UMFan83

It's disconcerting that appears as if at least Larry, if not both him and LeBron, appear to be under the impression that MJ owns the Bulls. Yeah, I left that part out mostly because it confused me. The transcript must have missed something, because there's no way LeBron thinks that MJ owns the Bulls. If so, Wade were quickly set him straight.

I think the main thing to be somewhat excited about is that he doesn't at all sound like he's committed to Cleveland, and he also seems like at this point he really has no idea which way he wants to go.

Yeah, that one raised my eyebrow a bit. Even the angry fans who want everyone to believe they know something secret that nobody else does -- I can't believe they're going for Sopel jerseys. Yeah because those people still hate Brent Sopel. They'll admit he has significant value on the PK, but he makes too much money to suck as much as he does full strength.

That's kind of how I am. I would publically like to say I am a 2.5 (inbetween a 1 and a 5). But if you put a gun to my head, I would have to admit I leaned 1. I grew up watching hockey. I used to like hockey more than baseball. I watched every Hawks playoff game in the early to mid-90's. As I've mentioned here before I moved to NH in 1999, and as I moved from a teenager to adult, I had to reconnect with all my Chicago teams at one point, learning how to follow them from far away. I never quite reconnected with the Hawks. If you asked me the day after a game whether the Hawks won or lost yesterday (or tied) I could probably tell you. If you asked me in September what moves the Hawks made in the offseason, I could probably give you a player or two off the top of my head. If you asked me what the Hawks lines were, I wouldn't know (Except the ABC Line, everyone knew Arnason/Bell/Calder). Sadly, I drifted away from the Hawks as they crept into irrelevence. I moved back to Chicago and found out the Hawks didn't exist anymore. I went to 2 games total between 2004-2008, and one was free. But this team really got me back to hockey as a whole. If the Hawks sucked next year, I'd still be on board. If Bill Wirtz rose from the grave and took back the team, well I'd have to think about it. But I rediscovered my childhood love for hockey that had died over the years. I still watched my college team (UNH), the Stanley Cup, and the Olympics so it's not like I was clueless about hockey until 2 years ago, but I wasn't a fan. I watched as many games as I could this postseason. I loooooooooove hockey beyond the Hawks.

Every time I predict the Hawks lose badly, they surprise and win (and sometimes by a lot). I just have this feeling we see the Hawks A game tonight, and we win 4-2. This team on the road doesn't scare me. They are the most adaptable team I've ever seen. We yell at the Bears because they never make any damn adjustments. This Hawks teams sniffs out a strategy and makes adjustments on the fly. They can win at home, on the road, fast paced hockey, grind it out hockey, they can handle all types of forechecks, they can play a trapping style, they can open it up, they can play aggressive hockey, they can play conservative hockey, they can play for speed and finesse, they can play physical, they can play with the lead, they can come from behind. They can win because of their forwards, they can win because of their defense, they can win because of their goalie. They do everything. Not to say that they can't be beaten. While I'm predicting a win here, a loss wouldn't shock me at all, and if they did come out and lose, it wouldn't change my impression of them. There are two teams involved in this competition, and there are too many little breaks and lucky bounces that can occur. The Flyers have proved themselves a formidable foe, and their confidence is justified. They can beat this team. They honestly can. But they can't beat this team when the Hawks are playing their "A" game. Maybe they know this deep down...maybe they don't. But it's very likely they will find that out before the end of the series.

Would anyone trade Grabow for Gregg upfront if they were the Cubs GM and it was offered? I am not sure, but I think Gregg is only signed for this year so I'd probably do it. What I don't get is....most reasonable baseball men would agree that stuff like ERA and WHIP and SV/SV% and W-L are extremely variable statistics, even more so for relievers that pitch 80 innings or less. So if that is the case, why do people keep giving people like Gregg shots, when they have maybe 1.5 halfway decent seasons (on the surface). They fail for 3-4 years in a row and the next year another team gives them a NRI, and if they pitch ok in Spring they feel so tempted to keep that player over a rookie because of that experience factor. I just wonder if half of the mediocre relievers in the league over the age of 30 just disappeared randomly from the face of the earth and were replaced by that team's top pen arms in the minors, if the league's bullpen ERAs would change at all, up or down.

