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The Official 2012 NHL offseason thread

EagerBeaver

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Jul 11, 2003
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I have been told that if the lockout continues the only pro hockey we will be seeing in Montreal's Bell Center is the Hamilton Bulldogs, Montreal's minor league affiliate.

Has anyone seen the Bulldogs or know anything about their roster? Are there any NHL players in waiting on this team?

By the ways, last time I checked, Hamilton is in Ontario. Will all their home games be played in Montreal, or just a few to tantalize the Montreal fans?
 

lgna69xxx

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Oct 3, 2008
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Several NHL teams are sending players to the AHL while the lockout is on going. Have not heard but likely just a few games of the Bulldogs will be played at Le Centre Bell like every season. Hopefully this lockout wont last all season and ends soon. Seems weird not being exctited for the season to start on this Oct 1 date. :(
 

Doc Holliday

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"Daly said league has now lost, with cancellation of pre and regular-season games, about $240 million. Amazing how NHL owners lock out players and Daly keeps publicly complaining about how much revenue NHL is losing."-------Allan Walsh
 

Gentle

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Dec 1, 2011
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How some hockey fans could suffer psychological symptoms due to lockout
http://www.thestar.com/sports/hocke...-suffer-psychological-symptoms-due-to-lockout

Loosing that team for protracted periods of time, Wann says, can cause intense emotional and psychological distress"
“It’s going to be tough on them, they’re going to have to figure out not just what to do with their extra time (but) what to do to fill that void in their lives,” he says.


So that's what it is ?!! :D
 

Doc Holliday

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"Jeremy Jacobs' net worth $2.7 Billion according to Forbes. Perhaps B's owner can explain why he needs to put more of fans' $ in his pockets."--------Larry Brooks
 

lgna69xxx

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Oct 3, 2008
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The Official NHL LOCKOUT Song!

She even "creams" on Dion's face! HAHAHAHA great song! :lol::lol::lol:

[video=youtube;T-MftkeLnJE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-MftkeLnJE[/video]
 

Gentle

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Dec 1, 2011
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Now that I'm back at following the NFL (I opt out 3 years ago) I won't be watching much hockey when and if it comes back until the playoffs.

1-It's my way to say my own 'F*ck U' for this season to both owners and players.
2-Having some good bets going on NFL, I sure ain't gonna stop following it and my time is money so I won't have much free time for hockey.
3-I will certainly boycott going to see the NHL (even the Habs) since they didn't f* in care at us fans.
4-Just like they did, my intentions will be to make more money bfore I come back next year.

And finally 5-Somehow I just realised a month ago, that I would easily enjoy over a dozen more SPs just by saying a big F*ck U to the BELL Center this year.

Anyway, what was the sense of going to see every games between Habs and Leafs when I know Leafs would get whooped and stay out the playoffs anyway... Hell even with the Habs out last year, they couldn't even make it so it's done. Aint no sense at going to see them (Leafs) play. Might as well just go see a Habs practice in Brossard which is quite boring. :eyebrows:
 

Doc Holliday

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Greg Zaun said the other day that Donald Fehr never lost a single battle while head of the MLB Players Association. He added that losing this current battle with the NHL would harm his legacy, something he won't allow to happen. He also added that Donald Fehr didn't come out of retirement to lose.

I'm starting to wonder if 2014 isn't the next time we'll see NHL hockey.

By the way, i'm backing the players 100% in this battle. It's not a player's strike, it's a lockout imposed by the owners. Bettman and the owners bragged all season long that the NHL was doing great, that profits were at an all-time high, blah-blah-blah. Teams signed players to $100 million contracts, Bettman went out of his way on more than one occasion to keep the Coyotes in the desert when it's obvious to anyone with a brain that hockey will never work in that area, and he refused to admit that the NHL made mistakes by granting franchises to non-hockey markets like Tampa & Miami, among other places. Now those franchises are struggling to stay afloart, and the NHL wants the players to take care of that problem.

After the last lockout where a hard salary cap was imposed, Bettman & the owners got everything they wanted & they even managed to bust the NHLPA. They bragged that the collective bargaining agreement that they had just ratified would be lockout-free, and that it was great for hockey. So now, after record-profits, they decide they still haven't earned enough & want more??

F#*# Y#&# BETTMAN & THE REST OF THE NHL OWNERS!!!!!!!!!!
 

lgna69xxx

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Oct 3, 2008
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Having worked for others in the past like most everyone and also being a business owner i see both sides clearly and both need to give a little and both need to stop being so greedy and compromise. At first the offer the owners laid out was a joke, but since then they have proposed a much more fair offer and now it is time for the players side to give a little and get this thing done and let the puck drop. Really missing the NHL right now and it sucks!
 

joelcairo

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Jul 26, 2005
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By the way, i'm backing the players 100% in this battle. It's not a player's strike, it's a lockout imposed by the owners. Bettman and the owners bragged all season long that the NHL was doing great, that profits were at an all-time high, blah-blah-blah. Teams signed players to $100 million contracts, Bettman went out of his way on more than one occasion to keep the Coyotes in the desert when it's obvious to anyone with a brain that hockey will never work in that area, and he refused to admit that the NHL made mistakes by granting franchises to non-hockey markets like Tampa & Miami, among other places. Now those franchises are struggling to stay afloart, and the NHL wants the players to take care of that problem.

