NHL 15-16: wife-beaters, adulterers, cokeheads, rapists, pill-poppers, AND METHODISTS

[KittSmith_95]

Good for the NHL.

I'm glad they had the balls not pull a Rory Fitzpatrick again.

[Geoff]

19 hours ago, the admiral said:

Sounds like the NHLPA filed a grievance, which they had every right to do. The NHL should learn their lesson and allow people to embarrass them.

But is it really people embarrassing them if they just let the league trip over itself. I don't necessarily think the motivation was, "let's embarrass the league," as much as it was, "hey, let's have fun with this!"

The NHL, which still tries to emulate the No Fun part of the NFL sometimes, said, "STOP IT, YOU DAMN KIDS!" It then blew up in their faces.

[The_Admiral]

2 hours ago, Geoff said:

I don't necessarily think the motivation was, "let's embarrass the league," as much as it was, "hey, let's have fun with this!"

No, I'm pretty sure that was the motivation: people don't like the All-Star Game, people like John Scott even less, the object was to vote the least talented NHLer into an exhibition that wastes everyone's time. (Ask yourself: do you like the All-Star Game? Do you like John Scott? I think this stunt was stupid and I would still answer 'no' to both.) People were out to clown the NHL because clowning the NHL is fun. Just don't act surprised when the NHL doesn't let itself be clowned.

 

You catch Brian McGrattan getting ktfo in a Gulls game last night? Tough luck; if he had stayed in the show, maybe everyone would have hated him enough to vote him into the All-Star Game.

[RyanB06]

This All-Star Game thing should be an addendum to Only In The GD NHL. You can't make this stuff up if you tried.

BTW, has Michel Therrien been fired yet? Asking for a friend.

[Cosmic]

8 hours ago, the admiral said:

No, I'm pretty sure that was the motivation: people don't like the All-Star Game, people like John Scott even less, the object was to vote the least talented NHLer into an exhibition that wastes everyone's time. (Ask yourself: do you like the All-Star Game? Do you like John Scott? I think this stunt was stupid and I would still answer 'no' to both.) People were out to clown the NHL because clowning the NHL is fun. Just don't act surprised when the NHL doesn't let itself be clowned.

The clown is down. The clown is down. The joke was already successful by the time the NHL announced him as the Pacific captain. Orchestrating a trade in an attempt to get him out of the all-star game just made it worse, not better for the NHL. They're so afraid of having John Scott in the game, they'll get him traded even though it's fairly obvious he's not worth trading anything for (already been on waivers a couple of times this year IIRC). They didn't feel like doing anything to prevent this from happening, though.

[T-ROY]

9 hours ago, the admiral said:

You catch Brian McGrattan getting ktfo in a Gulls game last night? Tough luck; if he had stayed in the show, maybe everyone would have hated him enough to vote him into the All-Star Game.

I love how all these analysts and writers are talking about he could have died and how if we keep fighting in the game, someone will eventually get killed. He got KO'ed in a fight, that's nothing major at all, happens to boxers/MMA fighters all the time. But then they bring up how he landed face first onto the ice, which doesn't really make that much of a difference either. You see those Vines of fights in the hood or some :censored: and the got KO'ed onto face first onto concrete, which is a harder surface. Worse that can happen is that you get some broken bones in your face, but the chances of dying from that kind of situation are almost none.

[CS85]

 

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, TRoyConcepts said:

I love how all these analysts and writers are talking about he could have died and how if we keep fighting in the game, someone will eventually get killed. He got KO'ed in a fight, that's nothing major at all, happens to boxers/MMA fighters all the time. But then they bring up how he landed face first onto the ice, which doesn't really make that much of a difference either. You see those Vines of fights in the hood or some and the got KO'ed onto face first onto concrete, which is a harder surface. Worse that can happen is that you get some broken bones in your face, but the chances of dying from that kind of situation are almost none.

The issue was that the San Antonio player landed one hell of a punch, the likes of which we're just not used to seeing in today's mutually assured slapfights. McGrattan was out before he hit the ground, though landing face-first certainly didn't help matters. 

