TheOldRoman

If the kit went "missing" and the BPD is scratching their heads saying "Gosh, we deleted the darn results!" it'll reach peak absurdity, but I don't think we're there yet.

Erie County Central Police Services says they have the rape kit, sealed, in its original packaging. What. In. The. Hell.

Scratch that. Peak absurdity attained. Send in the clowns.

You're closer than I am: what's the root of Bernstein's antipathy for the Blackhawks? He talks a big game about wanting the media to hold them accountable, which is fine in and of itself, but he happily acts as a mouthpiece for other teams the way he accuses others of acting for the Hawks. Something's always been up with him and the team well before this story.

I don't think this was meant for me, and I don't listen to the show. But I know the entirety of Chicago Sports Radio was pissed about the Hawks being relevant. They never had to watch or pretend to know hockey. Suddenly the Hawks are huge and they're expected to talk about them. Thus, leading to media tantrums and Bernstein's "all hockey fans are Aryan Nation fratboys from Naperville" shtick.

Apparently, the accuser's lawyer thinks a good Samaritan delivered them the bag. It was only the bag which originally contained the kit, not the actual kit. He thinks someone did this to show that the kit was tampered with. They showed the actual bag at the press conference, so he does have it. Someone gave it to them, but who knows who, how, why, or if it means the kit was tampered with. This is insane.

Also, we've gotten no statements from Kane yet. We don't know if he told the police they had consensual sex or none at all. If he denied having sex with her, I'd say the rape kit being inadmissible would pretty much close this case completely.

The prevailing theory is that Kane's off-duty cop broke in all True Detective like and changed the results, which is preposterous, but not impossible in the preposterous world of the NHL. My inclination at first was that this was a desperation maneuver to get out of the woods with some dignity, but WSCR Rape Authority Julie DiCaro says they don't need a rape kit to indict him and they're going to keep going ahead with other evidence instead, evidence which criminal mastermind Patrick Kane wasn't able to tamper with, I guess.

I obviously don't know specifics of rape investigations, but what other evidence can there be? Unless there was video or audio, wouldn't everything be in the rape kit? Even she had Kane's DNA under her fingernails as reported and also on her body (showing that he had scratched her), It wouldn't be enough to prove rape. It might prove Kane lied to the police, but that wouldn't matter much here. Even if they had her ripped-up clothes with Kane's DNA showing he ripped them, it wouldn't prove that he raped her. I don't understand what other evidence there could be?

Have the DA or police yet commented on the supposed missing rape kit?

That crazy if true, but it makes no sense. A rape kit was made after the incident. So, if the attorney is correct, wouldn't the police be claiming the kit was stolen to cover this up? Would it even change anything? I imagine they have the results of the kit chronicled, leaving the physical kit's "displacement" irrelevant. If the kit went "missing" and the BPD is scratching their heads saying "Gosh, we deleted the darn results!" it'll reach peak absurdity, but I don't think we're there yet.

Nearly ever hipster I've see in Chicago sporting tight jeans shorts, thick framed glasses, a bushy mustache and calf-band tattoo was also wearing a fedora. Or maybe that's gone to mainstream douchebags in the last year and they've moved on to something else. Are they still wearing knit winter caps through the summer?

The Islanders should start tracking attendance for: 1) people; 2) handlebar mustaches; and 3) fedoras. I'm guessing on a sell-out night they'll have at least 4,000 fedoras and 1,500 handlebars.

I didn't hear any of the press conference, but I can't imagine who thought it was a good idea. I mean, if they wanted to bring Kane in, just have everybody say "it's an ongoing legal matter and this organization won't discuss it at this time," then have Kane do his best Marshawn Lynch impression when asked about it.

Yeah, I've seen a few female Kane defenders, though I try to steer clear of the froth, just because it always ends up being sad/infuriating/garbage. The defense line is always "We don't know all the facts yet!", which is convenient, because unless someone magically had their smartphone recording for several hours straight, yeah, we're never going to have all the facts. Just physical evidence that's very open to interpretation, and the accounts of two people who were under the influence of alcohol, at least one of whom has a vested interest in all the facts not coming out. Thusly, why it's so hard to get a guilty verdict in a rape case.

Anyway, sex assault or not, this past month has taught me that Patrick Kane is a drunk hole and the Blackhawks are buffoons if they knew he was still being a drunk hole regularly and offered him a max contract anyway because at least he was keeping it quiet this time around. Sports!

But we don't! And I'm not on the defense. I think this certainly doesn't look good for Kane, and even if he skates on this (see what I did there?) the Hawks need to think long and hard about their future with him. But to take bits and pieces of media leaks as gospel is silly. And ultimately, it doesn't matter because I'm neither a New York judge or juror. My opinion, which will be formed after we actually know details other than those either party strategically leaked to the press, will be meaningless in this. I don't regularly go to Blackhawks games. I watch them on TV and occasionally buy a t-shirt. Me deciding to stop doing either wouldn't hurt the team one bit. But I don't see how calling off the torch mob until something happens one way or another is a bad thing.

