I must be thinking of a different hit, then. The one I’m thinking of he brushed against the guy, and he accident crashed against the wall (not really anyone’s fault, just an accident. Maybe it wasn’t Neil?)
Well, A gritty win by the Wings. And with player safety such a key emphasis these days I’m sure the first thing Shanahan will do when he wakes up in the morning is twitter his golf score.
It’s funny you wrote this because I was actually thinking of starting a thread in the game Room which would be something along the lines of “how the hell do they pick sports broadcasters when they never seem to say anything that suggests they know anything about the sport?”
I’d like to say CBC’s better, but it usually it is not. Commentary on how players are doing is usually limited to “Smith is playing well” or “Smith is not playing well,” not WHY Smith is or isn’t playing well. They will sometimes comment on the fly on line matchups taking place but I never hear why one line matches well with another. The commentary is frequently inanities like “The Leafs really need to score a goal here,” which implies there are times you do not want to score a goal (I actually heard those very words spoken.) Gary Galley is the primary color man now and he’s not as bad as Harry Neale was or anything, but quite honestly nothing would be lost if he wasn’t there at all. You could lose Kelly Hrudey, too. When they do say anything it’s pointless, evidence-free speculation, like “Anderson’s confidence is down now,” or Master of the Obvious stuff like “Vokoun is playing because Fleury was struggling,” as if a hockey fan would be unaware of that. I’ve never heard Kelly Hrudey try to explain WHY Fleury was struggling, which is a staggering thing when you consider Kelly Hrudey used to be an NHL goalie.
This is not a hockey thing, either; it appears to be common to all televised sport, to the extent that I find it something to remark on when a commentator says something insightful. The Blue Jays’ TV color man has been Pat Tabler for ten or twelve years now, and I can say with complete truthfulness and not the slightest exagerration that I have listened to the man do thousands of hours of commentary and cannot ever remember him saying ANYTHING insightful. Ever. The man played over a thousand major league games over 12 seasons, played five different positions, played in a World Series and an All Star game, and was a pretty good player, and quite honestly never says a word that would suggest he knows more about baseball than I do, despite the fact that he MUST know more about baseball than I do. But he says things like this;
“The Jays really need a hit here.”
“The Jays could use some more clutch base hits.”
“It helps when your started goes deep into a game and doesn’t give up many runs.”
About the best the NHL guys will do is when, after a goal or a near miss, they will sometimes point out that so and so was out of position. But usually not, and usually their analysis doesn’t go very far back.
Why is this?
The quality of sports journalism has always been utterly dismal, even by the already disappointing standards of common print journalism. I noticed that when I was 13. Maybe younger. I can only assume that that’s where journalism schools send the lower achieving students, or something.
It never ceases to amaze me that newspapers and print magazines moan and whine about declining readership and yet fail to notice that the quality of their core product is so awful. The stuff I read in the local sports sections is jaw-droppingly idiotic. I don’t mean I disagree with it so I think the guy’s an idiot for suggesting Smith be traded or Jones be fired; I mean it’s stupid. It reads like it was written by a seventh grader.
Why is this? I’m not sure it’s anti-intellectualism, because the evidence suggests that people will eat the betters stuff up. That’s why newspapers are declining; they suck. People do not want to read formuliac, shallow dumbassery. When Bill James began writing about baseball in an intelligent way in the 1970s he was told “nobody wants to read this.” But as it turns out they DID want to read it, and now that sort of stuff is a big business - but it’s all on the Internet. If I want intelligent commentary and discussion on my favourite sports, I wouldn’t think of picking up a paper. I come here, or I go to Grantland or baseballprospectus or puckprospectus.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: televised hockey would be much, much more enjoyable without any announcers. It would be a thing of wonder to watch a game on a, say, 50" plasma HD screen with only the noise of the arena.
I don’t need to hear a running diatribe of who has the puck, who the puck is being passed to, who is receiving the puck, over, and over, and over, and over. Announcers can’t seem to even breathe for 60 minutes. Just shut up and let me watch the game. What’s so difficult about that? This isn’t radio anymore (Foster Hewitt). I can see what’s happening right in front of my eyes. Shut up already!
They make a mute button.
They don’t make one that only mutes the announcers…
I’d love to see this. I remember several years ago one of the networks did that with a late season NFL game as an experiment, and it was pretty cool to watch. At a minimum, you’d think that with technology as it is that we could at least have a secondary audio feed that allows that.
Why was the Joe Louis Arena so empty when I was watching the game? It was the third period, the Wings were up, it’s a playoff game, and I see empty seats in the lower bowl? Especially noticeable on the lower bowl ends where it looked about 40% empty.
Was it mainly Blackhawk fans and they exited early?
Was it shortly after the period started? Folks are still out getting stuff for the first 3 or 4 minutes.
