Puck the System?

Nah, that idea totally failed.  I simply don't watch enough hockey to follow the entire league closely and bestow upon the world my witty thoughts and observations.

That doesn't mean I can't write about hockey anymore.

Sidney Crosby is a bitch, and it's hurting the league.

Fantasy Hockey News » Lemieux on the NHL: “It Failed”

That's Lemieux angrily venting about his team sucking and playing like cheap bitch ass punks cos their two star players are hurt.

Let's establish a few things -- I am not opposed, per se, to certain players getting special kinds of protection.  I am opposed when it interferes with the other team trying to play hockey.  Granting these special players some sort of magic injury protection helps keep them, and fan interest on the ice.

Oh, NHL Rules Committee...

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/With-Pronger-penalty-justification-more-NHL-rul?urn=nhl-289971

Yeah, this?  It doesn't fly.  Come on!

It's funny how everyday the NHL does something stupid like this to threaten it's own existence, when it was left comatose during the lockout year.  It should know better, and it should reprimand REALLY bad officiating in a case such as this (it would be counterproductive to reprimand bad officiating on a regular basis in any sport, examples must be made, however).

-- Knuttel

How is it?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090906372.html?nav=rss_email/components

How is it the NCAA can get away with this?

I realize the specifics regarding this case are vague, but that's precisely what's leaving this player in limbo. I realize the main purpose of college is to provide education.

However, it is clear that in this case, the player will do little else immediately after graduation besides try to play professional football. His jersey wasn't sold for terribly more than it would be worth anyway (ebay that jersey, and it would probably get over a grand). And the NCAA sells his jersey anyway, and keeps all the money from it.

The fact of the matter is the major sports (football and basketball, usually men's but sometimes women's) make a shitton of money for the NCAA and their respective schools. The players, those who produce this money, see little of it.

Assume that a semester at a public university costs $20,000, including everything. That makes a full ride worth $40,000 plus a few field trips. Let's say it's a private university, and everything costs twice as much, that makes it $80,000 the university is giving them.

The NFL rookie minimum salary in 2007 was $285,000, and it has probably risen slightly since then.

Athletics is a field in which there is not much time to make your money. These players are forgoing prime (or developmental depending on the person/position, either way important) years of their life on what amounts to a 4 year internship.

Switching gears, the NFL has also recently stated the season will soon go to 18 games, replacing two of the four preseason games with regular season ones. This kills rookies and fringe players chances of making the team and understanding the game. The NFL would do well to create some sort of minor league to facilitate this development and retainment that they are otherwise sorely losing. The NHL has the AHL, and MLB has the minor league system, hell even the NBA has some semblance of a minor league system in the d-league. The NFL has none of that. They have other leagues that don't pay as much, and often play with very different rules and formats -- The CFL has 12 on 12 football with 3 downs to get 10 yards, the Arena Football League encourages iron-man style play with it's archaic substitution system, and the UFL eschews popular NFL rules such as the tuck rule and a different form of intentional grounding.

The NFL risks collapsing under its own weight if it doesn't make some sort of change regarding this. This has nothing to do with my personal squabbles and boycott of the NFL. If the NFL doesn't amend itself in this way, it can very well lose the relevance it so enjoys -- maybe even people will discover the variety of non-NFL football during a lockout, which could damage its brand (think people discovering faster-paced European hockey with NHL level athletes during its lockout year).

Something's gotta give

-- Knuttel

PUCK THE SYSTEM: A season in review

AAAHHHHHH. PUCK THE SYSTEM. AAAHHHH. PUCK THE SYSTEM PUCK THE SYSTEM.

I WANT TO PUCK THE SYS
I WANT TO PUCK THE SYS

So, I haven't been very good about maintaining this regularly. I briefly contemplated picking it back up during the playoffs, but the Flyers were doing well. I knew there was about a zero percent correlation, but it seemed like a good idea.

Anyways.

The season review will be as thus -- The Knuttel shall look at his pre-season predictions, and assess them

Prediction 1: Ovechkin will average more than one goal a game, and challenge for Gretzky's, if not Hull's, scoring record.
Assessment: Ovie finished the season with exactly 50 goals in 72 games. I do not recall if injuries affected his play in the games which he actually did compete, but that's still less than one goal a game, and not the full 82 games. Still he finished in third place for goal scoring. He also tied for second in overrall points, putting in a very good Assists total of 59. I would like to note right here that this is more assists than Crosby in his 81 games.

