mcj882000

On 5/6/2023 at 9:06 PM, Ridleylash said:

Presumably, this is what they were referring to. Personally, I kinda hope they're going to a version of the 90's jersey, since that's way more interesting than just being Edmonton ala New York Rangers.

Excellent news, if true. Honestly two-tone blue never fully clicked for the Jets with me, and their alternate is basically what I wish the Rangers still looked like, albeit without such a dark blue; since they don't seem to want to go back to that striping, I'm glad at least someone is willing to.

Finally! Never liked the "smile" logo, good riddance.

In a way, NHL & Fanatics are a perfect match: the least competent jersey manufacturer partnering with the least competent sports league!

On 3/18/2023 at 5:21 PM, the admiral said:

I honestly don't think the NHL draft lottery is rigged. I do think the NBA draft lottery is totally rigged. I will not be taking further questions at this time.

Counterpoint: if the NBA was rigging draft lotteries then MJ's Bobcats/Hornets would have won one by now.

19 hours ago, Cujo said:

So this triggered a few hockey fans.

 

I wonder why a host of the most watched show of one of the NHL's TV networks openly burying the sport would "trigger" () its fans? 

https://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/2469365

How badly do you have to  up where even Gary Bettman looks like a better person than you?

1 hour ago, DTConcepts said:

Honestly, if I were a player on the Coyotes, I'd rather play in a packed barn of 5,000 than in front of 13,000 empty seats every night. With the building being filled with fans who care enough to show up, I bet the energy is pretty electric, too.

If I was a player on the Roadrunners getting called up to the Coyotes, I'd feel let down that I'm now playing in a smaller building in the "big leagues" than I was down on the farm in Tucson.

It may just get worse: 

On 10/13/2022 at 7:01 AM, Old School Fool said:

what's really bad is the 1995 Rockets playing on their 1994 court.

I just got to 1995 and it's actually dumber even than this: Before you get to 1995 the Rockets play on a generic version of their real-life court of that era, sans "The Summit" arena name, which has been in the game since the 94-95 Rockets were added to 2K12:

Once you get to 95-96 and the Rockets change uniforms to the Space-Age Pajamas, the court does indeed change... but to the authentic court of the old red/gold/white era, actual arena name and all:

I actually love when this happens, when game devs put in extra effort to get things wrong. It's incredible.

For some reason, over the last few years of NBA 2K, the devs got it in their heads that the Portland Trail Blazers wore a red away jersey from 1979 all the way up until 1991:

In past titles this wasn't such a big deal, since the black jersey they actually wore from 1986-1991 was still in the game to be freely selected... 

But since 2K23's MyNBA lets you start as early as 1983, and players' jersey selections are limited to whatever is listed as being worn in a given year, errors like this in their database become a bit of an issue. Speaking of... 

IRL the New Jersey Nets changed from their iconic ABA jerseys in 1981 to a simpler, more traditional uniform, but changed back in 1983 after fan backlash, keeping a slightly-modified version of the ABA look all the way until 1990. In 2K, not only did they get the years wrong, listing the changes as happening in 1982 and 1984 respectively, but due to the way the ABA jerseys are listed in-game, said to be worn uninterrupted from 1977-1990, the change back doesn't happen at all: 


They'll instead just keep the "blue script" jerseys all the way up to 1990. 


Oh, and the other big omission I noticed: despite some vague assurances in the lead-up to the game's launch, I'm up to the 1989 playoffs in my file and so far none of the All-Star Games have used period-accurate uniforms, instead putting everyone in the 2022 jerseys. 

Genuine question that I'm curious about and haven't seen a clear answer for elsewhere: was Mark McGwire ever caught or did he ever admit to taking anything except the androstenedione, which wasn't banned by MLB (though it was by the ADA, NFL and IOC) and classified as a steroid by the US government until after he retired, that he was reported as using in 1998? I know he's since admitted to taking "steroids" but that on its own is a bit vague, IMO.

1 minute ago, Cujo said:

 

They let Big PEDy David Ortiz  thru the doors. Sosa should be there too.

James "Pud" "I drank monkey testosterone before a game once" Galvin is in as well.

For me the reason why I don't like the mascot is simple: the sole reason they named the team the Kraken was for the "release the Kraken" meme, and now the first big chance they have to really lean in on it by releasing a kraken mascot, they instead pivot to something entirely off-brand. Stupid decision from bad creative.

