The_Admiral

On 8/31/2023 at 4:50 PM, Ridleylash said:

Why would the Canes be the ones to break what was an extremely good affiliation for both parties and instead affiliate with a team known for giving 0 :censored:s about developing prospects that has bounced all over the place before now as an affiliate?

"Why would the Hurricanes ever do anything wrong?" is a weird tack to take. This has never been the model of organizational excellence.

No, that was way too much black. They lost the plot. Black should only be there to set off yellow from white, not a base color (and certainly not with kelly green breezers sticking out like a sore thumb).

The 2009-2017 alternate, albeit a watering down of the 2004 ASG classic, was probably the closest they came to figuring it all out. Forest green and vintage white, with a little touch of metallic gold, would have been the ideal progression for the North Stars -- it's a perfectly rustic and woodsy color scheme for Minnesota and tones down the garishness associated with incompetent Stars teams of old. I wish they had just mirrored it into a light uniform and left it alone.

On 8/31/2023 at 3:29 PM, MCM0313 said:

Suit, top hat, monocle…I’d like to see Andy Reid in that. 

5 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

It's the inevitable "North Stars in all but name" rebrand that was destined to happen the minute the team entertained the idea. This happens almost every time a team has a popular throwback/throwback-adjacent alternate - it overtakes the often-staid "modern" design.

 

Is the current hunter green/red/wheat all that stale?

No, not stale, but the Wild have been perpetually caught in that alt trap since their fourth season. They can't stop now!

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

The thing is, I get why people might find the Wild's main identity "tired" now. Dark green and red can read as a bit dreary-looking, especially when the home and road jersey don't take full advantage of the color scheme. The bright green and yellow look comparatively more inviting - "happy colors," if you will. North Stars nostalgia too plays a role, but much of the appeal is the aesthetic appeal of "happy colors."

Looking at fashion cycles in general, I think there's a case for this. The Wild are still very much straight out of Y2K grimdark. I wore a lot of earth tones then. I notice myself wearing more pastels and jewel tones now. I wore a hot pink polo shirt to work the other day and I wasn't even going to the Barbie movie after. 

On 8/29/2023 at 8:49 PM, BBTV said:

Reminds me of the title of the second Hyperbole and a Half book - "Solutions and other problems".

I want to read this alot.

Didn't it have some work done when they built out the Harborcenter around it? How'd that whole thing end up going?

No, it's a fine take. Shifts are too short, you can't work a Wings/Hawks possession offense anymore, everything is just dump-and-chase and shooting as much as possible. That women's teams can probably still work a cycle is a point in their favor.

On 8/29/2023 at 4:05 PM, nickp91 said:

Kudos to the PWHL I hope this is a huge success and continues to create interest in hockey among young girls and the population in general

The way to do so would probably to promote women's hockey as a fun live event for families with approachable talent and a less oafish style than the men's game (though this last one may be tougher now that the NHL is just sprinting down the ice and chucking shots). Hockey is the best live sport; watch people play it who are talented and will sign your stuff after the game. The pffffff seemed to market to blogresses with arcane chronic illnesses who were good at tweeting about the moral imperative to support the league but less adept at filling the seats themselves. I think it got egregious enough at one point that Dave Portnoy explored starting the Non-Neurotic Women's Hockey League but then got distracted by some frozen pizza marketing deal. 

Babcock is back in the NHL too after doing weird psychological warfare on Mitch Marner.

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

Maybe there's an opportunity for Nike to market a "coaches uniform".  Each team would have polo shirts (with some incredibly stupid name for the overengineered template that the polo shirt is on), quarter zips, or whatever. Home, road, city, whatever.  That way the coaches are in uniform just like the players, but don't look like slobs.

That doesn't address the fundamental problem, which is that quarter-zips always look awkward on dudes.

In my high school, it was wear your jersey to class for home games, wear a dress shirt and tie for road games. I asked why those of us in the school play couldn't wear our costumes to class since it was the same thing. Never got a satisfactory answer, but at least I didn't have to do my own makeup after breakfast.

But NFL coaches have been under merchandising deals for decades now. Ditka had to wear those Bears sweaters with dress shirts and ties (iconic look, though). We all just expect that they have to wear sweatshirts that find new ways to say " [team] FOOTBALL,  [A/N]FC [direction]" every year.

The NBA, as ever, is sly enough to market it as empowering coaches to dress comfortably while actually monetizing a new revenue stream that hadn't been there before. You couldn't Wear What Pat Riley Wears by going to shop.nba.com.

22 hours ago, LMU said:

The Wolves have always been known for disregarding the wishes of their affiliate club when it comes to roster management hence why they've always had a revolving door situation.