Prediction 2: Someone else will come close.
Assessment: Well, I guess this is more of a 1A type of deal here, but alas here goes -- Both Crosby and Steve Stamkos of the Lightning scored 51 goals. Both of them also played more games, but that's not the issue. These three were the only 50 goal scorers. Patrick Marleau of the Sharks was next in line with 44 goals.

Prediction 3: Malkin will end the season with 50 more points than Crysby, but everyone will still insist Crysby is the better player. They will both still refuse to play defense.
Assessment: Malkin had an injury shortened 67 game season, compared to Crysby's almost complete 81 game season. Malkin scored 77 points, Crysby 109. So Crosby had a more productive year. He also led the team in +/- with an unremarkable 15. Both still refuse to play defense.

Prediction 4: PHEONIX WILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS
Assessment: Yep, they did. Wait a minute...

Prediction 5: hah, no they won't
Assessment: fuck

Prediction 6: Chicago will not compete for a playoff spot at all after making a decent playoff run for the first time in like 15 years last season.
Assessment: They ended up with the number 2 seed for the playoffs in the west, and won the Stanley Cup in 6 games over the Philadelphia Flyers. I couldn't have been more wrong than on this prediction. It will be interesting to see how they keep this young core together with the salary cap and all.

Prediction 7: Tampa Bay will have 2 40 goal scorers, but they will not win 25 games.
Assessment: They did not have 2 40 goal scorers. They had 5 20 goal scorers, however, including one 50 goal scorer. Two of these players also had more than 90 points. As far as 25 games, that was an exaggeration I suppose. The lowest number of games won by any team was 27 by Edmonton. Tampa Bay finished with 34 wins (34-36-12 80).

Prediction 8: The Toronto Maple Leafs will correct their grammar and go as the "Toronto Maple Leaves".
Assessment: Nope. The Maple Leafs refuse to use the President's English.

Prediction 9: Shit, these predictions are too mild. whatevs. wait for the season to actually start.
Assessment: I never made any further predictions after the season began.

Prediction 10: I refuse to make any predictions or write about the Canucks, Oilers, and Flames, due to their proximity to where nickelback is from. If the teams were to take it upon their own hands to eliminate this band, physically, I'll reconsider.
Assessment: I still have yet to write about these teams, and these teams still have yet to take up the offer. I guess that's a push.

So I guess that's not awful, considering how predictions rarely ever pan out, especially over the course of an entire 82 game season. I wonder if Puck the System will be back next year. I wonder if this was Gary Bettman's last year as commissioner. I wonder if NBC will expand its coverage of the NHL, or if VS. will reach an ESPN-esque level of viewership.

-- Knuttel

PUCK THE SYSTEM:almost finale

AAAAAAAHHHHH. PUCK THE SYSTEM. AAAAAAAHHHHH. PUCK THE SYSTEM PUCK THE SYSTEM.

The season is now over.

It is not over because the Stanley Cup champion has been crowned, but rather because the Flyers have been eliminated from play. They just happenned to make it this far.

I shall later put up a post recapping the season, looking at my outlandish predictions, etc.

This post is for the Flyers.

The team hang in all year long. They were never outstanding, they were never awful, they just kept on keeping on.

The Flyers had a midseason coaching change and numerous goalie changes -- some due to injuries. Preseason single year contract goalie Ray Emery went down fairly early with a possibly season ending injury, worked his ass to get back, and went down for the count when the injury flared back up.

Brian Boucher, who's peak was in the earlier part of the decade, was just supposed to be a backup, a spot starter. Michael Leighton, league journeyman, was claimed off waivers mid season. Both came up HUGE in the playoffs. Which bugs me that I even ask the question "What if?" when thinking about the goaltending. What if Emery hadn't gotten hurt in the season and had been available in the post-season? Would they have made the post-season? What if Boucher hadn't gotten hurt in the series against the Bruins? He goaltended them into the playoffs and exorcised the demons of his rookie year, beating the Devils in the first round 4-1, losing the series in 2000 after being up 3-1. Not to mention the Flyers were in the middle of a series comeback against the Bruins when he got hurt. What if Michael Leighton had been better at plugging his 5 hole? He had 3 post-season shutouts.

In the end, it appears the Flyers hopes and dreams went along with their defense. When their defense played well, when Pronger stayed on the ice, they did well. The Flyers have 4 defenders that could be in any other teams top Defensive pairing -- Pronger, Carle, Timmonen, and Coburn. What if the other 2 had stepped up to the plate better? Parent had played well all season and post-season, until it was apparent he wasn't fast enough to keep up with the blackhawks, and was scratched from the rest of the series.