5 minutes ago, mjarvie said:

Wrong. Ticket sales are more important in the NHL. I would agree with you in the NFL, MLB, and NBA, but the NHL is still a ticket driven market. It's why making the playoffs is so important, that's where NHL teams make money. The farther in the playoffs they go, the more money they make.

I'm 95% certain he was being sarcastic.

Isn't it funny, then, that despite the presumption that they would "need" the ad revenue as much as if not more than the minor leagues, the CHL major junior leagues seem to lack uniform ads entirely?


And heck, even going a level lower to the junior-A AJHL, none whatsoever. 

Even considering the fact that these leagues barely play their players anything, if they pay anything at all, it would be a safe assumption that the income and budget franchises in these leagues have is incredibly low, especially post-pandemic, wouldn't it? (The last Calgary Canucks game I went to was 6 years ago, and even before COVID the building was half-full at best and their goal horn was tape recorded.) And yet they still haven't sold out to on-uniform advertising.

I didn't want to just answer with the same-old "look at Europe" slippery slope argument, which I still think will happen, eventually, if there isn't enough fan pushback on it now; I just thought this was all very interesting.

I've definitely come to prefer the Sharks in black pants & helmets, but as far as the jerseys go, those look great; it's just a shame that we'll probably have to wait another year before they look like a normal hockey team again.

Since the Sabres' "retraux" alt has been officially revealed now, I guess I can say that I never liked that identity very much. Even at the time I felt it was just change for change's sake, needlessly throwing a way a perfectly good uniform set just to hop on the trends of the time; namely black or other darker colours, and a mascot with Attitude. It doesn't even look like a Buffalo! And besides, the whole point of the Sabres name - and to a lesser extent, the original logo - was to get away from the obvious "Buffalo sports team named after buffalo" cliche. IMO the only good thing that came from that identity was the "sword in a B" logo, and even then I think the Buffaslug identity used it better.

I guess the fanbase is nostalgic for it, but for me all it brings to mind is a decade of mediocrity, interrupted with two instances of hot goalies carrying otherwise-mediocre teams to deep playoff runs (Hasek in 98-99 and Miller in 05-06), and the bankruptcy of 2002. Beyond its nostalgic value I have to also ask: do we really need another black & red jersey in the league right now? I thought we were doing good with the whole "teams moving away from red & black" thing; Calgary dropped black, Arizona went retro and Ottawa reversed polarity, so to speak; but now in 2 seasons we've gone from 1 black & red sweater, Carolina's alt, to 4: Carolina's home, Ottawa's home, and New Jersey & now Buffalo's alts!

Oh, and since I'm rolling and since it's been brought up as well, I feel almost the same way about the Caps' rebrand from the same era: it was needless and trend-chasing. I did like the blue away jersey it debuted with, even if I felt the white was nothing special, but even that they did away with for an awful black jersey with bronze numbers, which would be almost totally illegible in certain contexts. I think the ol' red, white & blue suits the team & city better, though they do need a better logo still; and while that colour scheme might be thought of as overused, I know of one that's even more outplayed in the year of our lord 2022...

On 2/12/2022 at 8:13 PM, the admiral said:

 

I'll do you one better: remember when the Atlanta Thrashers had to move because they had no arena to play in? The arena in Gwinnett seats 11,000 for hockey. Everything is made up and the points don't matter.

Irony, thy name is the Coyotes. 

12 hours ago, CDCLT said:

Why would any player ever want to go to the Charlotte Hornets when they could be signed by the Lakers or Warriors? Getting rid of the draft utterly dooms small-market teams. I know this is great for you, being a New York fan and all, but this would basically be certain death for any team not based in a top-10 media market because you'd rob the teams that can't sign big-name free agents (again, not even talking money here, this is strictly a location thing) of their only way to improve.

Wouldn't the real problem here be that every sports league seems to have a handful of teams that nobody (allegedly) wants to willingly play for?

Wait, they're doing this without teal, as in the element that actually makes that jersey work as much as it does? Congrats Islanders, you've somehow (probably) managed to make the Fisherman sweater boring. Didn't even think that was possible, honestly.

The new name is in, the Stockton Heat have become the 2nd incarnation of the Calgary Wranglers. I for one am pleasantly surprised.