The Wolves spent about a decade as the affiliate of the Atlanta Thrashers, a team the Atlanta Hawks ran out of a broom closet. If you were trying to make money and please competitive ownership while running a 17,000-seat arena every night in a market where the NHL team was pissing itself on a daily basis, would you let the Atlanta Thrashers push you around? 

19 hours ago, BBTV said:

 

When I was in jr high, we football players had to wear ties to school on game day, because "it was all about business, and we had to be in that business mindset".  That was dumb, just like our coach feeling like we'd respect him more if he was in a suit (we were in freaking 8th grade!)  My HS coach had the right idea, and every year the staff had a different golf-type shirt or matching jackets to wear over golf pants (or those old stretchy coaches pants... I forget.)  Much more appropriate.

 

Along those lines, I don't get why even unaffiliated people refer to coaches as "Coach Sirianni" or "Coach Reid".  The only other professions I can think of where a title is used synonymously with a person's name are Dr. and (for some reason) Chef.

 

Enough with it.  Enough with sleeping in the office and abandoning your family trying to figure out how to isolate the tight end against the slow linebacker.  And enough glamorizing these guys for being anything more than what they are.  That doesn't mean that some aren't extremely good at what they are - but what they are doesn't require a suit*.  Especially when every player on your team can afford a better suit than you.

 

*if any of these guys were to wear a suit with top hat and monocle, I'd put them in the HOF immediately.  

I agree. It's silly to make children dress up for road games, it's weird to call Bill Cowher "Coach" when he's been a CBS employee longer than he was coach of the Steelers, and it's deranged to work 23-hour days that still lead to going 4-12.

All that being said, however, I'm so used to business attire among NBA/NHL coaches that it looks odd not to see them that way. (I don't think the NHL has given up the ghost on suits yet, though, and I'm sure someone from Zombie Deadspin would be happy to tell me it's because of white supremacy.) I don't think it represents the downfall of western civilization, it just looks kinda bad, the way baseline ads look kinda bad.

Traditionally the assistant GM of the NHL team is the de facto GM of the AHL team and the AHL coaching staff basically serves at the pleasure of the NHL team's front office. I think that's how it's been with Chicago and Rockford, but that's a weird case because for all those years Rockford was under absentee public ownership. But with the Wolves, I have a really tough time figuring out how the meme boys were going to big-time an established AHL front office that's been in place through a few affiliations. Either the Wolves tried to meet a team halfway for once and ceded control only to wish they hadn't, or the Hurricanes are a bunch of bloviating hucksters who never had that sway to begin with, and you already know which way I lean on that one.

How many field reporters are going to marry the players they cover?

6 hours ago, gosioux76 said:

This is the right response. I dislike dress codes in general. They're a tool for micromanagers and another means of stifling personal identity in favor of homogeneity. What you wear doesn't affect what you do. 

What personal identity is there here? NFL and now NBA coaches have to wear official team-licensed apparel (available for sale) instead of just normal clothes. I don't care about the greater meaning of any of this or any real-world analogues. I'm just used to NBA coaches dressing up and now it looks weird that they don't.

Suits and uniforms, respectively. I remember Mourinho wearing an overcoat and scarf with a suit and I thought that looked really neat.

2 hours ago, BBTV said:

I've also thought about Buffalo being in the rotation, if they wanted it.  It just "feels" like a Thanksgiving-game-type place.  Regardless, Detroit needs to be out of the rotation.  I don't even care if they get good.  I can't stand watching games from inside that awful stadium with it's crappy lighting.  It can make even the most exciting game seem sterile.

I agree on Buffalo. I guess we'd have to consider New England for Thanksgiving, too, but it should be some tight rotation of charter AFC teams.  Gotta keep Detroit, though. It's all they have!

Are coaches going to dress like professionals again this year or are they still allowed to wear practice gear to games?

Sounds like Tom Dundon was one move away from goading Don Levin and the village of Rosemont into arranging a "boating mishap"

On 8/24/2023 at 2:38 PM, Sodboy13 said:

I hadn't thought about this until right now, but up until 1993, MLB had that nonsensical alignment that put the Braves in the AL West. So all summer long, the kids are at home watching the Cubs at 2:20 ET, and the Braves are on another trip through California starting at 10:05 ET.

Looked up the schedule for the '92 Braves and it was nine road games apiece against Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego, or one out of every six games in California. Didn't bother to look at the start times for them but I'd guess at least 20 were 10 Eastern. Suboptimal for sure, but what's better: a wacky schedule on national TV, or a sensible one on an RSN no one wants?

Not a fan at all of the Seahawks hosting the night game on Thanksgiving. The third game should be for an AFC team. I liked the original idea of giving it to Kansas City. Felt nice and heartlandy.

I'd keep all-blue at home but white over grey would be good on the road.

17 hours ago, Ark said:

Tennessee Oilers is the way.

The way to alienate two cities at once, maybe.