HAVE YOU SEEN THE FUTURE!?! Did a cat leave tomorrow's newspaper at your doorstep this morning? (Early Edition reference)

Blah. We've been fine without him, but I would have liked to see him out there for his physical presence. I was going to say I would like to see him play some time in the series so he can get some SCF ice time too, but I forgot he has played in a SCF before, so while it's definitely a big deal for him to play, its not like he's missing a once in a lifetime opportunity.

No one realizes that the real curse was the curse of Ty Conklin, which was snapped because the Blues didn't make the SCF this year, thus allowing Hossa to win his championship. Hossa was just an innocent bystander that gained all the noteriety.

Hockey season's almost over, So you better get ready for a new Cup owner Hey Chicago, whaddya say? The Hawks are gonna win today! They're singing... Go Hawks Go! Go Hawks Go! Hey Chicago, whaddya say? The Hawks are gonna win today! Go Hawks Go! Go Hawks Go! Hey Chicago, whaddya say? The Hawks are gonna win today! They got the power, they got the speed, To be the best in the whole damn league, Well this is the year and the Hawks are real, So head to the UC to show 'em how we feel We're singing now... Go Hawks Go! Go Hawks Go! Hey Chicago, whaddya say? The Hawks are gonna win today! Go Hawks Go! Go Hawks Go! Hey Chicago, whaddya say? The Hawks are gonna win today! If you have Comcast, no need for curses, You can catch it all on some channel called "Versus" So scream through the anthem with gusto and swagger But save some voice for 'Chelsea Dagger" You're singing now... Go Hawks Go! Go Hawks Go! Hey Chicago, whaddya say? The Hawks are gonna win today! Go Hawks Go! Go Hawks Go! Hey Chicago, whaddya say? The Hawks are gonna win today! Yeah, slow day at work....

It's funny how many times we've been on the winning side of close games lately. Like we've won 7 in a row, but only 2 of those really were somewhat comfortable wins (Game 6 vs. Vancouver, Game 2 vs. San Jose). The other 5 games included 4 one goal wins, and the other one was a two goal win only because of a final minute empty net goal.) We've won 7 in a row, but our goal differential is only +12. I think part of that might be a little luck on our side because you need a little luck when you are constantly playing tight games and coming out on top every time, but a lot of that is just because a team that does a lot of little things slightly better than the opponents. The Hawks ability to clamp down on a small lead in the 3rd period is really amazing. They didn't look great yesterday, but some of the other 3rd periods we just completely took a lot of the drama out of the game. The Hawks are a team that has the ability to turn a 3 period game into essentially a 2 period game.

Yes. It's well-known around the league that he can't skate at all anymore, but he keeps getting high-profile games. on the bright side I am almost positive I read that he's retiring after the playoffs

Hope all the NBA fans have enjoyed the 5 day layoff of no basketball. I almost forgot they still had another series to play.

2-1 series. Honestly, I'm really interested to see how much more onesided they can get away with.

Not just calling you out, but everyone with that line of thinking. I've heard too much of that in the last 24 hours. In a perfect world, the Hawks sweep the Flyers and win it on Friday. We're all Cubs fans here. Do I really need to say anything else? But in a perfect world, losing is not an option. They will win in this perfect world and kujay thinks it would be perfect to win at home. In a perfect world, the Hawks play Game 4 at home :) But yeah, I don't care where they win it. As long as they do. It would be nice to see them at home, but I'd rather them win by virtue of a sweep. I learned after 2003 to never cheer for a scenario where your team loses a precious playoff game. Not that I was really doing that, but I wasn't offended by the sentiment that many people had.

For some reason, despite me calling him a douche and whatever else I said earlier, I kind of like Pronger. I certainly don't like facing him, and I'm not a fan of cheapshotting any of my players, so I guess I don't like that part of his game. But some of the psychological tactics he uses to get into people's minds are awesome. He's a guy that seems like everything he says on the ice and to the media is calculated.

