Discussion: Hockey - why no one cares

To answer Eddie's quassi-question about why there's no chatter about the hockey. For me there's two reasons...

1. The injuries - fake & ever so real. Can't stand it. I was looking forward to a fast moving, skill-filled, thrill-a-minute seven games of hockey. While there is a lot of that, we also get the senseless violence plus a relatively new thing in hockey - "simulation". Don Cherry is right - we should never have allowed the Euros into the NHL ;-)

2. The inevitable outcome. Ho hum. Since the beginning of time, without fail, whenever a Canadian city hosts the Olympic Games (summer or winter) the following year that city's NHL team wins the Stanley Cup.

Anyway, its baseball season already

Why are people playing hockey in June?! Maybe if this Stanley Cup thing would give itself away in, like, the winter, people would care more.

I used to coach hockey for years, I am sure the Canadians don't mind hockey in June. But come on, its just violent entertainment, those sticks are like skating around on thin steel blades, on ice and with a weapon.. I would say a lot of people get some kind of release watching a fight as part of a hockey game. I know I have at some point in my life, even been a part of a few. AP doesn't really attract that type of crowd. I hope Eddie doesn't mind. Maybe I missed a thread about snowmobiles.

GO JETS GO!!!

>GO JETS GO!!!

like!

....and hopefully sometime soon the Quebec Nordiques and Hamilton Tigers will join them back in the NHL too. The Peg only had to wait 15 or 16 years. Hamilton has been NHL'less for over 85 years now.

Not too many people in Alberta cheering for Vancouver. Probably lots of habs fans cheering for them, though.

NHL hockey in June is very exciting if your team is still in the running for the Stanley Cup. We had that chance in Ottawa a few years ago. It was great - the street parties, the tailgate parties at the arena, wearing bare shirt sleeves to go to a hockey game, the flags on the cars, the horns honking with every goal. Everyone was a fan!
But the hangover is awful. The good young players get inflated offers elsewhere and desert the team. Others take to putting powder up their nose and the team is never the same.
Hockey in June is dull for the fans of the 28 teams already on the golf courses and incomprehensible for the rest of the world.
If the NHL truly has parity then a team should get to the Cup finals once every 15 years and win the cup once every 30. The extended playoff structure is there to give teams interim goals and bragging rights - ie made the playoffs (Sorry Toronto but that should be better than every second yr), second round (at least every fourth year), etc.
Canadian orienteering seems to have a better chance of putting athletes in the top 16 of a world event than Toronto winning the Stanley Cup!

Spoken like a true Ottawa fan :p

Ok Gord the gloves are off. Adam Sandler parody of the team Canadian hockey fans love to hate...The Ottawa Senators.

Stanley Cup will never go to Ottawa? Except that it has, 11 times...

(But yeah, not in my mother's lifetime...)

Not even Ottawa wants to acknowledge an association with the senators. That's why they put the arena so far away.

Game one broke record for highest ratings for a NHL game on CBC.

Game six then broke that record.

Game seven tonight will likely break the ratings record again.

Go Canucks Go!

Game six probably also broke the record for most TV sets turned off before the game ended (or maybe game two still holds that record).

Let's hope that tonight will break the record for a CBC post-game report!

100,000 fans expected in the streets of Vancouver tonight ... finding it hard to identify with the subject of this thread.

Pent-up desire, I suppose. I mean, the Stanley Cup hasn't gone to Vancouver since 1915. That must be almost the way Chicago Cubs fans feel.

As they say - location, location, location. I may be the only one watching from Baltimore. One-man party in the street when the Bruins win! :) Maybe I'll flip my Subaru over and start some fires.

>Since the beginning of time, without fail, whenever a Canadian city hosts the Olympic Games (summer or winter) the following year that city's NHL team wins the Stanley Cup.

So time to put money on the Nordiques winning the cup in 2023?

The IOC will take you up on that bet unless you know of a secret mountain in Quebec that they haven't discovered. Every year FIS looks over the "mountains" and says bien essayé....

Party time, Eddie. :-)

There have been some sporadic firework noises, even way out here in Newton!

Was there a game or something?

Not much of one, unfortunately.

sporadic firework noises?

you sure you it wasn't this you heard from across the continent?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sto...

All four major league championships in Boston in a span of less than seven years...

Time to add the US Relay Champs title for CSU to make it all five major league championships?

The NHL is considered major league in the US?

Randwick/St George played who?

Wrong hockey I guess1

yeah southerncross, they're talking about figure-skating for boys

So hockey makes the front pages around the world.
Riots in Vancouver
Wow, that is really disappointing and very embarrassing.

For shame Vancouver!

I'll say this, though:

Rioting after a loss makes only slightly more sense than rioting after a victory.

I guess I should be rioting after every orienteering race, then.

Rioting about someone else's performance, especially a sports performance, doesn't seem to make any sense at all. And I don't "get" the thrill of hockey boxing matches, either. I refuse to support the local hockey team because it's more fights than hockey. Guess they need a break from all that skating.

Unless you're rioting in opposition to a dictator's actions--then I can see a point.

No fights on the ice last night, though, right?

I could see myself rioting if Petter Northug lost; so it might be understandable. Perhaps on skis or something like that.

>if Petter Northug lost;

he lost in the sprint relay to CANADA! Did you riot?

Way to go against stereotype, Canadians...

From CBS Sports:
"...windows smashed to allow looters to get to the expensive Coach and Burberry purses. Merchandise went flying into the street. Women rampaged through the main floor makeup department, tossing each other products and squealing in delight."

I guess it wasn't just about hockey.

They keep the important stuff (ie. Bryan Adams tapes, maple syrup, wool toques, Kraft Dinner) in the vault so the rioters had to settle for Burberry.

Just Bryan Adams? What about Bruce Cockburn, Barenaked Ladies, and (of course) Rush?

Because we keep those on vinyl; you can really hear the bass in Rush like that. [I have no idea what I'm talking about with Rush, I can barely name 3 songs of theirs].

Rioting on skis sounds awkward.

More Canadians on the Bruins than were on the Canucks though zman.

@z-man: ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!

maybe Mike, but the fans are true Canadians.

Hockey seems to attract a bit of a deranged fan base in North America. I can't say its the game though because in Europe - its Soccer. Soccer isn't even a violent sport. Sure there's some pushing and shoving but a body check is outright illegal. In the stands, they go nuts. They beat each other up.

Can you imagine this mentality in Orienteering?

OK. This summer it doesn't matter if we win or lose, we're gonna riot!
I'm gonna storm Whitehorse after the last race!

Who's with me?

@vnelson: Who's we?

Everyone (who counts) will be Canadian!

Well, I was thinking that the "we" was anyone running in the event. But in order to be like Vancouver, it would have to be our rabid fans. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.

Is anyone going to riot for me if I lose?

Seems rather silly when the idea is applied to other sports.

Rioting for hockey is just as dumb as rioting for basketball, baseball, or gridiron football

Is anyone going to riot for me if I lose?

Would lighting a fire (candle), and throwing glass (in the recycling bin) count?