2023-'24 NHL season

[spartacat_12]

On 10/14/2023 at 8:33 PM, JohnnyCowboy5 said:

 

What do you guys think of this

 

The overall quality of the HNIC broadcast has gone down over the years, but they always manage to kill it with the montages. I'm part of the camp that has no problem with the Bedard stuff. The NHL knew what they were doing with the schedule. Him vs. Sid on opening night, followed by his first trips to Boston, Montreal, and Toronto, then against MacKinnon & the Avs on ESPN. After the Hawks home opener next week I'm sure we'll see it die down a bit, at least until the first Bedard-McDavid matchup in December.

 

13 hours ago, Ridleylash said:

 

The people who are adamant that putting a team back in Quebec City would be a resounding success are trying real hard to ignore this.

[habsfan1]

I feel really bad for Kirby Dach.

 

Even if he fully recovers for next season, it's hard to feel confident that he could play a full season, given his long history of being sidelined. That's a lot of time missed for a player who is only 22.

 

[The_Admiral]

When the Senators' attendance was dropping below five figures, you never saw me crowing about how this proves that Ottawa is a failure and their team needs to be moved to a southern Yankee Containment Zone with a surprisingly good craft beer scene.

[Ridleylash]

Aaand Tampa chokes a multi-goal lead to the Leafs...again. Tampa's looked very pedestrian to start the season.

[spartacat_12]

On 10/21/2023 at 7:14 PM, the admiral said:

When the Senators' attendance was dropping below five figures, you never saw me crowing about how this proves that Ottawa is a failure and their team needs to be moved to a southern Yankee Containment Zone with a surprisingly good craft beer scene.

 

Plenty of people (including the team's owner) brought up relocation when the Sens were having their attendance issues. I was commenting on the "move 'em to Quebec City" crowd who seem to have convinced themselves that it would be a slam dunk success of a market, just like Winnipeg was when the Thrashers moved there.

 

I'm not advocating for moving the Jets anywhere, but this situation is why the NHL is in no rush to put another team in a small Canadian market.

[Ridleylash]

Exactly, a small market with a weak dollar is never going to be appealing to the NHL, or any major sports league really, when it comes to future expansion. They want the big buck markets if they're having expansion or sale prices be in the range of hundreds of millions to billions of dollars, because it makes it easier and more likely to actually get a benefit from that investment.

 

There's a reason that the only Canadian cities with major-league franchises outside of the NHL are Vancouver, Toronto and Montréal, the three largest markets in the country; and even then, two of those only have MLS teams outside of the NHL at the moment.

[who do you think]

Let's give them 10 more years of chances and try scheduling some home games in the Robertson College faculty lounge before we deem the market flawed, alright?

 

Is Winnipeg getting boned by the economy? I remember reading that Calgary and Edmonton went through some bad weather in the late 90s, right in the teeth of the Canadian dollar crapping out. Right now it's trading at $0.73 US, which I believe is not very good.

[Ridleylash]

Meanwhile, in Alberta...

...the Oilers are, uh, not having a fun start to the year.

[BeerGuyJordan]

On 10/21/2023 at 4:14 PM, the admiral said:

When the Senators' attendance was dropping below five figures, you never saw me crowing about how this proves that Ottawa is a failure and their team needs to be moved to a southern Yankee Containment Zone with a surprisingly good craft beer scene.

It warms my heart to know that Admiral's contempt for sun belt markets continues. It's good to be back.

 

I agree with him that the League had a willingness in the 90's to let any bozo with half a plan and an unvetted bank statement buy a team. I also agree that it led to messes like Arizona and Atlanta, and for a time (and to varying degrees) Carolina, Florida, and Nashville. 

 

I disagree that it is a flaw in the markets themselves. Las Vegas is a shining example that making sure you get the right ownership and a good product matter more than the market. If a market doesn't already have a culture for a sport, you have to create it. Just throwing a team down like the NHL used to do is bad business. The Knights and Kraken expansion terms were a formula for success.

 

If you put the past 20 years of team and ownership history from Toronto in any market south of DC, they'd be bleeding money.

 

Back to the greater point, pulling out of Winnipeg at this point would be dumb. More than a third of the league's attendance is significantly down. Is anyone saying they need to pull stakes in San Jose, whose attendance hit a lower point than even Winnipeg? How about Calgary or Washington? Their attendance is down as well.