1 hour ago, monkeypower said:

I see that the AHL schedule was released a couple days ago which includes the new Calgary team showing they are playing in Calgary and the Calgary release says they will be playing at the Saddledome. 

 

The WHL schedule was released a month ago showing the Hitmen still playing in the Saddledome and last year's NLL schedule wasn't released until September so it appears we won't know the Roughnecks schedule for a bit, but looks to me that there are going to be four teams running out of the Saddledome now. There's also some double bookings right now between the Flames, the Hitmen and the AHLers. We'll see how that goes and how much people take to the AHL team.

 

However, there's been absolutely nothing other than that, to my knowledge, that I have heard about this team. Not that I'm a Flames fan nor an AHL fan, but I am local to Calgary. Looking right now, the Flames Twitter account made a post about the AHL schedule release and tagged the Stockton Heat account. The AHL website uses the Flames logo. Tuscon's schedule release video just says Calgary instead of listing an arena name like they do for the other teams.

 

There'll have to be a name and logo announcement soon-ish, right?

Man, after all the speculation they were gonna be playing at the new arena on the Tsuut'ina Nation that hosted some Hitmen & Heat games during the pandemic, or even at Max Bell (which was unlikely anyways due to its age, but it's close to me so I can dream dangit), they're just gonna play at the Saddledome? That's kinda lame, but what else would I expect from a Flames farm team at this point?

9 hours ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

To me, playing O6 dress up means trying to pretend your team is older and more prestigious than it actually is

You mean going with older and more traditional uniform designs tends to make you look kinda similar to one of the 6 oldest teams in the sport? 

 

9 hours ago, AFirestormToPurify said:

Traditional =/= O6 dress up

Give us an example, then, of a team with a "traditional" jersey design that can't possibly be construed as "Original Six Dressup"; and bear in mind that the Lightning, Panthers and Stars are already off the table.

On 7/26/2022 at 1:29 PM, AFirestormToPurify said:

Yeah such a classy and timeless franchise. Could have sworn they'd been around since the 1700s when they starting wearing that generic pseudo-retro trendy cashgrab alternate lol

You're grasping at straws

"Loud, bright jerseys and agressive logo" You sure you're talking about the Panthers?

 

To be serious? I legit like that logo. It's certainly not great by any technical measure but it has a unique colour scheme, and as I've said before I think it's at least more interesting than either of the primary logos they've come up with since. I'm not sure I'd want it back full-time now but I do think they would've been a bit better served by sticking with it instead of scrapping it for the generic "CJB" logo before ever playing a game.

That aside? Count me on Team Cannon. I've wanted that to be the base of their full-time identity since it was revealed a decade ago. Firing a goal cannon's already their trademark thing, why not lean all-in on it? (Just replace the vintage white on it with actual white first.)
"But it was just made to cash in on a trend!" A trend that has since fizzled out entirely; that it's the last of the group remaining says a lot, IMO, to its staying power.
"But it's O6 Dressup!" Genuinely, sincerely, who gives a ? Especially outside of this message board? A good look is a good look, especially since they did away with the overtly-square font it originally had. 

5 hours ago, Cosmic said:

Wouldn't really be able to tell unless we knew what other offers were actually on the table. He's in the same country and time zone as his family now, so it's still an improvement. 

I mean, he's still 7-8 hours away from home by car; and yeah he could fly there, but he could fly there from anywhere and it'd be about the same.


Having a night to think about it, I actually have a theory for how this came about, based on everything I've read & pieced together: 
-He wanted to go to Philadelphia, more than anywhere else it sounds like, but then the DeAngelo trade last week maxed out their cap and apparently GM Fletcher felt moving some pieces around to make him fit would've been too hard, so they didn't even make an offer. 
-He wanted to go home to New Jersey, but they supposedly gave him what he may have felt like a lowball offer, especially when his original asking price was allegedly in the $12M(!) range; 
-He might have wanted to go to the Islanders, but they may have ran into either of those same exact problems; not enough cap space and/or a lowball offer.
-He couldn't go back to Calgary without having to eat some crow, because he'd already told them he wasn't coming back & presumably he wouldn't want to look like he was crawling back with his tail between his legs (even though Evgeni Malkin did exactly that a day prior). 

So with all that in mind, maybe all his grand plans to go home fell apart and he simply decided "Columbus offered me the most money, and they're sorta-kinda close to home... eh,  it". 

I mean, it at least makes it make sense to me...