcasing the brilliance of Wing fans irritated with The Schedule That Gary Built.  The readers/writers are correct that the division sucks, the schedule sucks, Gary sucks, etc, etc.  But the ignorance of the Freep is hard to ignore when their headline says this:  “Why Wings Should Change Their Schedule To Avoid Nashville 8 Times”.  Forget for a second the idiocy of suggesting the Wings could change their schedule even if they wanted to and focus on who they suggest the Wings need to see less of.

Of all the teams in Gary’s Central, Bubba’s the one we’d like to see 8 times.  The Wings have worked up a hate for that team.  Their fans, the only 18k in the entire state of Tennessee who care about hockey, dislike Detroit with a passion and the games are close and well played.  If you’re writing that headline why not use the bitter little Blues or BJ’s? 

We like the rivalry with Nashville. We like the intensity.  We don’t like the fact that a team exists in a state that doesn’t understand the game when there are cities in Canada that deserve a hockey team.  Hockey in Tennessee was a stupid idea, an idea formed by a stupid little man.  Sooner or later one of the league’s best teams is going to move.  Bottom line: that’s a disgrace.  In preparation for a sale they jettisoned much of their team, and they’ll still be competitive this year.  For nearly a decade Nashville improved every season, but the majority of discussion about Bubba concerns a pending move.  What kind of commissioner allows that to happen?  Read this post from Tom Benjamin.  Bubba’s gone. It’s just a matter of time.

In the meantime, Predator fans - and there are real fans in the area - have to pay a lot more to see a team that will be a lot less competitive. Many of them will pony up because they believe that if they do, they can save their team. They want to believe that, so they will. Some will say that its their own fault for choosing to buy into a fairy tale, but I don’t think that’s fair given the way Leipold and the league has scripted the relocation.

Good night and good luck to the Nashville Predators.

The biggest losers are, of course, those few fans in Nashville who actually love and understand the game.  Bettman gave them a team, hooked them on the sport and screwed them.  Hockey is going to leave Tennessee because it never belonged there in the first place. And that core group of fans are the ones who will pay the dearest.

The Puck Stops Here touches on that a bit more in their Central Division Preview, where they predict more Wing domination of the Division That Gary Built.

This team is almost a lock to win this division. Not because they are the most dominant team in the NHL, but because they have no talented rivals. Detroit has the best defenceman in the NHL in Nicklas Lidstrom, who along with Brian Rafalski, Niklas Kronwall, Chris Chelios and Brent Sopel will make a talented defence core. They have a good set of forwards too led by Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg and Tomas Holmstrom. Dominik Hasek is a top goalie, even at age 42, but he is a serious injury risk given his history of groin problems. Should Hasek stay healthy, Detroit could win the West Conference. If they are stuck with Chris Osgood or Jim Howard in goal for long periods of time, it will be much less likely.

Something’s been nagging at me for months and it’s this:  where Dominik Hasek was concerned, last season was a fairy tale.  To expect him to remain sane AND healthy another season is too much to ask.  Is it possible? Sure.  I just don’t think it’s likely.  There will be goalie discussion, if not controversy, in Hockeytown this season.  Nothing irritates me more than a goalie controversy, but it’s coming.  If Hasek goes down and Osgood steps in, Jimmy Howard’s brilliance in TC and afterward means the lines are going to be drawn and the torches lit.  Watch. 

Finally this morning, a word about last week.  We got into it a bit from the drunks over at PensBlog.  Aside from the idiotic spamming, it was fairly entertaining.  One result was that I’ve kept an eye on their blog and I’m glad I have.  Clearly alcohol-induced, juvenile, sarcastic and devoid of any fact whatsoever...all criteria that lead to my endorsement.  Idiots? Absolutely.  But pretty funny.

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Comments

I moved to Tennessee in 1993, 5 years before the Predators even existed.  My family was one of the many that moved here from Michigan due to the Saturn plant opening (my dad got laid off from Hydramatic in Ypsi, and we had to go where the money was), and even with the influx of the northern people, it was 2 years before the first roller hockey leagues popped up down here.  Hockey has never been a popular sport down here, not even when the Predators first started up.  Sure, the first few seasons they had a lot of sell-outs, but it was for the novelty of the franchise, not for the love of the game.  Now, 10 years later, they’re all but gone from the area, just delaying the inevitable.  Like Iwo says, the fans that do follow the Preds faithfully, hate the Wings and us fans, myself included in that group of the hated.  I even tried to be a fan of the Predators when they first started play here, we even had season tickets for the first 2 full seasons.  But I just couldn’t pull it off, and I absolutely can’t stand that team now.  It has become a great rivalry, and I live for when we beat those guys (especially because my boss is a Predators fan).  I think that we need fewer games against ALL division teams, rivalry or not.  The Wings and Predators could be the number 1 and 2 teams in the NHL year-in and year-out, but even the greatest rivalries can get stale.  Besides, why would we want to “avoid” the Predators when we pretty much have had their number since their inception.  Sure they’ve won games, but we’ve won every season series against them, beat them in the playoffs the only time we played them, and haven’t finished behind them in the standings EVER.  I don’t want my Wings to play the Predators less because they play each other tight every time they play, I just want to see Toronto, Monteal, and Boston more often.  Six games against the Preds would still be plenty, and I wouldn’t hate them any less, and all the locals wouldn’t like me any more.

Posted by Chris Torango from Columbia, TN on 09/23/07 at 11:57 AM ET

I agree, six games in the division is plenty.  Seeing more teams and different uniforms is more fun than the same teams all the time.  I hate monotony in scheduling.

It’s too bad that the team apparently can’t get the corporate support they need to remain there, now that they are there and have some devoted fans.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 09/23/07 at 12:09 PM ET

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