J'adore l'hockey

[SANMAN]

Hockey, that's on ice with sticks right?

[Encino Man]

Watching the Canada vs Switzerland semi final game. I really have no idea what attracts young people to play at this level when it's obvious the 60-70 year old men who make the decisions about hockey don't care about your safety. A Canadian was just boarded - checked from behind head first into the boards and knocked out. The punishement? A 2 minute penalty. There was a player at BU 10-15 years ago who was paralyzed and nearly died after being boarded.

[flipper]

Hockey, that's on ice with sticks right?

Atlanta has an NHL team.

[SANMAN]

They call it that sometimes.

[PVC Barbie]

 

[random axe]

Damn it, I'm sitting in bed eating a big bowl of rice, and now there's rice everywhere.  It's in my ThinkPad's keyboard, even. 

Oy.

[Encino Man]

Ugh. Bloody Americans.

I'm sure it won't even be reported on in your media either!

[random axe]

In our media?  Let me put it this way:  I don't follow hockey, certainly, but I at least scan quite a few different news sources, and I didn't really realize there was any big international hockey anything aside from the Olympics.  So "Canada vs Switzerland semi final game" is kind of a surprise to me.  Interesting enough, but Hockey Mom (aka Chicks With Sticks) probably represents half of my exposure to Canadian hockey.

[First Post]

Hell of a game tho. In the JTV chat people were all "Oh they yanked their goalie, you should never do that, we win" and then the guy pretty much stood on his head. Weird night for the tenders on both sides, but still very entertaining all the way to the end. Vancouver should be interesting!

[Encino Man]

In our media?  Let me put it this way:  I don't follow hockey, certainly, but I at least scan quite a few different news sources, and I didn't really realize there was any big international hockey anything aside from the Olympics.  So "Canada vs Switzerland semi final game" is kind of a surprise to me.  Interesting enough, but Hockey Mom (aka Chicks With Sticks) probably represents half of my exposure to Canadian hockey.

World Juniors happen every year starting Christmas Day running until around now. It's an under-20 tournament. Most of the biggest names in NHL hockey cut their teeth in the big leagues in this tournament. Pretty much all the players from Canada and the US and a lot of the Europeans play in the minor North American leagues and are draft picks by NHL squads. By the time you are playing in the WJC you've pretty much made it.

And, because I doubt you'll hear it anywhere else - the USA won the championship last night, beat Canada 6-5 in overtime.

[Encino Man]

Aaaand the WJC always takes place in Canada. It started as the Canada Cup in the 70s and 80s and has morphed from a select invitational to a relatively large format with European and Asian teams mixed in with Canada and the US.

[random axe]

Most of the biggest names in NHL hockey

[names NHL players he knows]

Bobby Orr

Wayne Gretzky

That guy named Satan



Alas, I'm out.  I'm aware that we beat the Russians in an Olympic game that took place in a stirring film.  When I was a kid, some neighbors of ours were fairly closely related somehow to the owner of the Flyers, but that was before the Rand Wars, and I'm not even objectively sure if he's still alive.


I'd probably watch more hockey except that, as I've said, I can't see the puck on TV, and my feeling is that they have to control the violence.  Not necessarily eliminate it, but control it.  If the fighting isn't allowed, then cut down on it and make the penalties serious.  If the fight's allowed, then fit it into the rules and enforce them.

This may be a basketball prejudice, though.  When you get bent out of shape because a defender got away with tugging on a player's jersey when he was going to the hoop, it's hard to accept a guy getting away with punching another player's helmet right off his head.

[First Post]

Meanwhile you can ask pretty much any Canadian about Paul Henderson and they'll know what's up, even though that was almost forty years ago. Plus I don't think too many American homes are "adopting" junior league players and taking them in like up there, so yeah it's a long way from the kind of acceptance one finds up north.

It got a brief mention somewhere in the middle of Sportscenter, but the yelling-at-each-other afternoon sports shows are all about the Arenas gun thing and the Texas Tech coach Gitmo debacle (the kid's dad is an ESPN analyst so they're on his side. The general public is all "he had it comin', let Pirate Coach do his thing" like Bush apologists. But hey, they loved Bobby Knight out there too).

[random axe]

The Arenas thing is crazy.  The early reports said Crittenton had a gun in his locker, too, and pointed it at Arenas (first? second?), but Crittenton doesn't seem to be in trouble.  If it turned out he didn't have a gun, I haven't seen that yet.  Not that I'm defending Arenas.  I can imagine being a dumbass and bringing unloaded guns from home and dumping them in your locker.  Stupid, but comprehensible.  Pointing them at a teammate in an argument over money is retarded, and Arenas, for all his talent, often seems a tad dumb.


Hockey's at least a more international game.  Basketball's come a long way, but it's not there yet.

[Encino Man]

Hockey's at least a more international game.  Basketball's come a long way, but it's not there yet.

The year they allowed professionals to play Olympic basketball (the year the games were in Barcelona) Charles Barkley was asked why the US team was staying in a 5 star hotel and not in the Athletes' Village and he said that he wasn't there for any Olympic spirit nonsense or to meet people from other countries. He was there to win his Olympic gold medal and go home. I think about the amateurs that have struggled their whole lives for that shot, and then missed it because and they couldn't get enough sponsors. And I think of 'King' Charles and it makes me sick. International basketball DOES have a long way to go before it has any credibility.