It was about halfway to 3/4 through the 3rd period.
I didn’t see the whole game but did notice a lot of empty seats at this time.
Although do some searching on-line it does say it was a sold-out event. No shows or early exiters?
Meh. Just Detroit fans wanting to get the hell out of Dodge, err… Detroit, I guess.
The Fall of Saigon had more organization and structure than the Rangers powerplay - are they even trying anymore? And it’s hard to blame the players when the coach tells the media you stink at it. I can’t imagine being a Rangers fan…
Well, if you’re a Rangers fan, you get to watch and root for Lundqvist on nights like tonight, which is a total treat.
(Hopefully that jinxed him at least a little bit… He’s been seriously awesome tonight.)
I’ve noticed that the Wings games have been the loudest. Joe Louis arena is a madhouse. Did you notice that at the beginning of the period, when everyone is still waiting in line for another beer?
Wings got a lucky make up call on that interference call that would’ve tied up the game at 2. Chicago got the first goal on the heels of what could have been a boarding call when Franzen was checked from the back on the other end.
I like the fact that of the 8 teams, 5 are the previous Stanley Cup winners . It would be real nice if 4 of them made the Conference Finals.
Rangers were in as close to an elimination game as possible without it being an elimination game (only 4 teams in the history of the NHL have come back from a 3-0 hole, IIRC) and they showed up with one of the most pathetic efforts I’ve seen in these playoffs so far. It was - as it has been so many times these last 5 years - Lundqvist vs. the entire opposing team. I don’t know what happened between Florida and NY, but Torts now sucks as a coach.
What’s his actual plan for winning the cup? They keep bringing in skilled, speedy forwards (their prospect pool is full of them too) and instead of working with their strengths, he forces them into a rigid “ideal” that pretty much involves grinding and backchecking. In fact, I think the only thing he evaluates forwards on is whether or not they can backcheck. Hell, some games that’s his entire offensive system - can the forwards steal possession in their own end zone? From there, what? He doesn’t seem to care. Dump and chase, but their forecheck is half-assed at best. And their passing hovers between average and horrible - as it has since he came on board in 2009 - so they can’t even do the whole backcheck and short pass through the middle, as would have been helpful versus the Bruins today.
And his defensive system is borderline psychotic - block shots with every part of your body, or else. If you’re trying to make a deep cup run, the entire team is exhausted, sore, and often injured in ways they can’t play through after a few rounds. Maybe that’s why Torts has only won 4 series in the last 5 years?
Not to mention how much he destroys his own players in the media. People say it’s all a show, and that players really like playing for him - but today, where was the drive, confidence, and enthusiasm from his players? They looked like they wanted to go home, as soon as possible. And what is Torts going to do in that situation, yell at them some more?
I just feel bad for Lundqvist. Best goalie in the NHL in his prime, surrounded by a team that is good enough to “almost” be a true contender, but not bad enough that he’d want to force a trade - so it’s like this carrot constantly dangling in front of him.
There have been three:
1942 Finals, Toronto came back against Detroit
1975 quaterfinals, Islanders came back against Pittsburgh
2010 EAstern Conference finals, Philadelphia against Boston
You may be conflating in the Red Sox comeback over the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. It’s often said a 3-0 comeback has been done only four times in North American pro sport (no NBA team has ever done it.)
If you have the ability to send the sound through a five-speaker surround system, you can usually unplug the center speaker and get the effect of no announcers, but keep the crowd noise. Sometimes the announcers will come through the bass speaker a little.
I’m rooting for Boston, Ottawa (I can’t believe myself), San Jose and Chicago.
Boston: because I picked them to win the Cup prior to the season, they are playing the Rangers (favourite team is the Devils, then Leafs), and they put out the Leafs.
Ottawa: I love a huge underdog, even if it’s the Senators, the team I normally cannot stand. Plus I’d love to see Pittsburgh fail, after the pundits rushing to hand them the Cup at the trade deadline. I also have 3 Sens in my playoff pool.
San Jose: I picked them to lose to Boston in the Final, prior to the season. I really like that they moved players at the deadline, ostensibly being “sellers”, replacing them from within their system, and improved by doing so. Plus I want the Kings to lose.
Chicago: I’d like to see Toews grow an ever-larger legacy of leadership. I have been nothing but absolutely impressed with everything he’s done in his young career. One of Canada’s best, hopefully of all-time. Plus I took 4 Blackhawks in the pool.
Arrrrgh…despite being totally out-played in the first period and escaping by only being down by one goal, having their first goal disallowed that was an obviously blown call, and playing in the Shark Tank, the Kings still managed to only lose by only one goal.
I still love our chance going to the Conference Finals because of this.
Okay, now I remember – I was thinking of the hit on Gryba. Sorry about that. THAT one was legal. :o