Just for the Record

I just wanted to add that I like hockey. I just think its a damn shame that they've gone and changed the game and made it demonstrably better (in my limited exposure to the game with the new rules the past couple of years). Yet it hasn't made a dent, the NHL has clearly fallen behind sports like NASCAR, and even Golf (fuck, damn, shit) on the American sporting radar. Could soccer surpass hockey (shudder)??? Please no....

I am still pissed at them for wasting a season a couple years ago, well not pissed, but its not a fond memory....and think that after years and years of painstakingly building up a cool brand, and slowly but surely creating a foothold in the American sporting psyche that the NHL pissed it all away in a retarded labor squabble.

I mean, NBC tied for the lowest rating EVER with one of its Stanley Cup broadcasts. WHAT? What the fuck? The Stanley Cup? Perhaps THE hardest grand trophy to win in all of sport and NBC is barely scrappin' together a million viewers nation-wide? How is that possible? Heck in some major markets (like Dallas) there is a sort of beleaguered laughter, when House repeats skunk the Stanley Cup in the ratings, the wheels have fallen off, they've fallen the fuck off.

What have they (the owners, the league, etc) done to a sports I spent nearly two decades following with a passion? Wrecked it, its seems like.
Grrr, now I am getting pissed again....

BTW - The Ducks Won

For one or two of you that still care about the NHL, the Anaheim Mighty Ducks won Lord Stanley's Cup.

huh,
whuzzat? My thoughts exactly.
Snoozing already. Does anyone care? Did ANYONE watch?

Wake up yet?
What the hell happened to hockey? The games themselves are still cool for me, but I tell you what there must be a helluva lot of former NHL-junkies like me (nearly all my friends back where I grew up are this way)...those of us that used to follow hockey all spring long. Get into it, watch like out-of-town games, have fantasy hockey teams...and then BLAM...Lockout season gone, and suddenly I was without hockey for an entire year. At first I was pissed, then jonesing for a hockey fix, but finally I realized there were other things to do....Lo and behold, when hockey came back, I just sorta shrugged and was take or leave it...For the most part, I've left it - though that attitude is assisted greatly by the Flyers current suck-i-tude and precipitous fall from the hockey power-elite.

Oh, and sweetie, don't think that treatment will work with Football, its like comparing a stoner to a hard-core meth-addict....ain't going to happen, I main-line the Eagles straight into my veins and that will not change.

And another thing, I know they dropped "mighty" from their names, but the Ducks? That a fucking lame-ass name. Don't ducks fly south to avoid ice?

West Beats East 12-9...and no one gives a Flying F--K

Um...did anyone even know the NHL All-Star game was played tonight??? Middle of the frickin' week? What great advertising fellas....the CNN link say "West tops East in All-Star Game"...I thought they were talking about some left-over College Football game (the East-West Shrine game or the Senior Bowl or something, but I guess they have the good sense to play on the weekend).

I used to defend hockey all the time (Top 4 sport and all that...) but its really fallen off the wagon in the U.S. of A. -- I still haven't forgiven them for canking the season a few years ago, and honestly, I stopped following the sport back then....the problem for the NHL, I, like a lot of my friends, came to realize that we could get along without the NHL...so when it started back, I asked myself..."Didn't you used to complain about how the season would start in Oct and still be going on in like June?" Yup...did I really miss the long, drawn out marathon? I usually wouldn't get into it until football was over, and then it was a good way to tide myself over until football started again....but that year it was gone...I did other things...and liked them...now, if I catch the occasional hockey game, its like..mmm-kay, uh-huh, is that it?

Maybe its because the Flyers really and truly suck right now, and haven't seemed to figure out that the NHL changed the rule a few years back....I tell you what though, my days of defending the sport are long over...its been supplanted as a major sport in this country by NASCAR and (shudder) Golf and probably ranks behind no higher than 8th on any credible scale: (#1 - NFL, #2 MLB, #3 NCAAF, #4 NBA, #5 NCAAB (Men), #6 NASCAR, #7 PGA, #8 NHL....that's pathetic....I still think its better than soccer...but if they don't do something...MLS will overtake them eventually....