There are lots of ways you can almost die playing hockey; ask Denna Laing or Clint Malarchuk. At this point I don't mind minimizing one way that you can. Fortunately, the issue has been solving itself without the aid of Yahoo columnists gaming a fan poll, as fighting at the NHL level dwindles every year.

[T-ROY]

33 minutes ago, the admiral said:

The issue was that the San Antonio player landed one hell of a punch, the likes of which we're just not used to seeing in today's mutually assured slapfights. McGrattan was out before he hit the ground, though landing face-first certainly didn't help matters. 

There are lots of ways you can almost die playing hockey; ask Denna Laing or Clint Malarchuk. At this point I don't mind minimizing one way that you can. Fortunately, the issue has been solving itself without the aid of Yahoo columnists gaming a fan poll, as fighting at the NHL level dwindles every year.

I was mainly talking about this

[The_Admiral]

I have no issue with the bottom three of those four tweets. Those are all perfectly arguable: fist fights will lead to people getting knocked out in gruesome ways, it's hard to watch and defend, and if we're to believe that players are getting bigger and stronger every year then eventually an enforcer who is bigger or stronger than Kocur or Probert were will really mess someone up if not kill them.

The only tweet there that's remotely interesting to me is the one about the goon squad being a California problem. This surprises me. As I've said before, the real "hockey elitists" aren't cold-weather fans. They're warm-weather fans. They're the real elitists. They're the ones for whom following hockey is a stand against local populist pursuits like unpaid-labor sports or driving cars in circles; they don't have generations of fans who have watched the NHL evolve through its various phases. Detroit venerates Yzerman but also Probert, Fedorov but also McCarty, Gordie Howe's goals but also Gordie Howe's fighting majors. You don't have that aspect of the game in, say, Raleigh, you just have a bunch of guys jerking off over how smart they are, too smart for the barbarism of fighting, most likely. California fans are supposed to be more sophisticated than this, right?

[2001mark]

5 hours ago, CS85 said:

 

I drafted Drouin fairly early this season for fantasy, after the new year I finally cut loose keeping up with all that nonsense.  He had so many stints on the sidelines & all that was being reported was he 'should be back by Friday/should've been back 2 games ago...' 

That's back to back NFL & NHL fantasy busts Graham & Drouin for me now... when I draft Josh Donaldson next, I hope the Jays don't collapse.  

[Cosmic]

10 hours ago, CS85 said:

 

Yikes. Has there been any player/agent to team relationship as bad as this one in recent memory? I'm sure there are some players who have desperately wanted out, but I can't recall anyone refusing to play AND to air all the dirty laundry in public. Who would trade for Drouin after all this?

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, Cosmic said:

Has there been any player/agent to team relationship as bad as this one in recent memory?

Steve Yzerman and Martin St. Louis

[monkeypower]

So the Ducks traded Sekac to the Hawks for Garbutt.

I mean Sekac is a lot of nothing, but Garbutt?

[CS85]

5 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

So the Ducks traded Sekac to the Hawks for Garbutt.

I mean Sekac is a lot of nothing, but Garbutt?

He plays hockey, in a sense.

[monkeypower]

Well Garbutt has history with the Ducks from when he was in Dallas. Now he has to walk into the Ducks locker room be all like "Hey Perry, remember the time I speared you?"

[CS85]

http://imgur.com/a/ZCheZ

 

So this is great.  Really great stuff.  The inevitable 30 For 30 gets more depressing material to work with.

[FGM13]

Let's go burn down Patty Kane's house, shall we?

[Cosmic]

That's horrible... but what do you do with it? No name, no police involvement, no lawsuit. Way too long ago to get any kind of evidence from the bar. Someone could have pretty easily gone far back on Twitter to find a time he was sighted out in public, copy and paste from some kind of rape fantasy. I'm pretty sure that Pat Kane is some level of scum, but I can't condemn him from this. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if a Cosby-like stream of accusers come forward.

The only thing this changes is it will cause a lot of awkward silences anytime someone says he has "great hands".

[The_Admiral]

Seems to have been debunked based on the fact that the Saturday night Kings game is always the last night of the circus trip and the Hawks are on a charter getting the hell home as soon as possible. Wouldn't have been enough time for Kane to go to "a popular bar" and stroll into a women's bathroom without reproach.