The forwards, I have no complaints about. Perhaps they had too much depth -- any game could have different 3 or 4th liners scratched. When Laperriere went down, Carcillo stepped into his role fine -- fine enough to raise questions when Laperriere returned, it was either Carcillo or Van Riemsdyk who had to not dress. Briere and Carter scored when the team needed points. Richards led the team hard, pounding both ends of the ice. Hartnell didn't stop, couldn't stop, won't stop.

In the end it just wasn't enough to win the cup, and that's fine. This team was the underdog in every single series they were in. They were almost swept in the second round by the Bruins, before they made one of the most memorable comebacks in sports history. The fact that they made it to the playoffs was an accomplishment enough, given they didn't have a berth until they beat the Rangers in a shootout on the last day.

The only bad coincidence is that the Phillies also made it to the Finals and lost (also in 6 games).

-- Knuttel

Puck the System 2

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH PUCK THE SYSTEM
AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH PUCK THE SYSTEM PUCK THE SYSTEM
I WANT TO PUCK THE SYS
I WANT TO PUCK THE SYS

Yeah, so looks like "Puck the System" is so far turning out to be not as regular as originally planned.

Whatevs.

Some Hockey news etc

only one team in the Atlantic division currently has a losing record. Not really worth mentioning who it is, because even if you don't follow hockey, it's easy to figure out. The Flyers are only in fourth because they have played the fewest games in the league, thus limiting chances to gain points from wins.

Ovie is hurt

Malkin was hurt as well for a few games, let's say five or so. During which, Crosby was held pointless. This either proves the Penguins have no depth so teams put everyone good up against Crosby and shut him out, or Crosby really needs Malkin to be effective or anything. Maybe it proves both. But Crysby sucks.

Ray Emery beat his former NHL team, the Senators (sorry, don't think there will be any NHL/KHL matchups pitting him against his closest former team) to cap off a five game Flyers win streak. It ended Saturday as their comeback attempt against the Sabres failed, 2-3.

In other news, two Flyers currently lead the league in +/-, Matt Carle and Chris Pronger.

And before I forget, to see how pens fans really view their team, I submit to you pictures they have edited for their players. I forewarn, they appear right out of 1999, but then again it is Pittsburgh we are talking about.

That is all for now

Now it's time for a rock show



-- Knuttel

Puck the System volume 1: season preview

After a month long hiatus, the Knuttel returns, with a new installment titled "Puck the System". Why the hiatus? Well, Knuttel thought he was going to OCS today, but he got delayed until January, so posting should again be semi-regular, besides, it's not like shit happens in the summer anyway.


WAR. PUCK THE SYSTEM. WAR. PUCK THE SYSTEM PUCK THE SYSTEM.
I NEED TO PUCK THE SYS I NEED TO PUCK THE SYS

Despite Gary Bettman's best intentions, the NHL still remains an active league that regularly plays games and has a fair method of selecting its yearly champion (the president's trophy, obviously).

- The Flyers have decided to dump both of their goaltenders from last year (Biron and Nittymaki) despite usually good play from both. I suppose the hot and cold streaks were too much, so they just decided to save Emery from the KHL, whose hot and cold streaks are so severe, I'm actually looking forward to see if he'll stab anybody who scores on him (bonus points if its Crysby).

- The Flyers have also signed Chris Pronger ... to a ten year contract. Here's to looking forward to the Flyers having a legitimate first line defender locked up until the age of 50 -- whatevs, Chelios is still playing I think.

- Crysby still has not shaken the hands of the Detroit Red Wings after defeating them in the Stanley Cup finals. Look for him to be a marked man and the subject of many a dirty hit. Also look for him to flop on many times more a clean hit.

- Not even The Great One could save hockey (or establish it?) in the desert (I know, I expected more of Rich Tocchet too). Despite all of this, Gary Bettman is insisting on keeping the Coyotes in Pheonix. Common sense would say the team would fare better in its previous home of Winnipeg, or even Hamilton, Ontario, but this is also the league that thinks salary caps, and salary caps alone create parity (the NFL has nothing to do with salary caps, and theyre gonna be gone anyway, it's all revenue sharing and ginormous TV contracts).

- Direct TV subscribers were almost left without hockey for the year, in yet another move where someone actually called Gary Bettman's bluff, and he had shit. Sadly VS. and NBC cover hockey a million times better than ESPN ever did, or even how ESPN covers anything now. It's just the exposure. I mean, ESPN's lead hockey analyst's credentials are coaching Wayne Gretzky for a year or two in LA (and not winning a single game later on in Tampa Bay) and having a mullet.

