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Post by kunstmann on Oct 9, 2002 18:19:42 GMT -5
First game is tomorow night. Any other hockey fans out here? Where are you Da Silva GO CANADIANS GO! STANLEY CUP CHAMPIONS 2003!!! What is everyone's favorite team, me its the habs!
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Post by Wycco on Oct 10, 2002 8:49:11 GMT -5
I don't watch the NHL much- but I do go and watch the local games in the ECHL (East Coast Hockey League)...
I was very happy to see my local team the Greenville Grrrowl win the Kelly Cup last year (the ECHL's version of the Stanley Cup). What made it better was the finals were against a Northern team! Great to bring the trophy South! Shame the Hurricanes couldn't bring another trophy to the Carolinas!
However- half last years winning team has left- so it remains to be seen if we can do it again.
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Post by Topcontender on Mar 14, 2003 10:50:39 GMT -5
How many Canadians here see this happening? ;D
MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, March 11 - Canadians are usually the first to concede that they are not the most effusive people. But put them on one side of a Plexiglas barrier and their son or daughter on the other fighting for a loose hockey puck, and some raw language is bound to fly.
"Start hitting," screamed one nattily dressed hockey dad at his 10-year-old son the other night during a semifinal playoff game between the Mississauga Jets and Mississauga North Stars in this middle-class Toronto suburb. "Nail him, nail him, NAIL HIM!"
The boy was apparently only too happy to oblige. "You got him," the father screamed. "Squash!"
Such scenes are repeated every winter night at the 3,000 hockey arenas across Canada, where little league hockey is a national obsession involving as many as 400,000 youths.
Nothing has happened in Canada to compare with the violence of an outraged hockey dad in Reading, Mass., who beat another father to death during a postgame brawl three years ago. But bad parental behavior over hockey is a much bigger part of Canadian life, and the angst has stretched from the arena all the way to the courts in recent months.
A mother of a pee wee goaltender in Thunder Bay, Ontario, sued the team's coach for not giving him the ice time he was supposedly promised. In St. Albert, Alberta, the parents of a 15-year-old sued the local hockey association after he was cut from a AAA bantam league team.
The father of a 16-year-old boy in New Brunswick sued a provincial hockey association for $300,000 in psychological and punitive damages last November after he was passed over being named most valuable player despite being the highest scorer in a local AAA bantam league.
Here in Mississauga, a dad brought his 9-year-old son to small claims court to sue a competing coach for $10,000 after claiming that the coach "put a bounty" on the boy's head. The judge dismissed the suit, calling it a "sad mess" and adding that "the courts are not the place to come to change the world of children's hockey."
Starting with the pee wee leagues, youth hockey dictates the social pecking order in many communities. The youths of the AAA leagues constitute the in-crowd while those in the AA, A and (for those with the weakest ankles and lowest velocity slap shots) "house" leagues jealously follow behind.
The pride, or stigma, reaches up into the stands. Parents often put extreme pressure on coaches to select their children during team tryouts, on referees to make calls that favor their kids and on the children themselves to skate faster and hit harder.
Little league hockey seems to be a right of passage that marks nearly every Canadian adult man and an increasing number of mothers. All too often that mark is passed on to the next generation as a scar - making many games more stressful and violent than fun.
"Kids are saying to coaches `I don't want to play anymore, I'm afraid,"' said Bill Giamou, a 41-year-old hockey enthusiast who quit as an Ontario youth league referee this winter out of disgust with the hyper-competitive atmosphere. "They want to go home and play Nintendo."
This season the Canadian Hockey Association ended a 20-year policy of prohibiting body checking for 9- and 10-year-old players. But recognizing the growing problems with violence, it began a national television advertising campaign titled "Relax, it's just a game."
In one advertisement, a boy heckles his father from the backseat, urging him to fight back as a policeman writes up a traffic ticket. "That call stinks - you stink," he tells the policeman, and then turns to his mortified father, saying: "You're not just going to sit there and take this, are you? Stand up to this moron!"
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Post by Topcontender on Mar 14, 2003 10:51:17 GMT -5
In another, a daughter urges her mother to fight with another woman after the two women's shopping carts collide in a supermarket. "What's wrong with you? You chicken? You're such a wimp!"
All the commercials end with the question, "What if kids pressured us the way we pressure them?"
Parents at the Jets-North Stars game seemed eminently sane, saying they were gratified there had been no fights (aside from a little shoving after the final whistle) as the North Stars went on to win 1-0. The two roughneck teams in the league had already been eliminated, according to the parents, showing that good stick play still counts for more than hard knuckles.
"I tell my son the idea is not hitting, but taking the puck," said Don Jones, 46, a food inventory manager whose son Blair plays left wing for the North Stars. "But some parents go nuts."
