UMFan83

I have no problem with wearing shirts that mock the opponent. But the rest of that, yeah. I just find it odd that you refer to the shirt as racist in the thread title, and then you ask if you are allowed to wear it. So you want to see if you can wear a racist shirt at Wrigley?

Posting so Keener can't delete his quadruple post.

I don't know any Philly fans personally, but this description definitely fits the ones I've come across online. blackhawk fans are probably not in a great position to talk about not paying attention until their team is good. Having the worst ownership in professional sports had a lot more to do with the not paying attention than the team being good. That's a good way to irk a Blackhawks fan. It's quite an ignorant statement to make without really knowing the uniqueness of the situation. I'm sure other team's fans feel the same way when their fans are called bandwagoners, but whatever I'm just telling you how it is from this side. And I'm not even saying I'm included in that group. You read my posts from 3 years ago and I readily admit I didn't watch very much of the Hawks a few years ago. I watched them all the time in the mid-90s, followed them through the 2000's but not very closely (part of that had to do with my moving to New England, I sort of had my own rebonding with my childhood teams at different times between the Cubs, Bears, Bulls). Everytime I tried to get back into the Blackhawks, I just couldnt stomach it. All I read about is beloved players leaving, bridges being burned, ticket prices rising while payroll was declining. I kept hearing about how they don't need to keep Amonte, we have Eric Daze now, or Alexi Zhamnov, or Tuomo Ruutu. After awhile, it made sense that their home games weren't on TV, they were unwatchable. Going to a Hawks game was seriously like going to a morgue. Yep, those are the jerseys that you saw growing up, it is nice to see them, but these Hawks are dead. I don't think anyone, whether it be the die hard fans, the fans that care about the team but aren't diehards, the casual fans, the media who ignored the team, etc wanted the Hawks to die. But at that point it was like "maybe its the best for everyone involved". As painful as it was, many people almost wanted to see the Blackhawks just end their misery and just die, so they could be remembered for what they were and not their current incarnation. Horrible sappy analogy, but the Hawks fan base was basically like a fire. At its peak it was mighty and powerful, but it was left unattened to and slowly died, until it was just a bunch of little flickers coming from the ashes. When Bill Wirtz died, and Rocky and McCub took over, it was basically like putting 2 new logs on, pouring lighter fluid on them, and relighting the flame.

http://deadspin.com/5548316/ozzie-guillen-has-no-sympathy-for-clevelanders http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/11/2010/05/500x_105879629.jpg http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/11/2010/05/500x_105878667.jpg

Absolutely I will. I love watching the World Cup.

Not a Bulls fan, Super Bowl XX was on my fourth birthday, Hull's title was before I was born, and WTH is Tampa Bay doing in there? I thought your post theme was "this is how things end for Chicago teams", so my response was "it doesn't always end that way". The Rays I put in there as a joke...it's them celebrating their ALDS victory over the White Sox.

Pierre LeBrun on the SCF (from a chat):

Buccigross picked the Flyers because his preseason Stanley Cup prediction was Flyers over Blackhawks and he wants to be right. He made that guess before the playoffs started? Heckuva guess just to get the teams right. I'm confused though. He picked Boston over Philly in round 2. No he made that pick back in September, before the season started. Which is actually less amazing just because the Flyers were supposed to be pretty good coming into the season.

Whats wrong with this Kyle?

Buccigross picked the Flyers because his preseason Stanley Cup prediction was Flyers over Blackhawks and he wants to be right.

At 35/1 I'm almost willing to just assume the risk that Toews will be hurt/ineffective and Hossa will be the best player on the team. NOT THAT I'M HOPING FOR THAT Yeah but again the Conn Smythe is MVP of the playoffs as a whole. If Toews was injured or ineffective, I think Niemi, Kane, Byfuglien, and Keith would be ahead of Hossa starting this series, with Sharp and Versteeg probably being in the same realm. I'm sure performance in the SCF is given higher regard than any of the other rounds, but not enough to suggest Hossa could jump over all those guys unless he had like 7 goals and 5 assists and pretty much willed the Hawks to victory in a couple of games. If Toews is injured to the point where he's no longer favorite, Niemi slumps, Buff diappears, I think it would be between Kane (who was quiet on the score sheet vs. SJ but solid in the first 2 rounds) and Kieth.

According to Weather.com, the average high in East Rutherford, NJ on February 3rd historically is 37 degrees. The average low is 22 degrees. The max high recorded is 56 degrees, and the max low is 1 degree. So if your really lucky, you might get 47/32 or something on that day. If you are unlucky, you might get 24/12 or something.