It was funny because Katy Perry is a Zooey Deschanel wax figure that farts cotton candy rainbows and dances with awkward sharks.

I can think of two other magnificent differences between them.

To go along with what you're saying, literally all of the opinions I've gotten on this from women have been against the accuser (without even knowing the details). I haven't taken a stance because we don't actually know any of the details yet, and I think saying "she's just looking for money" is just as bad as saying "I just know he raped this girl because he's a douchebag." Still, the opinions of all the female hockey fans with whom I've discussed it was that Kane was likely innocent. And sure, it's not a big sample size, just some ladies at work. But these are educated professionals, not the toothless trailerfolk our local sports leader likes to pretend makes up the entirety of hockey fandom. In summation, it's more than just bros calling her a gold-digger.

Maybe I have an unpopular opinion because a bunch of people seem to love the Redskins' yellow pants. I have grown really tired of them.They look stale and just completely symbolic of a failed era in Washington. I particularly dislike the home jerseys with them. And it's not just the pants, it's the socks that match nothing, the shrunken sleeve stripes and the toothpick sleeve numbers Nike reduced them to. The whole Redskins uniform just looks awful and cheap now, at least to me.

So much better than:

(and I realize they dropped the toilet collars on the roads. I couldn't find a better picture).

I feel like those uniforms wouldn't be half bad if they didn't have the word Browns on the side of the pants. Or if they weren't paired with orange socks.

I think that'd make me a horrible person if I really did.

Maybe, but they'd still be about 80% bad.

I'd rather see them go back to Hartford, but Hartford doesn't have its act together and probably never will. At least this would keep the same 16 teams in the East and thus keep the world from ending. The league doesn't need Raleigh; no league does.

Yeah, Hartford's best chance to get the Whalers back was lost once Vince McMahon lost all of his money from the WWE network. Then again, if your ownership group is centered on Vince McMahon I guess you don't really deserve a hockey team

I don't think that's the case. There was a panic initially when they didn't reach the 1 million subscriptions, but the Network has surged the last several months and is, I believe, doing better than expected. I'm sure he made back whatever money he was thought to initially have lost.

This one's probably gonna set off a firestorm, but....

/stands up

I think the Jets could use a modernization of their 80s-1997 set.

Here's my thoughts with what they have. 7 year old me didn't like the throwback inspired uniforms at first when they came out in 1998, mainly the logo more than anything else with the dated looking "NY" in the background. But then over time I came to realize it's a classic looking set and I grew into it. But then Reebok botched up the shoulder stripes. Then Nike came around and not only failed to fix the shoulder stripes, but completely screw up the colors. One solution being thrown around is going back to kelly green so that it would match the Namath-era uniforms and so Nike can actually manage to make a uniform without 4 different shades of green appearing. The issue there though is that although kelly green works very well in most applications, it was too bright and garish and made the transition to the white stripes too abrupt.

My fix? Take the previous set, modernize the logo or bring back the jet plane logo and make it white, and go with that. Of course that probably means Nike throws in some needless custom number that derail an otherwise solid jersey like they did with the Browns, but it's gotta be better than 4 shades of green, right?

I was with you until the "otherwise solid" Browns comment.

I dont think that the canucks have had a bad logo or jersey.

Not even these two?

That first one is my ultimate guilty pleasure. So bad but soooooo good.

You know, I kinda agree. If the body was solid navy and they made the hem red, it would look plain. Not in any way "classic," but just plain for a jersey that features silver stripes. Maybe they should have made the bottom portion of the sleeves navy and had red gradient above that? I don't know. It's ugly and disjointed, but that somehow makes it more endearing.

EDIT: my browser is only showing the navy and red gradient jersey, but I realize two photos were posted. I was talking about the '00s alternate.

The Chicago White Sox and San Francisco Giants each were tentatively sold to buyers who would have moved them to Tampa, but in each case MLB stepped in to prevent it.

That's not true relating to the White Sox. The current ownership group purchased the team from Bill Veeck in 1981, and they were threatening to move to Tampa before Illinois built them a new park. They never intended on selling.

An interesting fact - the city of Seattle sued the American League when it allowed to Pilots to leave after one season. The owner of the White Sox was broke and needed to sell the team in 1975. To settle the suit, the AL was pushing to sell the White Sox to Seattle ownership and let the team move. Denver ownership was among the bidders, I believe, but the only bidder willing to keep the team in Chicago was Bill Veeck, who had previously owned the team and sold is to the then-owners 13 years earlier. Despite most of the AL owners disliking Veeck, they approved the sale to allow the team to stay in Chicago. Seattle got the expansion Mariners two years later.

Maybe more interestingly, if the White Sox would have moved to Seattle, Charlie Finley was planning on moving the Athletics into Comiskey Park.

Meh. Chevelle is decent and I rather like Shinedown. I'd take the worst of those bands over Radiohead any day, but YMMV.

