loogodude90

If trolling is engaging in a conversation with people who have a differing opinion than myself then yes I am trolling.

Explain your username then. Making excuses is just in insult to our intelligence.

Maybe he likes fakes because they are more affordable.

Here is the reality of the counterfeit jersey issue. Most people are not going to pay $250+ for an authentic jersey. Most people are not going to pay $100 for the licensed replicas that look terrible. The discrepencies (numbers too big, font a little off, color off a shade) are not enough to prevent people from buying. The human rights thing is ridiculous. Child labor goes on in other countries. If they weren9;t making counterfeit jerseys, then parents in these countries would be sending their kids to work in some other industry. I don't blame the leagues for the prices. I blame the companies like Nike who pay ridiculous fees for the jersey rights and then expect the fans to cover their fees. Screw that. I don't buy jerseys much anymore, when I do, I hit EBay. Don't ask where it was made, just want it to look as close as possible and be a decent quality. Reality is, a 2nd year Fashion student can buy a real jersey, cut it apart, buy the material and re-make the jersey at a cost of about $15 plus whatever they want to charge for labor.

Right, and that leads into something else I was thinking - I bet all these people complaining about child labor own and have owned several items that could just have likely been manufactured using child labor.

There's a gigantic difference between going 1mph over the speed limit and directly funding child labor and other human rights abuses.

The point is that they are both illegal. We are all lawbreakers to some degree.

Also, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that driving 1 mph over the speed limit isn't the worst crime you've committed. There's no way you or I can prove or disprove that here. But I don't believe it.

The bottom line is people will continue to buy from China, and nothing will happen to us. We will not be banned from stadiums/arenas, the feds aren't going to kick my door down. The only people that care are you idiots, and none of you will do anything but whine on these boards.

I don't condone people in the states ordering these and making money off the sales. I buy for my friends but do not charge anything over what I pay.

Well, depending on the volume, you may have some explaining to do at some point.

But, the bottom line is that you and others wearing these poorly made knock-offs will continue to look stupid in public and be laughed at (by many more than just us) behind your back. I don't see the allure of buying a vastly inferior product just to save a few bucks.

I would be more embarrassed to be a person who laughs at some random person he doesn't know for wearing a knockoff, than be the actual person wearing a knockoff.

The bottom line is people will continue to buy from China, and nothing will happen to us.

No, the bottom line is that you're a pompous, selfish, egotistical windbag who doesn't know when to quit.

I've been called worse. I'm sure you are a model citizen who has never done wrong.

The typical defense for a man who has no defense. Flip it around on the other person, deflect it from yourself to another.

There's nothing wrong calling someone out for being a hypocrite. If you do something illegal and then call me out for it, then there's nothing wrong with reminding you of what you did.

As I've pointed out, Columbus is within 500 miles (driving distance) of both Washington and Carolina, as well as other conference opponents in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto, and Philadelphia.

Nashville is within 500 miles (driving distance) of none of them.

And Nashville is more of a cultural fit in the Southeast than Columbus.

/What good is ease of travel when your fans don't travel anyway?

Meh I've never thought of it being a cultural fit. I've always thought of it as a locational fit. And Columbus clearly fits in better with the rest of the East.

/Columbus fits in better with Washington and arguably Raleigh anyways. What's Raleigh like culturally?

//Still thinks everyone's thinking of the Southeast Division as including Atlanta as far as Nashville fitting better...

Nashville is a geographically southeastern city. Columbus is a northern Midwestern town. Which makes more sense?

Plus as shown above, the overall and average mileage shows that Nashville makes more sense in the southeast division than Columbus does.

I wouldn't call Nashville a geographically southeastern city any more than I would call Columbus a geographically northeastern city.

Columbus is further East than Nashville. Nashville in the Western Conference, Columbus in the Eastern Conference.

OK, let's approach it from this tack since reason seems to have trouble registering here. I think the good people of Nashville are going to take more pleasure in watching the hometown team beat down their fellow Southerners in Raleigh, Miami, Tampa Bay, and Washington than some teams in Yankeeland. Conversely, the people of Columbus, who really, really would like to see the hometown team play Detroit a lot (among others). Does that make sense to you?

This is a professional league with a continent-wide footprint. Travel is really a tertiary concern, if that.

What could be more "reasonable" than saying that the team that is further East (Columbus) should be put in the Eastern Conference, and the team that is further West (Nashville) should be put in the Western Conference?

Even after all of the circles this conversation has gone in, that's still the most "reasonable" conclusion on the matter.

As I've pointed out, Columbus is within 500 miles (driving distance) of both Washington and Carolina, as well as other conference opponents in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Toronto, and Philadelphia.

Nashville is within 500 miles (driving distance) of none of them.

And Nashville is more of a cultural fit in the Southeast than Columbus.

