seanimal

Sure, I was just responding to the article's mention of "Chicago-influenced beers". It's silly. Are you saying Goose Island is not a Chicago influenced beer? No. I'm poking fun at the phrase "Chicago-influenced". and you're failing miserably

because before, it only sort of needed to pay out big? the "plan" or whatever has always been to build the team from the inside and add through free agency. the folding money is limited right now, but big new revenue sources are coming each of the next few seasons. to call the situation precarious is an incredible stretch, nevermind that some of this is likely showmanship to provide urgency to the renovation approval efforts

not saying you do, cause i have no idea, but it's interesting how may people trash old style yet willingly swig pbr gleefully out of big cans failing to realize they're basically the same beer, brewed by the same brewery (pabst owns the heileman's beers) but anyway, yeah, definitely an upgrade here

that's a bad idea

hammer played up this year. him and keith really had improved years all around. seabrook sucked, not sure why anyone would miss him, man crushes aside i don't think crow's main issue is his glove. i think he just tends to drift a little to far forward in the crease, leaving him more ground to cover if a quick-developing play gets deep and requires him to go post-to-post

yes, you for one that's not what that is. i was responding to what newusername said about crow getting less on the open market next summer if we didn't re-sign him

The process is more fun this way these guys

It's not just years, I just don't think he's anything special. I don't really care if he would have gotten more from somebody else, that is a terrible way to justify moves. Sports management types are notoriously foolish with money. Goalies come and go and aside from a very select few, do not impact the team all that much. The Blackhawks don't just have to keep Toews/Kane intact, they will need to bring in more talent from outside the organization, not to mention pay the next wave of talent when those raises are due. has anyone actually argued that we should have signed him because he would have gotten more elsewhere? because i haven't, so i'm not sure why you're bringing that up. i'm guessing the organization felt confident in signing him to the deal knowing that there might be a couple of junk years at the end because he's relatively injury-free, has responded well to coaching, believe he hasn't peaked, and was the best goalie when it mattered of course you can let him walk, but you're more likely to end up with a marty turco than a tuukka rask. goalies aren't as important as these big top-line forward type contracts are making them seem at the moment, but it's easy to want to gamble when you have a good one. it's a much different story when you have a [expletive] one. to say that they don't impact the team "all that much" is nonsense. they're one of the most important

alright kids, let's not [expletive] our pants here. crow's deal is kind of ugly in terms of years. however, if the growth in the cap pans out the way people expect, then there will be plenty of room to keep the core intact

have you seen the deals that goalies have been signing in the last few years? goalies are getting top-line forward deals now. that's just the reality of the situation. the organization felt like crow is enough of an asset to invest in. the years are a little long, but i'd eat my hat if crow didn't get this much or more next summer anyway

it's difficult to compare the two, really. either way, however you want to stack the deck by including international components, there are more people watching and spending money on professional hockey than professional soccer in the united states that being said, soccer is definitely more popular in terms of participation, probably by a staggering margin the discussion over which sport is better is dumb, because anyone's answer is going to depend upon whatever sports a given person was socialized with

http://extarscube.com/cube3/pictures/091206_fancy_suit.jpg

badminton? cycling?

yes

A combination of watching a small amount of hockey, and reading from those who watch more than me. I could be wrong, but I can't find much to indicate otherwise. Searching on the topic turns up a Canadian editorial wanting to to change the rules because " the game has turned into an exercise in shot-blocking, where the majority of goals are scored on ricochets, deflections or other happenstance." and a forum thread where some hockey fans estimate it's somewhere around one-third of all goals, so hardly scientific. Are there any numbers indicating that it's not the case? you're just jealous cause soccer doesn't move fast enough to warrant needing to create the offensive schemes taking advantage of deflections. most soccer goals are one of two variations: guy kicks it into the giant goal where the small human being isn't able to get to it, or guy passes to a teammate who is able to kick it into a part of the giant goal that the small human being isn't able to get to it

no

yet, here we sit on a message board for a sport where the tone of a player's year can be made of unintended consequences. this is a laughably stupid argument. soccer is just a giant, slow variation of the same concept as hockey

most of the dudes on a high school football team do not qualify as talent. those that do, play college football if they want. fewer than 10 percent of the players that will play college football this year will see a second of playing time in the nfl. some of the really good teams are decent to watch, but that's more often due to quality coaching and having a few elite players than an abundance of above-average players. the burden of being good on an individual and on a team level in the professional game is dramatically greater than in the college game. noticeably greater than say, the difference between AAA and the majors you may enjoy college football for a number of reasons, none of which i particularly begrudge anyone over. quality of competition is not one of those things

this isn't subjective at all. college sports are the second-lowest form of sport, right after high school. and barely so, in that they just slightly whittled down the available talent pool i mean, like what you will, but college football, like college basketball, is mostly bad badness with an occasional flutter of not bad

0.4 generous

well you definitely just wrote some words, i'll give you credit for that. unfortunately most of them were stupid. it wasn't so much the words themselves, but the order in which they were placed

that's quite a remarkable insight, where did you find this out?

It has NOTHING to do with how much money they're making. It has to do with the debt structure of their deal with Zell. Its a very valid topic. what is the amount of the debt payments, and what are they as a percentage of net costs?

yeah um, like zero chance the cubs aren't making enough money to support a top-5 payroll. i know it sucks not having actual things to talk about, but come the [expletive] on

i dunno, this whole idea about the end of free agency is reactionary. it's only a matter of time before that bubble is popped