I have listened to WLUP on and off my whole life. I like a lot of classic rock, but disliked the few times when the Loop went to a classic rock format and stopped playing anything made after the '80s. I mean, the Beatles are great, but I don't want to hear them (or Buffalo Springfield) on the Loop. I really liked Rock 103.5, and the Loop became my default radio station for a while after they changed formats. I dislike a lot of what they played on Q101, at least the softer stuff which they wouldn't have played on 103.5. And plenty of cynical people dislike Van Halen and claim their music is devoid of substance.

I always listened to either WLUP or The Drive. When I was a youngin' it was Wiil Rock out of Waukesha. Mandatory Metallica Mondays was my thing.

WIIL Rock is out of Kenosha and sucks. Music for high school weight rooms.

So you basically don't like any hard rock.

I have listened to WLUP on and off my whole life. I like a lot of classic rock, but disliked the few times when the Loop went to a classic rock format and stopped playing anything made after the '80s. I mean, the Beatles are great, but I don't want to hear them (or Buffalo Springfield) on the Loop. I really liked Rock 103.5, and the Loop became my default radio station for a while after they changed formats. I dislike a lot of what they played on Q101, at least the softer stuff which they wouldn't have played on 103.5. And plenty of cynical people dislike Van Halen and claim their music is devoid of substance.

Another one about the NFL:

I like the old Chargers jerseys better than the new ones. Something about how that lightning bolt looks on a darker background. I just think it's cool.

It is cool. I don't think it's unpopular to like the navy blue Chargers. The powder blue is really great, but the navy blue is still great, too. It's like Van Halen and Van Hagar.

Incredible analogy, though I'm surprised to hear that you like Van Halen. I would have figured you'd consider them too mainstream or pop-ish.

"Our purpose, in initiating the expansion process in the manner we did, was not only to explore the possibility of admitting new members to the NHL but also, at the outset, to set realistic guideposts to distinguish between bona fide expressions of interest (i.e., those which have at least substantial ownership capabilities and an arena or the realistic possibility of an arena) from those indications of potential interest which were, at best, merely hopes or aspirations. Apparently, only Mr. Foley and Quebecor have the confidence in their ability to secure an arena and suitable ownership capability to move forward with this process.

Thread for when Gary Bettman gets a little salty.

Other leagues hire public relations agencies to write press releases like these. The NHL just has Gary Bettman write whatever comes to mind immediately after ragequitting expansion.

I hope it happens. I really do. Just to see the NHL sheepishly backtrack on the whole "expansion" thing with two seemingly viable applications on the table. It'll really expose the whole "anyone but Quebec" mindset.

Even working from a mindset that anything the NHL does is wrong, dropping expansion now would make sense. If three cities applied, it would be good - two expansion teams and a new home for the Coyotes. But everybody knows that the Coyotes are on borrowed time in Glendale, and the NHL needs to keep a market for them (likely Vegas). I don't think they want to expand to 31 teams, so we'll just end up with the coming disaster in Las Vegas and wait for the Panthers to eventually fold up tents and move to QC.

I agree. In theory, I should hate Dallas's mismatched blues but in practice I prefer it. The concepts never look as good as I'd think they would.

I think it's because, like he said, everyone seems to start with their navy jerseys and go from there, either putting those colors on the current white jerseys or actually color-swapping the navys to white. The navy jerseys suck. They're really, really bad. They shouldn't make the jerseys they wear 95% of the time worse just to match the crappy navy alternates. And the Cowboys shouldn't be in navy to begin with. The Cowboys need to go back to what they wore in the '70s (although they can drop the serifed font if they prefer) - dark royal blue with bluish-silver. They can even keep the black stripe outlines on both jerseys are their little quirk. I'd also like if they changed their helmet to the greenish-silver of the pants, but bluish-silver is preferred. Of course, they helmet needs to match the pants, but that goes without saying.

But if not, leagues do bad alignments all the time ... when they have leverage ... so making Quebec pay $500 million to play in the West for "a while" isn't out of the question.

Right, which is how Bud Selig and assorted dumb:censored:s went about switching the Astros into the AL and having constant interleague play just to placate the freaking Texas Rangers. They forced it upon the new Astros owner as part of the sale. We might see Quebec in the Pacific Division.

I saw Opulent Cash Hole when they opened for Guns N' Roses on the Use Your Illusion tour.

The NHL is going gimmicky because they've heard from the media and fans alike: We hate the shootout! The league doesn't want to return to ties.

Easy way to fix it, go soccer table scoring: 3 pts for a win, 1 pt for a tie. Overtime win is still 3 pts, no sharing of points!

They should do nothing like soccer. Soccer is horrible. Ties are equally horrible. And I'm not a fan of shootouts, but they beat the hell out of watching hockey for two and a half hours and leaving with an outcome as if no game had occurred (to butcher an Admiral line). Sorry. People can call it "stupid American machismo" or whatever the hell, but games need a winner and a loser. I'm fine with 3 points for a regulation win, but they'd then need to go to 2 for an OT win and 1 for OTL.