 

Is there a problem right now? Yes, obviously. It isn't the Winnipeg metro's size. Admiral's underlying point there is spot on.

[Unocal]

Did anyone check out Frozen Frenzy?

[Ridleylash]

Well, that's not a good thing for the Sens.

[BeerGuyJordan]

24 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

Well, that's not a good thing for the Sens.

Given how much sports betting is being shoved down our throats, and how much the league benefits from it,  I feel like we need them to explain what he did to avoid looking like hypocrites.

[Ridleylash]

9 minutes ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

Given how much sports betting is being shoved down our throats, and how much the league benefits from it,  I feel like we need them to explain what he did to avoid looking like hypocrites.

 

Seems he was using a proxy bettor to make bets using his own insider knowledge. The fact that he and the PA are not appealing it also means that Pinto was clearly guilty of something, because why else would Pinto not try to appeal a 41-game suspension?

[monkeypower]

1 hour ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

Given how much sports betting is being shoved down our throats, and how much the league benefits from it,  I feel like we need them to explain what he did to avoid looking like hypocrites.

 

Hypocrites?

 

The NHL having deals with sports betting sites doesn't mean players are allowed to bet. That's pretty much been a fundamental rule of playing a professional sport forever.

[BeerGuyJordan]

16 hours ago, monkeypower said:

 

Hypocrites?

 

The NHL having deals with sports betting sites doesn't mean players are allowed to bet. That's pretty much been a fundamental rule of playing a professional sport forever.

Yeah, I get that. When I made it, the statement was more of a "you're embracing sports betting to a large degree, let's be clear where your lines are as to how much you've embraced them. What is severe enough to warrant half a season, but not so bad to boot the kid entirely?" As far as I'm aware, there's been no real attempt to make this explicitly clear.

 

And "having deals" feels like a gross undercharacterization of the deluge of sports betting ads fans are hit with while watching games, at least here in the states.

[monkeypower]

2 minutes ago, BeerGuyJordan said:

Yeah, I get that. When I made it, the statement was more of a "you're embracing sports betting to a large degree, let's be clear where your lines are as to how much you've embraced them. What is severe enough to warrant half a season, but not so bad to boot the kid entirely?" As far as I'm aware, there's been no real attempt to make this explicitly clear.

 

There's been enough smoke and specifically crafted statements, plus essentially cutting a deal for the 41 games and not appealing, that he didn't bet on the outcomes of games but may have proxy bet on hockey futures.

 

Like I said, not betting on your own sport is pretty much been a fundamental rule of playing a professional sport forever. It's pretty clear. Regardless of who the NHL embraces as a partner and a sponsor, they can have different rules for their players/employees. The NHL has deals with Anheuser-Busch but I'm pretty sure it would be frowned upon if a player showed up drunk to a team event.

[spartacat_12]

20 hours ago, monkeypower said:

Hypocrites?

 

The NHL having deals with sports betting sites doesn't mean players are allowed to bet. That's pretty much been a fundamental rule of playing a professional sport forever.

 

The players are actually permitted to bet on other sports as long as they're doing it legally. In this case Pinto has allegedly been allowing a third party to place proxy bets using his account. This is considered fraud, is illegal in a lot of states, and brings other potential issues like money laundering into the mix. The league had to make an example out of someone to make sure no other players think of trying anything sketchy like this.

 

Between the Pinto situation, Brannstrom's scary injury last night, and Chabot now missing 4-6 weeks with a broken hand, it's been a tough 24 hours in Sens land. It already feels like another lost season, but hopefully this means DJ Smith & Pierre Dorion are finally shown the door. They're the last remaining holdovers from the Melnyk era, and the team desperately needs to turn the page.

[Ridleylash]

On 10/27/2023 at 10:56 AM, spartacat_12 said:

Between the Pinto situation, Brannstrom's scary injury last night, and Chabot now missing 4-6 weeks with a broken hand, it's been a tough 24 hours in Sens land.

Welp, make it a tough 48;

[ruttep]

10 minutes ago, Ridleylash said:

Welp, make it a tough 48;

What does this even mean???

[SFGiants58]

Man, the Sharks are just garbage. I know they’re in the middle of tearing it down, but it’s really brutal.