Still MIGHTY

And today was the day I first learned where Evansville and Owensboro were on a map.

Make that 3. Alaska signed on with Vancouver yesterday. Columbus, Florida, New Jersey, Ottawa, and St. Louis are the only NHL teams without a current 2016-17 ECHL affiliation. (Ottawa is just a technicality as they have an agreement with the Evansville/Owensboro IceMen. They're reportedly looking for a stopgap team in the interim.)

The San Jose Sharks have this hanging in their practice facility: Burn this franchise to the ground.

Blackhawks probably covet those Original Six games too. They probably also don't care for West Coast road trips. And like Detroit, they've been a model franchise and had success in their current "maligned" state. So let's flip Chicago and Columbus. That makes sense, of course. Chicago has such deep ties! They've developed no history, success, or rivalries in their time in the West! Just like Detroit of course! Look, I'm fine not having to deal with Red Wings fans more than I need to in any given season. (Also, the Wings have to travel while in the West? Boo ing hoo. No Pacific team will shed a tear over the Red Wings travel budget. Anaheim to Edmonton/Calgary/Winnipeg on a regular basis isn't that fun either. Or multiple trips to the NYC area. Or 7-game swings through the East. Whatever.) However, I do miss the little competitive rivalry the Ducks and Wings had, and really, the other thing that moving Detroit to the East did is that it royally screwed over the Western Conference when it comes to national TV exposure. As the NBC Seven goes, the only time the West gets any prime assignment goes is when they're playing 6 of the 7 in the East (either in the East or the East is playing in Dallas/St. Louis), and usually, the only all-West match-ups we get are against the Blackhawks. I know there are plenty of reasons for it (start times, obviously, and ratings, other obviously), but because of those reasons, the window to the West for the national TV audience is through Chicago and Chicago only. And while having Detroit in the West was just one more option, I do feel like there was better coverage of the Western Conference when the Wings were also around in it. Sure, they'll show the occasional game in Dallas or St. Louis or Minnesota on a Tuesday on NBCSN and yes, they'll sometimes throw a bone with a second game after the Eastern game... by grabbing the Sharks Comcast feed... But there's no reason, because they've done it in the playoffs when they're forced to, that they couldn't get a Ducks/Kings/Sharks game on NBC at noon or 1 pm Pacific on Saturday or Sunday in the regular season. Anyway, Western Conference/Pacific Division/Sun Belt fan rant over. I have no time for complaints about start times or travel miles.

I just want to give a shout out to Bob Ley. What a god damn professional. Live on the air at 3 a.m. Eastern for the Muhammad Ali coverage. God knows where Bob was. If he had to drive in, if he was there. But because Bob Ley is the best thing journalistically that ESPN has, he comes in and commands the desk at three in the morning just like he does in the middle of the afternoon on Outside the Lines. Seriously, what a pro. Really, the best. EDIT: He's also trying to reel in Teddy Atlas on a live hit outside the Bell Centre in Montreal at 3 a.m. Not an easy task... ever. DOUBLE EDIT: Actually, real credit to ESPN here tonight. All hands on deck. SVP, John Anderson, Jeremy Schaap, Ley, of course. Good job, WWL. Really, say what we will about ESPN, they are the only sports network that could pull this off. FS1 is showing a Jay & Dan repeat (I believe, even a repeat of a clip show). NBCSN is showing an informercial for Stevie Wonder, Jackson 5, and Marvin Gaye. CBSSN is showing poker.

Verne is just leaving the SEC coverage after this season. He'll still do college basketball and golf. Verne's not going away completely, thankfully. It's arguable, because that's what they're doing. As much as Simmons and Co. say they the Ringer will be different than Grantland, with all the people they've brought over from Grantland, the Ringer will just be Grantland without the ESPN to it. I don't know why it won't be their best choice, because again, it was a success with Grantland. Refining their scope to just sports probably won't help them as much as you think either. If they just focus on sports, the pop culture stuff will seem out of place, and they'll get lost amongst the Deadspins of the world. (I mean, they're going to be competing against Deadspin in that way anyways. Deadspin does a little pop culture, or will repost stuff from other Gawker outlets.) They're also adding some tech pieces, and I don't know exactly how that will go over. That seems slightly out of place to me, but we'll have to see how it develops. As far as the layout, eh. It's pretty basic. Not my favorite, but it's functional. And yeah, like you said and I alluded to, the basketball/Obama/Game of Thrones and stuff... It's Grantland 2.0. Plus, it's ONE DAY. They can't write about everything all at once. They've added the backlog of their newsletter posts, but the newsletter posts were just tastes. It wasn't a full website or the full array of content. Give it at the very very least a week, more like give it a month or two, then complain if you wish. (But this is the Internet. What am I thinking?)

...Why? There is no motivation to do that.

NHL and NBC pressured Lightning into canceling Game 7 watch party due to fear of low ratings. What a dumb league and a dumb network.

