UMFan83

Man, in my mind I thought Manitoba was where Saskatchewan was and vice versa. I thought Winnipeg was over the Dakotas and still relatively close to Calgary and Edmonton, but Calgary is actually about as close to Winnipeg as Chicago is (~850 miles), and 450 miles from the next closest team, Minneapolis. That said in today's world, it doesn't matter as much as it used to. kujay, why do you want a team in Hartford again? It was one of the worst drawing teams in the NHL back in the early 90's and is within 100 miles of 4 other teams.

Yeah of course the rabid fan base totally helps, but if you are a major Winnipeg or Canadian corporation, how much money are you going to invest to advertise when your reach is only 700k people? I'm not saying it can't work. I believe it can. I'm just saying that this is the real major hurdle that keeps cities like Winnipeg from getting NHL teams in the past. That is why, with half of Canada starving for a pro team near by, the most viable option for years has been to have a team play 50 miles from Toronto.

Which equals 700,000 rabid hockey fans. And I 100% agree with UM. More Canadian teams is good for the NHL. Yes, there are presumably 100% rabid fans, but it's still an extremely small metro area to support a team. People have talked about the struggles that Edmonton and Calgary have had keeping up with the big boys, and Winnipeg is considerably smaller than both of those cities, and not growing nearly as fast. It's also completely isolated, nowhere near the three BC teams, and more than 450 miles from Minneapolis. I am a big fan of NHL teams being in Canada, and I always enjoy seeing Canadian teams in the playoffs. But Winnipeg seems like a difficult place to put a team right now. I understand what you're saying, but population isn't the key. Look at Atlanta or Miami. Millions of people, and nobody there gives a [expletive] about hockey. I'll bet if you looked at the actual potential fan bases for hockey in those cities (and admittedly I have no idea how you would calculate that), it would be less than 700,000. In today's professional sports, it's not necessarily the number of rabid fans as much as it is the number of corporate businesses that are local and willing to support said team with advertising, sponsorships and purchases of luxury boxes. That's where the money is, and that's what any market needs to have it's team survive there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_based_in_Winnipeg ^ That is what is going to likely determine Winnipeg's viability more than how many rabid hockey fans they have.

They booed after he stood around watching the ball that allowed Hanley to go to 2nd. I don't see anything pathetic about it. It wasn't a misplay. It was laziness. I realize that but it's his first ever game at home, and he's supposed to be a highly touted prospect, and you are already booing him? Freddie Bynum making 4 errors in 3 innings back in 2006 didn't get as bad of boos as I heard on Sportsnight last night. I don't think it was pure laziness either. I think he was dropping his head in disgust for his own play. Not saying its right because you should always be attentive and its never ok for Hanley to take 2nd. But I just feel like we are booing way too early and often these days and often times it makes us look stupid. They didn't boo him for making an error, they booed him when he acted like a lazy idiot and gave up a base. There's nothing stupid about booing that play. It was really bad. I don't think he was being lazy, just inattentive. No excuse for it, but he's a young player that got down on himself for having an awful game and made a stupid play. I don't think he was like 'eh I'm going to take my time because nothing bad will happen", it was more like 'dammit why did I do that again, I am playing so poorly, why are they booi- oh crap' Doesn't make it ok IMO to boo him in his first game at home. I mean whatever if you want to boo fine, but why do we have to alienate all of our players from the fans? He knows he made a bad play, Lou and/or his teammates are going to talk to him about it. The worst thing to do is mess with his confidence and have him stressing that he's going to be booed like crazy if he messes up. Agree to disagree.

I'm pro-American anti-Canada in most aspects (lol), but with regards to the NHL getting more teams in Canada, I am all for it. I think they deserve more than the 6 they have right now, and I always liked Winnipeg as an NHL city.

They booed after he stood around watching the ball that allowed Hanley to go to 2nd. I don't see anything pathetic about it. It wasn't a misplay. It was laziness. I realize that but it's his first ever game at home, and he's supposed to be a highly touted prospect, and you are already booing him? Freddie Bynum making 4 errors in 3 innings back in 2006 didn't get as bad of boos as I heard on Sportsnight last night. I don't think it was pure laziness either. I think he was dropping his head in disgust for his own play. Not saying its right because you should always be attentive and its never ok for Hanley to take 2nd. But I just feel like we are booing way too early and often these days and often times it makes us look stupid.

Hope he's OK. It's one of those things that evoke immediate empathy, even from fans of the opposition :) I wouldn't be heartbroken if he doesn't play, but yeah, I hope the dude's business is in order. I agree that the first goal in this one will be huge. I don't see the Hawks as a particularly fragile team, and I don't think the intensity of playing this game on the road will intimidate them. But I'd still breathe a lot easier if they get that first goal. They have showed a lot more resiliency in the playoffs but this is still the team that would have a 3-0 lead in a game and give up a goal and watch the floodgates open.

Hope he's OK. It's one of those things that evoke immediate empathy, even from fans of the opposition :) OK enough to not be in pain, but not ok enough to play :)

I am reading the game story for tonights game, and it talks quite a bit about booing Castro after his errors tonight. Is this true? If so that is the most pathetic thing I've ever heard about our fans in my life. Booing a rookie playing his 4th game in the bigs? Geez there are a lot better targets for booing than Starlin Castro.