After the last lockout where a hard salary cap was imposed, Bettman & the owners got everything they wanted & they even managed to bust the NHLPA. They bragged that the collective bargaining agreement that they had just ratified would be lockout-free, and that it was great for hockey. So now, after record-profits, they decide they still haven't earned enough & want more??

[/B]

100% correct Doctor. (The owners are probably Romney supporters. Now that that loser is gone, let's hope the owners lose here also!)
 

Gentle

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http://www.thestar.com/sports/leafs/article/1290177--fan-pays-5-300-for-maple-leaf-gardens-toilet

Leafs fan pays $5,300 for toilet

An Ontario lawyer is now the proud owner of a toilet from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ former dressing room.

Jim Vigmond, of Barrie, Ont., bought the unusual item for $5,300 at auction after the piece he really wanted — the 1967 Stanley Cup banner — got too expensive. The toilet was offered up along with more than 100 items from Maple Leaf Gardens, which was home to the NHL team until 1999.

Fifty-five-year-old Vigmond says his friends were skeptical about the purchase. But the long-time Leafs fan says the item was just too good to pass up.

Vigmond says he was actually willing to spend up to $10,000 on the throne.

“They thought I had money to burn, and surely there was something that I could have better spent my money on,” he said.

“They’ve got a point. But . . . it’s a part of an icon. I just thought . . . what a rare piece and just think of all of the people that have spent time contemplating in that dressing room what lies ahead of them.”

Vigmond plans to put the toilet in his sports memorabilia room, where he says he wants to sit on it, light up a Cuban cigar, open a bottle of 30-year-old single malt and, hopefully, watch a Leafs game sometime soon.

-------------------------

When you're that desperate...
No further comment !
 

joelcairo

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Jul 26, 2005
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An Ontario lawyer is now the proud owner of a toilet from the Toronto Maple Leafs’ former dressing room.

Jim Vigmond, of Barrie, Ont., bought the unusual item for $5,300 at auction.

Sincere congratulations to Mr. Vigmond on his purchase of the PERFECT symbol of the Toronto Maple Leaf franchise.
 

Doc Holliday

Staying hard
Sep 27, 2003
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Biggest market teams strangely have little say over lockout

(New York Post) It's hard to believe the owners of the Maple Leafs, who stand to lose at least $100 million if the season is flushed, will stand by silently as the league seeks nothing less than unconditional surrender from the players. It is impossible to believe the owners of the Canadiens, Canucks, Flyers, Red Wings, Penguins and Blackhawks will continue to cede authority.

Perhaps no one will listen to James Dolan of the Rangers -- who stands to lose at least $60 million if the puck isn't dropped just as his team would be denied its shot at the Cup -- just as no one listened to him a few years ago when he petitioned the board to dismiss Gary Bettman, but silence from the Blueshirts' CEO simply would be unacceptable.

Wouldn't it be grand, by the way, if Jeremy Jacobs, the militant owner of the Bruins who holds inexplicable sway over the board and Bettman, would explain to the fans and season subscribers in Boston why he is arguing against his team's own self-interests? Understand this: Big market owners who continue to support the hardline as espoused by Bettman, Jacobs and Proskauer Rose counsel Bob Batterman are placing their own narrow interests ahead of their team's and their fans'. Big market owners who allow themselves to be gagged are betraying the customers who foot the bills.

http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_...-teams-strangely-have-little-say-over-lockout
 

Doc Holliday

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Sep 27, 2003
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In case you missed it, there was a classic shouting match between panelists Doug Maclean & Nick Kypreos on Sportsnet's Hockey Central at Noon yesterday in regards to the current lockout:

Mac vs. Kyper
 

Doc Holliday

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Told to shut up or not, Jets have little say in NHL lockout

by Ted Wyman, QMI Agency

WINNIPEG - Maybe the governors of the Winnipeg Jets were told to go sit at the kids’ table while the big boys talk.

Maybe it never happened.

Regardless of whether anyone reprimanded a Jets governor for allegedly voicing moderate opposition to the lockout, it’s obvious the NHL’s newest team has little say in the current labour negotiations.

A report out of Boston Wednesday, by Bruins insider Joe Haggerty of Comcast Sportsnet New England, said Bruins owner Jeremy Jacobs admonished a Jets governor, not principal owner Mark Chipman, in a recent meeting for saying the franchise “was opposed to engaging in a long, bloody lockout sure to stymie their franchise’s momentum and hurt the game of hockey.”

