Hockey Trash Talk & BS thread

Welcome to the 21st century dawg lol

 

https://twitter.com/tmlfaninvan/status/1657189147201662979?t=zg1X_-voHcTiYUNkBFOYkw&s=19

 

I've been wondering how eye ball numbers have been trending. I dunno. I've said it before but the NHL doesn't draw me in like it used to once my team is eliminated. I used to watch every game. Now I'll probably catch the finals elimination games and just stick to recaps until then.

 

I love how “purists” hate it when the Stanley Cup doesn’t go to an “original six”. The NHL would be dead if it never expanded beyond six teams. DEAD.
And it has to get into “non-hockey” markets to thrive. It simply has to. Like it or learn to love it.

 

I can understand why one would tend to lose interest if their teams never make it into the playoffs or get knocked out.
But some of these comments dissing the teams that are winning are too funny.

Whiners gonna whine.

 

Just to be clear, Leaf’s fans complaining about officials overlooking Bennetts trash I believe is a valid complaint. The things I’m talking about are comments like “original six” (whine) “small markets” (whine), really it’s just yapping by porch dogs like Oz lol.

Bonus: If you get away from Canadian media here’s what you read about NHL viewership:
https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-games-...ing-significant-ratings-increases/c-342278934
And don’t miss this part:
“The 1 p.m. ET game between the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins last Saturday averaged 1.13 million viewers (peaking at 1.5 million viewers), making it the second-most viewed ABC game this season, behind only the 2023 Navy Federal Credit Union Stadium Series between the Carolina Hurricanes and Washington Capitals from Raleigh, North Carolina, on Feb. 18.”

 

What I read about the decrease in viewership is the frustration with different carriers taking the feed and viewers being pissed they need multiple subscriptions to watch even their own local team, not to mention the media blackouts disallowing people from watching games from outside their area. No wonder the viewership goes up in the playoffs or as they televise more meaningful games, you can finally fucking watch them.

It does piss off me and all of my hockey watching friends that to watch every Kraken game we need Root sports, ESPN+, TNT and Apple TV, total bullshit they black out the Root Sports broadcast and we’re forced to watch ESPN or Apple TV, whose broadcast absolutely sucks.

 

Yeah, I'm sure viewership is down because Toronto got knocked out of the playoffs and not because they made it into the playoffs in the first place.

 

I totally understand. I’m fortunate to have cable and almost all regular season Canes games and 1st round of the playoffs are carried by Bally Sports on my cable and also TNT. I do have a disney/hulu/ESPN+ streaming subscription as well but the streaming services I do agree hurts viewership and it sucks to have to pay to watch.

 

I have a subscription to every carrier as well, so not a problem for me, but I understand the frustration for my friends, they are now binging every game they can lol

 

With the stock market down I had to sell my house and live outta my Tacoma down by the river just to afford the subscriptions. Eating potted meat on saltine crackers. That sir is hockey fan dedication.

 

I mean that's been Bettmans MO. Kill the game in the North, grow it in the South. I guess it's working.

 

As the Leafs, they didn't show up for the first two games and that's the series. I'm not into the other things Keefe was saying. The rest of the debatable things are typical NHL nonsense and will continue on until the league decides to call the game the same in the playoffs as they do in the regular season, which we all know will never happen. Name me another major league that changes the game using the officials in their playoffs?

 

I don’t think that was his intent. True, expansion was to the south but where else was it going to go, Inuvik? The population without hockey was in the south to Canada.
The institution of the salary cap is what equalized the ability of teams in smaller markets to achieve parity in the ability to succeed in winning. Now it’s a matter of a team having the right ownership, GM, Coach, and selection of players that makes the difference in winning or losing. Can’t just spend as much as you want to get the best players.
I’m not a Bettman expert it’s just my perception based on what I’ve read so I offer this only as an opinion.
This article I think is fairly balanced. I don’t like the current televised media contracts but seems to have brought the NHL more money though I bet it’s not growing viewership at all.
https://thehockeywriters.com/the-nhl-is-thriving-under-gary-bettman/

Probably if I lived in Canada I would feel some resentment for these “upstarts” south of the border. But as someone living in the south I’m happy to see it here, it’s a great sport and for any team it’s a difficult thing to win the cup.
I harbor no i’ll will to Canadians who enjoy our baseball or basketball though haha.

 

It's what he's done for the teams in the south above and beyond what he's done for the teams in the North that's a sore issue. But that's a seperate argument. I'm honestly not a sunbelt team hater. If the Canes or Stars win it, well that's fine and I hope it grows the game for them locally. That's what I should of said. I just don't like his tendency to throw the south teams extreme amounts of life support while completely ignoring markets like Quebec City and Saskatchewan that could easily host one of those teams. Couple that with some weird decisions in the league in general and it's a bad look from my angle. Bettman wants equality but he doesn't treat his markets equally or fairly.

 

Fair enough. I added some additional comments to my post fyi. It does seem to be true that the recent expansions got the quality players from the other teams to start hot right out of the gates. Maybe too generous? Though a relocation and not an expansion, the Canes struggled in early years (and the 10 years before Rod was hired as well).
For the Canes Rod and staff have created a team with consistent success and that has grown the fan base significantly for the last 5 years and I expect it to continue. Though we haven’t won a cup under Rod I believe one day we will and it wont be a once and done like 2006, we will be a potential cup contender each year.

 

WAH

 

I’ve got some “Original Six” hankies if anyone needs one, haven’t even been used. Keeping one for myself just in case the Canes don’t win the cup.

 

Phew, see you in game 7 Dallas!

 

Dallas is killing me. Def didn't want to see Gm 7.