1) Signing with the Cubs 2) Staying at Soriano's place last night 3) Asking Lou if he should bunt in the 6th inning of tonight's game

What? It's not like he'd be banished there forever. He's not some fragile little flower blissfully unaware of how bad he is this season. You can't keep a hitter THAT bad in the middle of your lineup. Why not? Does it even really matter? I just think 6 weeks is way too early to be dropping him that far in the lineup. Hit him 6th fine, but 8th is just ridiculous IMO. Edit: Although I guess I remember Torre doing that to ARod in a playoff game once, so maybe I'm overreacting. My point is that it's generally an overreaction. I agree it's testing my patience for him to slump this wrong, but he's obviously got a track record that suggests he'll never snap out of it. It's not like he just randomly got horrible over the offseason. He's too young to be declining at a rapid pace, so he's either hurt or he's in a really bad slump that he'll likely be out of soon.

Too much overreaction. Ramirez 8th? What a slap in the face to probably our best overall hitter over the last 6 years. And now he has 5-6 bad weeks and he hits 8th or is benched? He's too young to be finished so all you can do is wait for him to snap out of it and ask him if he's hurt for some reason. Also, as some have said, Lou doesn't need to get fired. There is no point. I agree he's making bad decisions, and I too am sick of his "what can i do?"/"go ask the hitters" responses in every postgame loss. But firing him accomplishes nothing. This team isn't good enough where shaking up the team with a new manager is going to do anything. Let him ride out the season, and send him of in the sunset amicably.

You are beating a dead horse, but it's the least of our worries right now. Although it's slipped a bit in the last 10 days or so, our rotation is still the strongest and most consistent thing on our team.

I'd love a Boston/Montreal ECF. Those 2 teams hate each other. I think if Pittsburgh is knocked out it's safe to say the Stanley Cup will goto either San Jose, Chicago or Vancouver.

I didn't watch the game, why would we be bringing someone up?

He's going downhill.

Actually speculation is that if the Hawks advance to play San Jose (and reallly we don't care about Vancouver if they win) this is what potential dates look like: Thursday: Cannot be Thursday because there is a concert scheduled at HP Pavillion, plus there is a potential Game 7 to get to WCF for Hawks Friday: Can be Friday but only IF the Hawks win on Tuesday to advance, and the BOS/PHI series finishes before game 7 (BOS up 3-1 with game 5 tonight, game 6 wednesday and game 7 friday) Saturday: Cannot be Saturday because there is another concert schedule at HP Pavillion (guess their owners assumed another playoff choke) Sunday: Game 1 will be on Sunday if CHI/VAN goes 7 and/or if BOS/PHI goes 7 So to simplify, Game 1 will almost certainly be Friday if the Hawks win Tuesday and Boston wins either game 5 or 6. Otherwise, it won't be until Sunday. What are the Hawks going to do between Tuesday and Sunday if they win Game 6? I'm guessing they will find time for some shirtless limo rides...

Apparently the Hawks had to pack last night to go from Game 6 in Vancouver to San Jose for game 1 and 2 of the WC finals. I guess that makes sense because I expect the start of that series to be on maybe Thursday or Friday if the Hawks were to win game 6.

Yeah but you gotta wonder how much of that is due to small sample size, or if it has to do with playoff pressure, because all across the league the road teams have been winning more than the home teams. That said, part of me finds it hard to believe the Hawks can take all 3 Vancouver games. But I guess when you've already won the first 2 you feel a lot better about your chances for the third.

Weird, I'm the other way around. Well I wouldn't say confident we get by them, but I feel we can skate with San Jose. I'd give it basically 50/50 odds.

Good observation. I was at the game so I didn't notice this but that's interesting because people were remarking in the first few games how close to the net he was playing. Hopefully the Hawks can make the proper adjustments before the next game.

Absolutely. As someone said, watching Dallas hugging/crying with his grandmother after the game (once we found out what happen to the mother) was a great and touching moment. In a humorous side note, I heard that the grandmother was overheard saying 'Stick it, A-Rod'. I thought you were kidding about this but I saw it for myself in an article. Wow.

that was probably before they found out he was born in 1977. Born in 1977 to Mr. and Mrs. Albert Pujols. Actual first player to be born in the 80's and play in the MLB: C.C. Sabathia Wasn't the immortal Todd Van Poppel the first player born in the 70's to play in the MLB?

In all seriousness, I'm not not worried, but I'm not overly worried either. Vancouver is a really good team, and Luongo has stretches where he's a really good goalie. It is just tough to beat this team 4 times in a row. It sucks that Vancouver is now very much alive, but we still have 2 more chances to finish them off. The good thing is the Blackhawks have responded well when their backs were to the wall in the playoffs, so I don't worry too much about pressure effecting them even if they get taken to a 7th game. We have a 3-2 series lead, and if we had lost game 4 and won game 5, no one would obviously be upset, so let's not be upset until we have something to be upset about. BTW, does anyone think the Vancouver Defensemen had a hell of a game tonight? They got their sticks on a lot of passes, and really killed some of the better chances the Hawks had. The good news is I am not worried about them being able to do that 2 more times this series, just as I have to assume that Luongo is not going to be as good as he was tonight.

No sweat guys, we got Prior and Wood going in the next 2 games.