Mr. Jones recalled a recent incident in which a boy gave a hard body check to a girl on an opposing team, smashing her face into the Plexiglas. "The boy's mother said, `I hope you have a concussion.' Another mother jumped in and said, `I hope you are paralyzed for life.' They forgot that it's only a game."
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Post by Cine_Man on Mar 19, 2003 17:45:06 GMT -5
I have a daughter, thankfully, who "does ballet"... but there is a sk8r boi next door. Ice skates, tho.
He is actually too small to play in the leagues, so he'll probably still have all his teeth by the time he hits age of majority. But there still is an elitism to all the tiers of hockey play. And man, the jealousy. One of my wife's colleagues has a son in the elite leagues (goalie) who keeps coming away with MVP awards... but his aspiration is for Pro Golf! Go figure.
BTW, the community of St. Albert is attached to the city of Edmonton, so that happened here. Very recently, a coach was dismissed from the league for pulling his team from the ice when the game got physically out of control. But its not really a game. It is a retirement lottery for most parents. If the kid makes it to the big dance... its gravy train... if he doesn't, its dogfood. I blame it on television.
Cine_...
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Post by Topcontender on Mar 19, 2003 19:00:35 GMT -5
Cine i got buddies that played juniors and College who thought it was easy street. Well they lost out and now play in the ECHL and the AHL. Sure they have played a few NHL games, but all they had to do it stay in college and get that degree. Well they got greedy and are paying the price.
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Post by Cine_Man on Mar 24, 2003 14:06:56 GMT -5
It occurs to me that a few days ago, when this thread was revived, the playoffs are starting to loom a little closer.... and without looking at the original date of the thread, I assumed you were referring to that "Hockey season"... my mistake... although more than a few people think about the so-called "regular season" as a sort of 'qualifying' or 'elimination' for the round-robin Stanley Cup tournament. Just think, if Bernie and Max ran the NHL.... cine_...
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Post by daSilva on Mar 24, 2003 15:10:57 GMT -5
Your Oilers are going to have a tough first round.
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Post by Cine_Man on Mar 25, 2003 13:58:10 GMT -5
The usual.
Death in OverTime.
Cine_...
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Post by Topcontender on Apr 10, 2003 11:34:06 GMT -5
PLAYOFF TIME BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
lets hope Detroit doesn't underachieve like they are known to do.
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Post by daSilva on Apr 10, 2003 11:48:41 GMT -5
Underachieve??
What playoffs have you been watching for the last few years?
The Wings have, as close as you can get in the NHL these days, a dynasty.
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Post by dani on Apr 10, 2003 11:52:24 GMT -5
LOL@ TC I had the same thought, like "yeah uh, hate to break it to you, but for yet another year the habs definately won't even smell the cup!ah well, i'm hopeing 2004 will be our year, fuck when the hell did we win the stanley cup again, must have been 93, or 94...shit 10 years ago! am I that old?! lol! well since the habs have yet again not made the playoffs (i was actually proud of them last year tho i must admit) and the only time i can relive habs glory is when i hear "We are the champions" I'm cheering for patrick Roy and the Aves. man I love that guy, 10 years after the fact he's still the best goalie out there flashes in the pan, martain brodeur (ok ok, he's my dawg as well, but he'll never be as big a dawg as patrick!lol! and the dominator oh and i remember when felix potvain was the next big thing, what the hell happened to him?lol!) anyways ok so we've established that patrick rules end of story!lol! if not the aves, then make it a canadian team come on guys, i'm sick of the americans stepping all over our national sport! MAN! ok granted, they're teams made up of canadians and europeans anyways...but i don't care it's the principle of the matter. Ice hockey is OUR sport!!! lol! money shouldn't always ultimately triumph over spirit and passion!!! ok, random rant over! ps-I like Theodore as well, he's a dawg in training! lol! he'd better never leave us, then we'd really suck!lol!
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Post by Wycco on Apr 10, 2003 13:09:34 GMT -5
LOL... Anyone know if Carolina is in the playoffs this year?
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Post by daSilva on Apr 10, 2003 13:40:18 GMT -5
Dani................93.
Wycco.............No they are not.
TC...............I hope Cujo gets his cup, just to spite the Leafs.
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Post by Topcontender on Apr 10, 2003 14:21:42 GMT -5
Yeah i know since about 96 Detroit has been dominate as all hell. However, when detroit seems to dominate the regular season, they loose in the playoffs. It has happened like 3 times recently where they were presidents cup winners and lost in the playoffs. then the years they were not on top they win. With the talent detriot has they should have not lost a single cup in years. Thier top 7-10 players are future hall-of-famers. Yserman Hull Shanahan Lindstron Chelios Fedorov Cujo Robitillie Larionov
then recently retired hasek fetisov Coffey
You should never loose with this group
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