2011-12 NHL Season

[CS85]

Blackhawks played hockey for about 90 seconds in this game in the 3rd period.

This team blows, so many weak spots. Lot of young future for the blackhawks, no present winners. Guys are a bunch of candyasses.

Cripes dude, put down the razor blades. It's not like you're a Blue Jackets fan or something.

Er wait, I forgot since my team's won a stanley cup in the last couple years I'm no longer allowed to have any sort of negative opinion about them. My bad.

Everything's great!

[IceCap]

Blackhawks played hockey for about 90 seconds in this game in the 3rd period.

This team blows, so many weak spots. Lot of young future for the blackhawks, no present winners. Guys are a bunch of candyasses.

Cripes dude, put down the razor blades. It's not like you're a Blue Jackets fan or something.

Er wait, I forgot since my team's won a stanley cup in the last couple years I'm no longer allowed to have any sort of negative opinion about them. My bad.

Everything's great!

You say that sarcastically, but as a Leafs fan let me tell you, appreciate the hell out of that Cup.

You may have very legitimate points regarding the team's performance, but coming from Leafs Nation I can't help but think you're being overly negative given that Cup and the Hawks' place in the standings.

[Kevin W.]

With how we've been playing lately, we don't deserve the spot in the standings the team has. The team is playing poorly right now and resting on the laurels of a hot start.

[CS85]

Blackhawks played hockey for about 90 seconds in this game in the 3rd period.

This team blows, so many weak spots. Lot of young future for the blackhawks, no present winners. Guys are a bunch of candyasses.

Cripes dude, put down the razor blades. It's not like you're a Blue Jackets fan or something.

Er wait, I forgot since my team's won a stanley cup in the last couple years I'm no longer allowed to have any sort of negative opinion about them. My bad.

Everything's great!

You say that sarcastically, but as a Leafs fab let me tell you, appreciate the hell out of that Cup.

You may have very legitimate points regarding the team's performance, but coming from Leafs Nation I can't help but think you're being overly negative given that Cup and the Hawks' place in the standings.

I'll keep my opinions to myself then, so as to not offend the more sensitive of the less fortunate, I suppose.

[GO2HELL]

You're just being over dramatic about the whole thing. It's not like the hawks are back to fighting for a playoff spot or anything.

[CS85]

Just forget I said anything. I'm not dealing with finger-wagging from british columbia's full population.

[Kevin W.]

over dramatic

A Canucks fan is the last person who should be throwing the phrase "over-dramatic" around.

[Corvus]

Blackhawks played hockey for about 90 seconds in this game in the 3rd period.

This team blows, so many weak spots. Lot of young future for the blackhawks, no present winners. Guys are a bunch of candyasses.

Cripes dude, put down the razor blades. It's not like you're a Blue Jackets fan or something.

Er wait, I forgot since my team's won a stanley cup in the last couple years I'm no longer allowed to have any sort of negative opinion about them. My bad.

Everything's great!

Well, I guess being 20th in goals against is concerning. We'll give you that one.

[Chicageaux]

Hey now.. the Hawks were tied for most points in the league with the Rangers last Friday. They lost two games to Nashville, a team that usually plays them hard. They now have the All-Star Break to take some time off and if they can come out on this nine-game road trip and play well, they should be fine. It hurts having Sharp out and Toews, but I don't think it's time to jump ship yet. I don't think this team will be backing into the playoffs like last year.

Commit to the Indian, man.

[CS85]

I wasn't "jumping ship," but I've been watching these games and what I'm seeing is not a very good team (as of late). I don't feel I've unfairly judged their play over the last couple months. Here's hoping the 2nd half of the season is healthier and they add a piece or two to solidify each line.

edit: they play in an intense division in a very competitive conference. I'm aware of just how rough things are in the central, but if you've watched these games you'll see that they're mind-bogglingly inept at times.

[maz]

CS85, don't fret. It's just the mentality of folks around here.

• Thou shalt not criticize their team if they recently won a championship.
  
• If thou dost complain about said team or if their prognosis for the team's future is in any way negative, no matter how realistic that may be, they have officially given up on that team.
  
• Thus, they are not allowed to celebrate their team's success should it come.
  
• However, any opinion in favor of your team automatically makes you a homer, and all of your posts from then on are not to be taken seriously.
  
• Any defense of the actions of a player on your team that others find questionable is not to be taken seriously, as any such actions can only be made through "<insert team colors here> colored glasses".
  

Learned all of those the hard way myself.

[CS85]

CS85, don't fret. It's just the mentality of folks around here.

• Thou shalt not criticize their team if they recently won a championship.
  
• If thou dost complain about said team or if their prognosis for the team's future is in any way negative, no matter how realistic that may be, they have officially given up on that team.
  
• Thus, they are not allowed to celebrate their team's success should it come.
  
• However, any opinion in favor of your team automatically makes you a homer, and all of your posts from then on are not to be taken seriously.
  
• Any defense of the actions of a player on your team that others find questionable is not to be taken seriously, as any such actions can only be made through "<insert team colors here> colored glasses".
  

Learned all of those the hard way myself.