/What good is ease of travel when your fans don't travel anyway?

Meh I've never thought of it being a cultural fit. I've always thought of it as a locational fit. And Columbus clearly fits in better with the rest of the East.

/Columbus fits in better with Washington and arguably Raleigh anyways. What's Raleigh like culturally?

//Still thinks everyone's thinking of the Southeast Division as including Atlanta as far as Nashville fitting better...

Nashville is a geographically southeastern city. Columbus is a northern Midwestern town. Which makes more sense?

Plus as shown above, the overall and average mileage shows that Nashville makes more sense in the southeast division than Columbus does.

I wouldn't call Nashville a geographically southeastern city any more than I would call Columbus a geographically northeastern city.

Columbus is further East than Nashville. Nashville in the Western Conference, Columbus in the Eastern Conference.

Well since it looks like the NHL is going to need to realign I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to share with you guys my idea. Some of which I've posted here before.

First thing is to recognize that outside of needing to move Atlanta/Winnipeg to the West and a team needing move east is that the NHL has other problems in regards to alignment. Mainly there aren't enough teams in the Mountain and Pacific time zones to sustain a big Western conference because of travel and time zones. That means there a large chunk of games for each team at bad televised teams. Particularly for Eastern Time Zone teams like Detroit and Columbus where they have a significant amount of times at 10pm local time. Another issue is every team does not visit every building, which is a big deal for some.

I think the better solution is to break the conference down further. Instead of having 2 large conferences, have 4 smaller ones. Conference playoffs first two rounds of the playoffs and then you reseed the final 4 teams and have a league wide Semi-final and Final. It is basically the 82-93 playoff format except the divisions become the conferences and they because of expansion are larger so you won't have the same amount of repeats every single year.

The schedule would work like this:

-Play every team outside your conference twice (home and away).

-For the 7 team conferences you play each time 6 times (3 home and 3 away).

-For the 8 team conferences you play 3 teams 6 times (3 home and 3 away) and the other 4 teams 5 times (3 home and 2 away or vice versa, alternating every year).

Total: 82 Games

Top four teams make the playoffs from each conference.

Now for the Conferences:

Western Conference:

Vancouver Canucks

Edmonton Oilers

Calgary Flames

Colorado Avalance

San Jose Sharks

Los Angeles Kings

Anaheim Ducks

Phoenix Coyotes

Central Conference:

Dallas Stars

St. Louis Blues

Minnesota Wild

Winnipeg Jets

Chicago Blackhawks

Detroit Red Wings

Nashville Predators

Northeast Conference:

Boston Bruins

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Toronto Maple Leafs

Buffalo Sabres

Pittsburgh Penguins

Columbus Blue Jackets

Atlantic Conference:

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

New Jersey Devils

Philadelphia Flyers

Washington Capitals

Carolina Hurricanes

Tampa Bay Lightning

Florida Panthers

No division takes up more than 1 timezone. Preserves for the most part existing rivalries and strengthens them with the playoff format.

What are the divisions? Or did you mean conferences? And if you did, I think 2 of the conferences take up more than 1 timezone.

With Thrashers most likely moving to Winnipeg, it makes sense for them to be placed in the Northwest Divison. This would most likely move Nashville to the Southeast, and the Wild to the Central.

New Central Division

New Southeast Division (plus the Panthers, they were off the bottom of the map)

This is what I believe SHOULD happen. Now, does that mean it's actually going to?

And this image clearly shows that Columbus is considerably closer to Washington and closer to Raleigh than Nashville is. As well as being a considerably distance farther east. Remember that without Atlanta, Nashville isn't within 500 miles of a single conference opponent. The Jackets would be within 500 miles of 2 division opponents, and 4 other conference opponents (Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Philadelphia). They'd be within 500 miles of nearly half the conference, while Nashville wouldn't be within 500 miles of any of the East.

I agree... if ATL moves to WIN, the the eastern-most Western Conference team should move east. I believe that team is CLB.

He's rolling his eyes because you still have yet to grasp that buying bootleg jerseys, regardless of their quality or the buyer's financial situation, is illegal.

Are you charger77's spokesman now? He couldn't find anyone better to try to explain his worthless arguments?

I recognize that buying bootleg jerseys is illegal, but it's one of those crimes that's a lot less harmful than some other crimes in this world that go unpunished. That doesn't make it completely right, but it makes me care less about it than other issues. And it also makes me not feel bad about doing it. I guarantee you've broken several laws in your life. No one really has the right to be holier-than-thou about lawbreaking.

Never buy knock-offs online.

Buy them at your local flea market or underhand sports store/mob front...

Agreed... if you are going to go counterfeit, you need to at least examine the merchandise before buying it.

I'm not following you.

Never buy knock-offs online.