At that point Jacobs, considered one of the owners’ driving forces behind the lockout, “answered by reprimanding the Winnipeg representative as one of the ‘new kids on the block’ and informed him that he would know when he was allowed to speak in the NHL boardroom.”

The reaction was fast and furious from an NHL ownership group that is quick to crush any suggestion of dissent in the ranks.

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly, said this: “Total fantasy. Didn’t happen.”

Another independent source who was in the meeting concurred.

Then the most unusual thing happened: Chipman, who hasn’t said a word under a league-wide gag order on owners during the lockout, put out a statement.

“I was disappointed to learn today of a report which claimed an exchange took place between an alternate governor of the Winnipeg Jets and Jeremy Jacobs of the Boston Bruins at a recent NHL Board of Governors meeting. I was present throughout all BOG proceedings and can categorically state that no such exchange between Mr. Jacobs and either one of our alternate governors — Patrick Phillips or Kevin Cheveldayoff — ever took place. Any suggestion otherwise is completely false.”

Like I said, maybe it didn’t happen, but the NHL’s urgency to nip it in the bud is certainly curious.

You get the feeling the Jets are having their strings pulled on this one, just as they have been told in not so many words to stay in the background of lockout talks.

Those who follow the situation closely know the NHL governors are ruled by commissioner Gary Bettman and a couple of heavyweights, most notably Jacobs, and they are the ones who are pushing the lockout agenda.

The moderate voices and even the moderately dissenting ones might as well be lepers.

Heaven forbid anyone express a concern that this asinine lockout might be affecting some franchises adversely.

If the Winnipeg Jets governors, just a year removed from spending $170 million (including a $60 million relocation fee that went to the other owners), have reservations about a lockout killing their momentum and potentially setting them on a path to ruin, they better damn well keep it to themselves.

At least that’s how the old boys on the NHL Board of Bullies would have it.

By most accounts, the Jets governors have been nothing but good partners, quietly going along with a lockout that must have them seething on the inside (note Wednesday’s “all-is-rosy” press statement). The long-term ramifications of a favourable Collective Bargaining Agreement would be to their benefit, no doubt, but the timing is atrocious.

They would have every right to speak out about the pitfalls of a labour war coming just a year after they finally got a chance to purchase a team and move it to Winnipeg.

This is a new NHL member that spent years playing by Bettman’s rules in order to pony up millions to rescue a doomed franchise and move it to a market with a chance of success.

True North deserves to have a say.

The Jets were extremely successful in their return to Winnipeg, selling out every game and becoming a top revenue generator in terms of merchandise.

When Forbes released its NHL franchise values report Wednesday, it pegged the Jets at about $200 million, which is 22% more than what the team was worth in Atlanta.

Despite that, Jets ownership has been forced to go along with the rest of the league in a lockout that is hurting their momentum and putting a sour taste back into the mouths of fans who went 15 years without a team before the Jets finally returned last season.

This is a market that has endured too much suffering because of the NHL. Now, just when the tide has turned and pain is being replaced by euphoria, something else comes along to beat the hockey fans back down again.

No doubt the Jets and their fans are not bigger than the game and that’s why you can be sure Chipman continues to play by the rules.

But if anyone has a right to be upset, it’s him.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/Winnipeg/2012/11/28/20392276.html

I'm starting to believe that many of the bullies (e.g. Jeremy Jacobs of the Bruins) don't give a shit about the damage currently being done to the game of hockey & the possible long-term devastation being caused to other franchises. How long will the Sniders, Dolans, Tanenbaums, Lemieux & Molsons be able to remain quiet without voicing their obvious displeasure with the current situation?
 

Doc Holliday

Staying hard
Sep 27, 2003
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Minnesota Wild goalie diagnosed with MS

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Minnesota Wild goalie Josh Harding has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

The Wild confirmed Thursday that Harding is undergoing treatment for the disease, which attacks the body's immune system and affects the central nervous system. The Star Tribune first reported the news.

General manager Chuck Fletcher said he knows the "competitive fire" Harding has used in his hockey career will help him fight this challenge.

MS symptoms can include problems with balance, vision and fatigue. The 28-year-old Harding told the Star Tribune he plans to keep playing. Diagnosed two months ago, Harding resumed on-ice workouts two weeks ago without trouble.

Harding signed a three-year, $5.7 million contract this summer. He played in a career-high 34 games last season.

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/8690231/josh-harding-minnesota-wild-diagnosed-multiple-sclerosis

I feel for the poor guy. Even though he wants to continue playing, my guess is that his professional career is likely over. Everytime he'll let in a bad goal, people will blame it on his illness. No other team will want him. Very sad.
 
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