Ah, this is valuable wisdom sir. Thank you for this. *grain of salt pouch added to inventory*

[RedSox44]

over dramatic

A Canucks fan is the last person who should be throwing the phrase "over-dramatic" around.

+1. CRichardson, this is the funniest thing I have read all day.

Anyway, the Bruins looked decent against the Caps, but only decent. It chaps my ass that Dennis "Hated by Everyone In Boston Because He Sucks, But We Kind Of Like Him Now Because He Got Us Nathan Horton and Greg Campbell" Wideman scored an empty netter.

Seguin had a nasty goal, though, so the game wasn't a complete loss. The B's have just looked sluggish since the Canucks or Canadiens game. The All-Star break should provide them with rest, and hopefully they'll come out of it looking like their normal selves.

[Sport]

The pains of success argument.

You guys can complain all you want about your teams and most of the time I won't say anything, but you're still going to come across as spoiled babies to someone in my shoes. Bitch away, but in my head you sound like the rich girl complaining about the car she got for her 16th birthday.

So yeah, maybe the price of getting to experience your team winning a championship should be that you don't get to bother the boards with your complaints for a few years. I'd take that over the position I'm currently in with my bunch of idiots.

[The_Admiral]

Asking the Hawks to trade places with the Ducks is deceptively apt, as both teams have underachieving goaltending and a shallow forward corps. They very well could. They're very similarly constructed teams.

Regardless of the points the team has amassed to date, there are so many bad things about this team. Patrick Kane either doesn't want to play hockey anymore or has lost so much range of motion in his broken wrist that he can't shoot anymore. Frolik and Bickell have gone from respectable third-liners to barely able to play at an NHL level. Toews is out. Sharp is out. The defense is a Chinese fire drill every night. There have been as many as six rookies dressed for games. The goalie is giving up goals on dump-ins from the center line. And while the world is collapsing around them, the other three teams in the division (Columbus is not a team) never stop winning. All year I've said this team was built just to get in and make a little noise before contending for real in later years, but every time they get my hopes up and make me think they could be more than that, they go and have stretches like these. It's annoying.

One thing that has to be taken from two embarrassments to Nashville is that the Blackhawks are a low-effort team. Just are. They don't try to take guys off the puck, they happily leave the point open for anyone who wants to shoot from it, and they're content to spend power plays cycling to nowhere instead of just working for the garbage goals in front of the net. Hockey is one of the few sports where "trying hard" can actually manifest itself in some meaningful way, and I think that's why the Predators have been able to get away with playoff berth after playoff berth without bothering to have more than like four legitimate NHL skaters at any given point in their history. They'll scrap out wins with what little they have; the Blackhawks prefer to coast. I'm not sure why, because ultimate success requires elite God-given talent and trying really, really hard. Did we learn nothing from the guy they built a statue of outside the United Center?

[charger77]

Neal to replace Ovechkin.

[BrySmalls]

On topic - Who replaces Ovechkin?

James Neal!

Neal to replace Ovechkin.

You're welcome maz!

[TheOldRoman]

Blackhawks played hockey for about 90 seconds in this game in the 3rd period.

This team blows, so many weak spots. Lot of young future for the blackhawks, no present winners. Guys are a bunch of candyasses.

Cripes dude, put down the razor blades. It's not like you're a Blue Jackets fan or something.

Er wait, I forgot since my team's won a stanley cup in the last couple years I'm no longer allowed to have any sort of negative opinion about them. My bad.

Everything's great!

You are just someone who hates his own favorite teams. You can excuse away thinking the Bears would be terrible (with Cutler) this past year or hire Tim Ruskell because "that's what the Bears do", and I know you are used to abject failure as a Cubs fan, but this is the Blackhawks, which has been a successful, well-run organization over the past four years. The reality is that you are Randy Quaid from Major League. You are going to say your teams suck up until the moment they win the championship (and then again in four months). Embrace it.

[Sodboy13]

You watch any Blackhawks this year, Roman? They are intensely frustrating on some nights, even for a fan like myself who thought picking them for a 5-seed this year would be drinking the Kool-Aid. They well and truly look like they don't give a for long stretches, sometimes even for full games. And when you've seen the talent in full fledge at other points of the season, it can really grind on you.

And the whispers are starting to surface via the front office that Tim Thomas, Free Citizen, may no longer be considered worth the trouble by Boston Bruins, Free Enterprise. Thomas shouldn't want it any other way.

[TheOldRoman]

You watch any Blackhawks this year, Roman? They are intensely frustrating on some nights, even for a fan like myself who thought picking them for a 5-seed this year would be drinking the Kool-Aid. They well and truly look like they don't give a for long stretches, sometimes even for full games. And when you've seen the talent in full fledge at other points of the season, it can really grind on you.

And the whispers are starting to surface via the front office that Tim Thomas, Free Citizen, may no longer be considered worth the trouble by Boston Bruins, Free Enterprise. Thomas shouldn't want it any other way.

Yes, I have watched the Hawks. I'm not arguing they are going to win the Cup this year, but it seems to me his assessment of all his favorite teams is that they suck and the worst possble outcome will happen at any given moment.