I think the bolded is something I do think about. If I'm at any of these high school games and I go to interview a coach or player and I'm the only media there, then I feel a little bit better about cleaning things up. No one's really going to check me on it, and it's just cleaning up. I'm not changing the intention at all. But if I'm interviewing someone and there's another reporter there or one of our video guys are there and I know the quote would be offered in other places or could be seen spoken, then I stick more to straight verbatim than I would normally. A bit of a dangerous double standard, I know. But especially when it's high school kids and we're told to avoid pointing out their mistakes unless it's important, I try to help them out. (Although when they give me bad quotes because high school kids don't know how to talk to us, it is what it is. I have to use what I have.) So basically, I think in a world where most college/pro sports media is widely available in video form immediately on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or elsewhere, then it's at the reporter's best interest to quote verbatim.

Another early interesting article from The Undefeated from J.A. Adande talking about "cleaning up" quotes from athletes (or any subject) to fix grammar or align it with the regular English. "We gonna be championship!": A new approach to "fixing" quotes. It stemmed from a small controversy at the Houston Chronicle where a writer quoted Carlos Gomez verbatim, complete with broken second-language English: "For the last year and this year, I not really do much for this team. The fans be angry. They be disappointed.” People criticized the writer thinking it embarrassed and ridiculed Gomez, and the editor of the Chronicle had to issue an apology. Adande supported the idea of always quoting verbatim even if it's second-language English, broken grammar, slang, or "street" talk. Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated addressed it in a column and got insight from several other writers in a couple different sports/publictations. (Quotes discussion starts about halfway down.) This is extremely interesting to me, as a sports writer. At this point I've only had to deal with some college and mostly high school athletes, but I usually do a little grammar for them if it doesn't clearly make sense. I'll also take out filler words, because 1) it doesn't add or subtract anything and 2) I'm on a word count, damn it haha. I also don't want to make them sound stupid, even if they are a bit. But I think you also want to preserve the flavor of how someone speaks, especially if it is unique. So what do you think? As consumers or readers, do you want verbatim quotes? Or do you not mind cleaning them up a little to make them read properly?

This is more and more just becoming the Bill Simmons thread, but it happens I guess. Anyway, I'm listening to Bill Simmons' latest podcast with Craig Kilborn.... Craig Kilborn is a crazy person. Scatterbrained as all hell.

Most of that really didn't make any sense in conjunction with DG's post, so congratulations on staying true to form, bud. But yeah, I agree with you on that DG. In his efforts to not completely make the Ringer into just Grantland 2.0, he's kinda gotten away from what made Grantland what it was and what the BS Report was. Now of course the Ringer portion is just a newsletter and collection of podcasts at the moment, but Simmons' podcast has definitely been hit and miss with me. The Sacca interview was actually interesting in spite of Simmons' trying to keep up as an "edge of technology" "Internet startup" wannabe, but the restaurant one went straight to the garbage. Didn't even bother.

So the Pirates leave two years into a five-year lease that included a $34 million renovation that the citizens of the county still have to pay off... without a tenant to actually use the arena. Welp... Good job with all this, AHL.

Coyotes likely to move AHL affiliate to Tucson. Team would play in a slightly renovated 6,700 seat Tuscon Convention Center. They just need to actually buy a team first. The article says they have sources that the Coyotes are close to finalizing a deal for a team, but we've come to know what finalizing a purchase and the Coyotes means.They had a one-year deal with Springfield this season.

1) No 2) Montreal wasn't using Tinordi. Coyotes wanted a defenseman (so Tinordi) but needed to open a roster/contract spot, so they included Scott in the deal. Montreal didn't necessarily trade FOR him, they just said "Sure, why not? We'll just chuck him to Newfoundland." 3) Yes and Yes

I've gone to St. Louis twice to see a game and it's definitely fine. Compare it to the other similar rinks I've been to (Anaheim, San Jose, Glendale, Ottawa, Montreal) and I think it's in as good a shape as any of those. Even compared to the larger spaces (Los Angeles, Denver, and Dallas) it's good. None of those or St. Louis is at a Detroit/Joe Louis level quite yet and probably won't be for a while.

Interesting glitch. On my iPhone using safari. I was reading a thread and it looked normal in the new board layout: Then I clicked the back arrow on the browser (on the bottom left), and I got thrown back in time to the old layout: Just an odd glitch. It's fine if I hit the forum button to go back rather than the browser's back arrow.

StopReelLineMint.jpg

No!Admiral telling people to not say something has become a thing is definitely now... a thing!

Coyotes are hilarious. Everyday, they post Facebook updates like this one today: "It's time to send your favorite players to the ‪#‎NHLAllStar‬ game in Nashville! Vote Hanzal, Domi, OEL and Doan in NHL.com/vote" Not a single mention of John Scott in the post, but every single comment below it is about John Scott lol. Just embrace it, you goofs. Have fun. It's just sports.

I don't think there's any three-way going. I think it's either Suns/Yotes OR ASU/Yotes. And any pairing with ASU basketball/hockey wouldn't make the Yotes "undoubtedly" the lesser. If it's an ASU-built/funded arena, maybe that's different, but neither program has tha kind of caché. I guess it would overall be analogous to the Canes and NC State, but ASU isn't even a NC State when it comes to basketball, so maybe not as similar.

Getzlaf was basically trying to find something new to say after these losses, but still, pretty pathetic attempt. They played pretty well in front of 10 people in Carolina last week. Don't blame the Glendale crowd for your guys' inability to beat the Coyotes this season. Pathetic.

Where do these stick figure families come from? What's the actual story on these things?

Because the world needed MORE Blackhawks fans.