Not sure if you are joking, but Delaware is right next to Philly, and Wilmington (Delaware's biggest city) is pretty much a suburb of Philly.

I think those stupid groups from Iowa are more willing to research tickets ahead of time on stubhub, craigslist and ebay before buying them on gameday. And those prices are closer in line with full retail as opposed to heavily marked up. Are you trying to tell me they use computers in Iowa now?

They'd average a profit of like $1.25 a ticket in that instance, that's not the most worthwhile use of time. No but big time scalpers sell in high volume and usually sell Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks, concerts, etc in addition to Cubs (although Cubs sales probably bring the most income). It would certainly be a down year, but considering the team is actively trying to win, they know its in their best interests to keep buying Cubs tickets to sell. If they get another year like 2008, they hit the jackpot.

Someone is always going to scalp tickets if they are in demand. Even if the secondary market has dried up so far this season, they will definitely be making their money back in the summer preying on ignorant groups of people from Iowa who assume that every Cubs game is sold out and they come prepared to pay the scalper double face value to enter Wrigley. This is especially true on weekends. Just a rough estimate but if they sell 33% of their tickets for 150% of face, and the other 66% they sell for 80% face value, they are close to profit territory.

Those monthly splits are a little misleading because he went into May red hot and then really cooled off after 5-6 games in May. First 5 games of May: .438/.571/.813/1.384, 7-16, 4 XBH, 3 2B, 1 HR, 3 RBI, 5 BB, 4 R, 1 K, 0 GIDP Last 14 games of May: .081/.244/.081/.326, 3-37, 0 XBH, 0 RBI, 8 BB (nice!), 2 R, 14 K, 3 GIDP

I'm sure plenty of "warm weather" teams that advanced to the Super Bowl took advantage of the nice SB conditions. It would be nice to see a team like the Bears grind out a NFC Championship and get rewarded with a Super Bowl in 20 degree temps and snow showers.

Yeah I heard that on the radio. I'd definitely consider attending on a potential clinch night, as long as they sell beer :)

I don't think the Sharks outplayed the Hawks by a "pretty good margin" in game 1. I would say it was a slight advantage to the Sharks, but even that is because of a 5-0 disparity in penalties. According to the CORSI ratings, the Blackhawks actually outplayed the Sharks by a good amount at even strength, but I don't think we should rely on that statistic alone to tell the whole story. (CORSI is really just +/- rating but with shots taken (not SOG) when a player is on ice. Seems simplistic, but apparently it's a good tool for analyzing who was controling the flow of the game). Back to my argument, there were definitely big chunks where the Sharks had taken over play, were putting a flurry of shots on Niemi and winning puck battles. But there were also sizable moments when the Hawks were doing that as well, just slightly more for SJ.

Statistically I think he was more valuable in 2007.

Wow that was an awful beginning to "take me out to the ballgame". Lee Smith looked like he had no idea what to do so he started mumbling and looking over at Len.

Same reason game threads on NSBB are only 3 pages, when they used to be 30 pages every game back in the day. The interest in the team is dipping a bit. But also, that 93% number will spike after Memorial Day. The Cubs basically sell out every home game between Memorial Day and Labor Day in February.

Yeah I don't mind it being in a cold weather city, as long as it's not every year. I wonder if this is a one time thing or if it opens the door for cities like Chicago, Denver, Washington and Philly to host the SB. My guess is it's a one time very rare thing and I don't expect any of those cities except maybe DC to be hosting one.

I don't think there is a huge difference in the defenses that both teams played. I will say that NJ and Boston are probably the 2 best D teams either team faced, but lets rank all the opponents the 2 teams have faced: New Jersey - 191 GA Boston - 200 GA San Jose - 215 GA Vancouver - 222 GA Montreal - 223 GA Nashville - 225 GA Average GA for Philly teams: 202 GA Average GA for Chicago teams: 221 GA Difference between best and worst (NJ-Nash) 34 GA Now lets look at goals scored: Vancouver - 272 GF San Jose - 264 GF Nashville - 225 GF New Jersey - 222 GF Montreal - 217 GF Boston - 206 GF Average GF for Philly teams: 215 GF Average GF for Chicago teams: 254 GF Difference between best and worst (Van-Bos): 66 GF Average goal differential for Philly teams: +8 Average goal differential for Chicago teams: +33 If you look at just GA, yes the EC opponents of the Flyers allowed less goals. But when you consider that the WC is just a higher scoring conference in general, it makes sense that the EC opponents have a lower GA. Anyways, I don't think you are arguing that the Flyers opponents are better than the Hawks opponents, I just started typing out a response and turned it into a general look at the quality of competition for both sides.