I agree about the blowout win. Maybe it never comes but I just see a game where the D holds and too many pucks find the net. Kind of like Game 2 in SJ, or the road games against Vancouver. You can't tell me we can blow those two teams out but cant blow out Philly?

Just curious to see what people's thoughts were. I am not sure why I am so apathetic about this team, but for whatever reason it just doesn't interest me in the least. The only thing that interests me is how Castro and now Cashner do. Anyways, to the question at hand: If the Cubs could have a Marlins like firesale, trading away basically every asset on the team, throw away a couple of seasons, lower payroll dramatically, would you accept that? Obviously you aren't going to get great value for a ton of them. Soriano you'd have to eat a lot of money and take back almost nothing, whatever. It's impossible to do a true Marlins freestyle, because unlike the Marlins, we don't have good young players that don't make a ridiculous amount of money. But the concept of stripping the team bare, and starting all over building it again intregues me. Assume that all NTC clauses were waived, because it'd be impossilbe to do this otherwise since half the team has them. Also, you can't assume that Hendry won't be the one rebuilding this team, otherwise it would just make your choice too easy. So basically the team is stripped bare, the payroll goes down to around $60 million (probably about as low as it can go with all the crazy money eating we'd have to do), build the team around prospects and cheap stopgaps. And then once most of those big contracts slowly come off and we figure out which prospects are here to stay (lets say after 2012), Ricketts then allows the payroll to slowly (or quickly, whatever) build back up to $130 million range. I dunno, is that completely crazy? I know it would never ever happen with this team because of a number of reasons, but it would make us so much more exciting to follow IMO. For the past 2 years we've been stuck with no room to make any trades, both monetarily and on the field with almost every position locked in by a big contract with NTC. I would love to have the excitement of throwing a bunch of new pieces together and seeing if they mesh. If anyone has any suggestions about how an imaginary firesale would look, I'd love to see that too, in terms of how the team would look after it is done.

Lost somewhere in this thread, I made a throwaway comment just before the San Jose series, in my nervous state, joking that the Hawks can just go 8-0 if they want to and finish this off, never for a second thinking they would even come close to sweeping the Sharks, much less them and the Flyers for 8 in a row. Well they've started out 6-0 since then... Another random thing to point out. For the Hawks to lose this series, they'd have to lose as many games out of the next 5, as they have all postseason in 18 games so far. They'd have to lose 4 times as many games as they have in the last 11 games. It's not impossible, but it's getting less likely with each win. Don't want to sound too cocky though.

Hawks are 7-1 on the road in the playoffs, Flyers are 7-1 at home in the playoffs...something has to give.

But the thing is the minitron at Wrigley has all those things except OPS. They have those weird trivia things like I remember once seeing something like "Mark DeRosa has the highest BA in MLB at home in month of May (.389)." The only difference is it can't show that, and the triple crown stats, and the linescore, and both team's lineups at the same time on that board. It doesn't bother me though.

They won't beat Philly twice in a row in their building. This series is definitely coming back to Chicago. The Blackhawks haven't lost a road playoff game since Game 3 vs. Nashville. I would say at least 5 of their top 6 or 7 games these playoffs have been on the road. . I think he was trying to reverse jinx the Hawks. But your point about the road games is spot on. I feel a lot more relaxed going into game 3. Not that we're guaranteed to win it, but the pressure is all on the Flyers to win these 2 games.

I didn't even realize/read that Pronger was having an animated discussion with the refs after last night's game. What could he possibly be bitching about? Hey we need a bigger penalty disparity than 8-4 after 2 games. You need to keep missing our blatent penalties and call even more on them.

I'm not sure what happened in the actual game, but regarding the incident at the end of the game, I don't think he was picking on Eager specifically. I think he was trying to annoy the Hawks and Eager was the one that came over and challenged him. Pronger is such a prick, but it's all by design. I almost respect him for that, but that doesn't mean I like him.