Buy them at your local flea market or underhand sports store/mob front...

Agreed... if you are going to go counterfeit, you need to at least examine the merchandise before buying it.

Dunno if this has been posted yet... sorry Seattle.

I totally forgot he even wore that uniform, even though it was just a few years ago. Shows how far OKC has come in such a short amount of time.

My NBA:

West - Blazers, Warriors | Kings, Clippers | Lakers, Suns | Jazz, Nuggets | Thunder, Mavericks |

(Most of these teams are in the Pacific or Mountain time zone. I didn't want to separate Dallas from Houston and San Antonio, but this was the best I could do.)

Central - Spurs, Rockets | Grizzlies, Hornets | Wolves, Bucks | Bulls, Pacers | Pistons, Cavaliers |

(Most are in the Central time zone.)

East - Raps, Nets | Celtics, Knicks | Sixers, Wizards | Bobcats, Hawks | Magic, Heat |

(All of these teams are in the Eastern time zone)

SEASON

Division opponents 4x (36), other divisions twice each (40), one rival four more times(4). (total 80)

PLAYOFFS

Top 5 in each division qualify, plus the best 6th-place team. All teams seeded 1-16.

4 rounds determine the league champion.

3 things -

1)I would have Dallas in the Central instead of San Antonio. It just makes more sense.

2)I would have CLE in the East, and ATL in the Central. Again, it just makes more sense.

3)I'm not a big fan of the Rivals thing. I feel like that's not fair to a team that gets stuck with a really good rival.

I think he looks "wrong" in a Nats uniform, too.

Cincinnati Reds in the American League with Cleveland Indians (their in-state rival) and the Boston Red Sox? An absolute "no-no".

To be fair, Pennsylvania has two NL teams (in-state rivals, if you will) in real life.

They're not really rivals though. Philadelphia's sports rivalries are with the New York and New Jersey teams. The non-sports "jealous younger brother" rivalry that some (albeit few) idiots think exists would clearly be with New York. Pittsburgh vs Philadelphia is only really a rivalry in Pittsburgh - though there, I'd say that the non-sports factor is even greater than the sports factor.

True, but the point was that PA's only two teams are in the same league. And one of JH4XCC's objections was that having CIN and CLE be in the same league was a problem.

Oh, well then it's certainly not a problem. It's only a problem when they're in the same market, as in a non-shared-revenue league, keeping them split gives more of the smaller teams access to dates with the bigger / higher-revenue-generating clubs. Or in the case of the NFL, it allows them to sell NY as a market to two separate networks. Cleveland and Cincinnati, both being relatively smaller markets, would cause no such issues if grouped together.

Yeah, there's no market issues, but in MLB, it falls under tradition. The Reds have always been an NL team, and the Indians an AL team. So grouping them in one division or league would not be a good move.

Any re-alignment is going to break tradition. The Brewers were an AL team for almost 30 years before they were moved to the NL.

Who the f-ck is that?

That's Mark Hendrickson. I guess the joke here is that he's an MLB player now.

Cincinnati Reds in the American League with Cleveland Indians (their in-state rival) and the Boston Red Sox? An absolute "no-no".

To be fair, Pennsylvania has two NL teams (in-state rivals, if you will) in real life.

They're not really rivals though. Philadelphia's sports rivalries are with the New York and New Jersey teams. The non-sports "jealous younger brother" rivalry that some (albeit few) idiots think exists would clearly be with New York. Pittsburgh vs Philadelphia is only really a rivalry in Pittsburgh - though there, I'd say that the non-sports factor is even greater than the sports factor.

True, but the point was that PA's only two teams are in the same league. And one of JH4XCC's objections was that having CIN and CLE be in the same league was a problem.

I had a long thoughtful reply, but it got deleted.

This will have to do.

We're trained to associate more materials and sewn together = quality.

We're also trained never to spend $80 on a T-shirt (which is what a replica is).

Most casual fans don't know the difference and assume Sewn on = quality.

Let them find out otherwise. i could give a , and applaud their intellectual property theft if it means driving the prices down one day and reversing the trend that inflation means we can sell what we want at whatever price we want.

I wish a company would sue to fight that jerseys are a monopoly. Then the prices would drop, like the early 90's.

Oh yes...what a great time for jerseys:

Everyone forgets how crappy those were and they still cost $40 bucks. Just with inflation that'd be $60 bucks today.

I know everyone likes to knock Nike, Reebok and Adidas but the quality of replicas has dramatically improved since the 90's. (Below is replica's only)

Baseball: Back then they were screened on jerseys, sometimes on cotton. Today they are sewn on polyester which is more like the authentics. I believe replica's used to be like $50 and today they are $80, right in line with inflation and add a few bucks for better quality.

