Okay, so there will not be any NHL hockey till at least January of 2005. I actually have pretty much come to the conclusion that if it doesn't return it never will. The two parties are that far apart.
Last spring the NHL had a third party give their opinion on the condition of the league that painted a bleak future, and revealed what horrible shape the league was in money wise. We already knew this with half a dozen teams almost going belly-up publicly. The players union's response to this was
"poppycock!" and "lies all lies!" However, they didn't really have any actual facts to back up why they think there shouldn't be a salary cap. Despite the decline in revenue they not only think there shouldn't be cap on teams they wanted to play less games. They wanted the season to be lowered from 84 games to around 75. So, they want unlimited earning potential and lessen the amount of games which would decrease revenue simply cause they didn't feel like playing that many games.
So here we are. The weather is changing and an I robbed of the sport that means the most to me. It has been very hard and kind of depressing for me. I thought perhaps (hard to do with lack of coverage) I would learn more about the players and teams in the AHL and follow the league happenings.
Well the AHL has gone and put many drastic rule changes into the game. So, bascially the verision of hockey that I know and love is dead. Here are the rule changes. Quite possibly the most drastic they ever did.
Permission of “tagging up” to negate off-side plays
Implementation of “no-touch” icing
Widening the blue lines and center red line to 24 inches and moving the goal line back to 11 feet from the end boards, adding space to the neutral zone
Employing a shootout to decide regular-season games which are tied after overtime.
Shootouts? Go lord..what is this a Playstation game? Why not just name Parris Hilton the commish and get it over with.
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6 comments:
The Nhl needs to lower the amount of games, there are just too many. There are also way too many teams, but that is just obvious.
As for the rules with the AHL, they all seem fine to me. It is the AHL, that is where they test out rule changes for the NHL. Besides what diffewrence does it make nobody cares about hockey anyway
K
"No-touch" icing? Is that a safety concern?
As for the shootout, it's definitely not the way I would go. In fact, if it were up to me, there would never be any overtime except in the playoffs. A tie is a tie. But a shootout would at least be exciting, certainly more exciting than 5 minutes of four-on-four.
Drew, maybe it is make players safer I don't know. MOst European leagues use the no touch rule. I always found it annoying. Besides I always got a kick out of seeing the race for the puck, sometimes it was a good way to figure out who had heart on your team and who didn't.
Now the AHL was always the little science project of the NHL. They did the point for losing in OT there first, the 4 on 4..but the actual ice rules usually started with just a few games. Like the two refs.
Now they are doing this in a time where the NHL has pissed of its loyal fan base. In fact one of the reasons we got to this point was because of Gary Bettman sticking his finger up at hockey tradionalists and trying to reach new fans.
I want to catch some Phantoms games still, but I am not happy about the shoot out at all. Just looks really desperate too.
Well if you want NHL action you can tune into TECHTV. They are going to use one of the year's hockey video game releases to sim the entire season. Every night they will have highlights from the night in the NHL. They will do it on each night the game was supposed to play. So if you really want to find out if the FLyers will win their opener tune into TECHTV oct 13.
They will even have on their website the standings and scoring race for the 2004-05 season. Some people even think Comcast sportsnet (who owns TECH TV and the FLYERS) will show highlights of the fake games.
LETS GO FLYERS!
No word if JR will be on the bench or not either
Am I the only one that thinks that JR is being a complete ass on this one. He wouldn't have to beg for his money if e did not blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on tout services, let alone actual gambling.
J (the first comment was mine as well, I just hit the wrong letter)
I find it hard to imagine from hearing him during the World Cup, that he had desire to try go come back. I highly doubt that if there was a full season he would tried to come back.
Okay, JR is likely messed up from getting his bell rung so many times, but the fact the is just not bringing it to the Flyers attention is pretty messed up. I would be mad to if I was comcast who is losing millions of dollars this season.
Hopefully his gambing wasn't that bad Jay, but his quotes make you wonder.
Ruining his career? How he is a millionaire..effects his family? NOT really his kids won't even have to work a day in their life let alone him have to work. So, did he blow a huge amount of loot gambling on football?
He admitted to blowing hundreds of thousands on tout services, also known as tip lines. And this was confirmed, becuse it came out in some kind of police, and/or governmental investigation. He never admitted to how much he actually gambled with, but I would imagine that it would be substantionally more than what he spent on tips. But again, he is a multi-multi-millionaire, so that amount of money means nothing to him.
J
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