Lee.

The only post-coital gift baskets Richards doles out are filled with antibiotics.Or are rapidly confiscated at the Emerson border crossing. Seriously, dude, ask anyone who cross border shops, you go to a busy crossing because those agents are overworked and don't give a :censored: about anything. It's the smaller crossings where you're gonna get sear he'd for attempting a lame joke about pretty much anything. I may or may not be speaking from experience here.

I like it. The world needs more navy and neon.

I gave it two dew claws way up.

Apparently only Vegas and QC submitted bids. Nothing from Hamilton, Toronto, Seattle, Portland, or anyplace else.

There were no luxury seats in the old arena. Just roped off sections of 12 yellow seats that were sold as "club seating." The added sections were weird,in that there were no vertical beams anywhere holding up the upper decks. As a result, everytime the crowd up there got going, it would bounce up and down an inch or two either way. We also had TV's everywhere so we could actually watch the game, since we could only really see 2/3 of the ice at any given time. The Pacific Colosseum in Vancouver is wood construction though. The lower bowl is concrete, I believe, and there are steel girders holding her in place, but the roof and whatnot are all wooden planks. It's acoustically great as a result, and even though it's old, it's still my favourite arena that I've ever attended.

Okay, here we go. The Canadian dollar is around $.80US right now, meaning Canadian teams spend 25% more than US ones do (at least in terms of Canadian $ Income vs US $ Expenditures). Not great, but teams should at the very least have been budgeting for these eventualities. The odd team out when the NHL absorbed the WHA was Winnipeg. Edmonton, Hartford, and Quebec all had NHL calibre arenas at that point, Winnipeg did not. Although it wasn't the smallest of the four markets at that time (actually 2nd largest of the 4 in 1979), it had the smallest building and the least funding, so the NHL would have been very happy at that point being a 20-team league. However, as was mentioned, a potential Molson boycott was being bandied about, and with Molson breweries in most major Canadian cities at that time, as well as Molson being the major beer sponsor of the league at that time, beer money spoke. As a result, Winnipeg was admitted, with a jerry rigged upper deck that had obstructed views and shook like crazy during the playoffs and made me spill my beer twice per period but t was only four bucks a cup back then so hey no big deal. There was also a line of thinking that Winnipeg didn't really have a strong potential rival other than Edmonton ready to go. Nobody particularly cared about the North Stars then, including the Greater Minneapolis Metropolitan Area, and the next nearest teams were Edmonton and Chicago, both roughly 800 miles away. Edmonton had a potential rival in similarly neglected until the first lockout Vancouver (also ~800 miles away, but hey, oil money in Alberta), Quebec with Montreal, and Hartford with Boston. Winnipeg was off in the hinterlands with a :censored:ty arena, pitiful airport, and a naked gold dude on top of their legislative building. Considering all the times they threatened to fold or move prior to 1979, and even in 1981 when then-owner Michael Gobuty was prepping the team to move to Hamilton to become the Steelheads (yes, it's true), the fact they lasted till 1996 was a goddamned miracle.

If coke was as vilified by the league in the 80s as it is now, Winnipeg would have been removed from the league a lot sooner than it was. The stuff was so prevalent at the Marble Club it was like someone left a door open during a blizzard. Someone ask Grant Fuhr about fond memories of Winnipeg and it's local ballet* troupe. *strippers

If it's only $100 million it would be miracle.

These are awful even by summer collegiate standards

Forty dollars and a dream.

Right. I was too tired when I made that post. My bad.

Seattle and Vegas to the Pacific, Calgary and Edmonton to the central.

Lee usually saves this line for Twitter DMs.Make one mistake, and you're Steve :censored:ing Simmons

On the phone, not sure how big this is, but...

I think it's still top 15 or 20, but it's been a while