Basketball: At least the magic ones have stripes now. Champion replica's resembled today's JC Penny level jerseys (which are a notch below the replica) which retail for...$45 bucks! Screw You adidas!

Hockey: These have decreased in quality I will not argue. I will argue that the fabric and construction is about the same or better.

Football: Better fits for someone wearing them out, better quality material, closer authentic fonts in most cases (not all...see Bears replica vs. onfield)

I know everyone thinks the prices have jumped astronomically but when you look at the prices vs. inflation they haven't gone up all that much and the quality has improved a ton.

I think that Sonics jersey looks great. I would have unabashedly worn that back then, and I still would today. It looks like a fashion jersey.

Dude, it's a sports logos and uniforms forum. What other issues are we going to discuss - world peace?

uniform logos are a hobby/ interest, not an issue.

They are a hobby/interest in the general scheme of life. On a sports logos and uniforms forum, they become issues.

When doing a realignment, you can't only look at geographical layout, whether college or pro.

You have to look at tradition (yes at this point in time, some teams have been in conferences/leagues/divisons and rivalries for quite some time), current placement (such as if they have been in a certain league for awhile, would it be a good idea to actually move them to another) and geography. And it's not exactly one first, then the second and then the third. You have to look at which one stands out the most as a reason to keep or move a team. And with colleges, you have to look at school size and athletic department sizes, as some schools may geographically fit, but you may put a small time school in a conference with all big schools, leaving them no chance. Or vice versa with a big school dominating a conference of smaller ones.

I disagree. I can't speak for college, but I think when the NBA changed to 6 divisions in 2004, they almost strictly did it using geographical layout. If any teams stayed in their "historical" division, I'm pretty sure that was purely coincidence or luck. I'm glad they based it more on geography (especially since the divisions are named after geographic regions) instead of trying to maintain old divisions as much as possible based on history. It just makes more sense.

Also, in the NBA at least, using a strictly geographical layout ensures that teams close to each other play each other more often, which reinforces regional rivalries.

Perhaps not the best choice of words, but you get my point. The NFL's pricing creates a secondary market that's extremely easy for people to participate in. I think that's obvious.

And then their counter-argument will be "BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT LEGAL!!! ITS STILL STEALING!!". There's nothing more annoying than people who think they never break a law, and come down on other people for it. It's almost impossible to live your life without (intentionally or unintentionally) breaking some kind of law. Like I said before, if owning a baseball cap that I bought in Chinatown is the worst crime I've ever committed, then I'm proud of the way I'm living my life. Everything is relative, people.

When he grows up, he'll either be in jail for taking something that he feels he deserves to have because he wants it, or will have matured and understand why this is a crime and who it hurts, and why it isn't about anyone being an "authentic jersey freak".

Do you honestly think that everyone who owns a piece of counterfeit merchandise ends up in jail? If the biggest crime someone commits in his life is owning a piece of counterfeit merchandise, I would say his parents did a pretty great job of raising him.

I was at Hawk Quarters in Chicago today and, no kidding, a guy walks in in the worst knock of and asks "hey, take a look at this, how much do you think this is worth?" and without missing a beat the girl behind the counter goes "nothing, that is a piece of garbage knock off. Needless to say, the dude goes absolutely ballistic because he is convinced that he's gotten the best deal on Earth when in fact what he got was, well, junk.

anyone really concerned about a knock off is/must be young and worried about trivial crap like what other people think. Or if youre older,you possess no wisdom and worry about really stupid crap. I have a couple knock offs and they are fine. The numbers are a tad big but its obvious what team is being represented and they are better quality than over priced pseudo replicas sold in America.

Sure its nice to have what is considered the real thing but paying 300 for a football jersey is pretty stupid....I do hope to get one eventually, but for now knock offs are fine.

One day I'd like to buy my own cable. But for now stealing my neighbors is fine.

pointless, unrelated, and means nothing. Get to the point ,jersey control freak.

Unrelated? Both situations are people taking intellectual property with out purchasing it from the proper people.

I think in this case I am a law freak not a jersey freak.

A law freak who openly admits to speeding and doesn't think there's anything wrong with driving under the influence.

Cincinnati Reds in the American League with Cleveland Indians (their in-state rival) and the Boston Red Sox? An absolute "no-no".

To be fair, Pennsylvania has two NL teams (in-state rivals, if you will) in real life.

Cincinnati will never switch leagues. They were the first team and will ways be in the NL.

Hmm. Maybe in that case Cincinnati and Charlotte can switch places. Or, if that's not good enough, move CIN to the NL North, STL to the NL south, and CHA to the AL South.

You're not seriously proposing splitting up the Cards and the Cubs, are you?

As an alternate suggestion, yes. Do you have any comments about my initial suggestion? Because if you are okay with that one, then the second one becomes moot.