- Crazy predictions time
-- Ovechkin will average more than one goal a game, and challenge for Gretzky's, if not Hull's, scoring record.
-- Someone else will come close.
-- Malkin will end the season with 50 more points than Crysby, but everyone will still insist Crysby is the better player. They will both still refuse to play defense.
-- PHEONIX WILL MAKE THE PLAYOFFS
-- hah, no they won't
-- Chicago will not compete for a playoff spot at all after making a decent playoff run for the first time in like 15 years last season.
-- Tampa Bay will have 2 40 goal scorers, but they will not win 25 games.
-- The Toronto Maple Leafs will correct their grammar and go as the "Toronto Maple Leaves".
-- Shit, these predictions are too mild. whatevs. wait for the season to actually start.

-- I refuse to make any predictions or write about the Canucks, Oilers, and Flames, due to their proximity to where nickelback is from. If the teams were to take it upon their own hands to eliminate this band, physically, I'll reconsider.

-- Knuttel

Congratulations, Bud Selig; the Red Sox won

You got what you want. Don't pretend it's any different.

I saw the Greg Dobbs hit in the 10th/11th ish (really, it's all extra, so i don't know). You know the one that screamed down the right field line, at a height well over the foul pole, before careening to land slightly foul; the one that was deemed foul based on landing by the first base umpire, regardless of its flightpath; the one that the umpire then refused to review, not saying "it can't be reviewed" but rather "I'm not gonna review it"; yeah, I saw it.

I also saw the ever shrinking strike zone for pitcher Kyle Kendrick in the 12th inning. The Red Sox hadn't had a hit since the 8th, all of a sudden they get the bases loaded. The pitcher doesn't seem to have control issues, yet keeps throwing balls. Eventually readjusting to this new strike zone, Kendrick throws strikes, that get continually slammed into the outfield, scoring 3 runs.

And for that, I ask, why?

Maybe the hit was foul, but it was sooooo close, it had to have been reviewed. Was it because of extra innings? Was it because the umpire was being an asshole? Was it because Bud Selig had a bet against Pete Rose, stating the Red Sox would win? Wait, I forgot, betting is the one (and only) unforgivable sin in all of baseball (one of the greatest players of all time is held out of the Hall because he threw a game to earn a little more than the minumum wage that was payed to him), so let's rephrase that as a "friendly wager".

As for the strike zone in the 12th; consistency is really all pitchers are asking for. If the zone had been that small all game, I doubt regulation would have ended 2-2.


Oh, and in other news, the Penguins won the stanley cup. I didn't watch enough of the game to accurately determine if/how Bettman got Crosby to win, so I won't comment on that. However, it should be mentioned that he pretty much didn't shake the hands of any Red Wings fans, instead giving his own teammates and coaches high fives (good for you! thanks!!) and butt slaps/ass poundings until the Red Wings ceremoniously exited ice for the locker room. It should also be noted that Marian Hossa just can't seem to pick the right team (lost the finals with the Pens last year, lost with the Red Wings this year). He must be the anti-Claude Lemieux.

-- Knuttel

Troubling news from gary bettman?

So the other week, when I submitted my voting for the NHL all-star game (yeah, it's been a while, so what), I had to go through several filters to make sure machines weren't stuffing the ballots. You know, a word is drawn on a block with lines going across it and you have to write it in a box below.

Well anyways, the machines, or maybe the Canadian mob, is conspiring against us, and using these boxes to send discreet messages to one another, using a medium that isn't checked upon by authorities.

One of my messages to type was -- "bring 15265179.47"

that is 15 million, 265 thousand, 179 dollars (possibly canadian), and 47 cents.

While the number could seemingly be random, the odds that it was paired with the verb "bring" is just too suspicious. The odds are simply too small.

We must remain vigilante.

-- Knuttel

P.S. Oh, and a write in for Jeff Carter? Seriously, I'm still pissed about this. I had to jump through a bunch of hoops just so Jeff Carter could get my vote to go to the all-star game. WTF gary bettman?

First post of the new year

Hooray for 2009?
meh, on va voir

-Flyers
I had the privilege of attending last night's Flyers game. While I have been following them all year, I have not been watching games on a regular basis. Nowabouts in the season is usually when I start watching, due to the Eagles sucking it up in the playoffs. Due to my boycott, which is now a few months in effect, I haven't even been watching them recently. (Oh, but they made the playoffs! -- oh, but they TIED THE BENGALS, oh and they play in the NFL. BTW, don't want the Giants to win, but I really don't want to see the Eagles lose another NFC championship game). But the Flyers -- the real deal, McCoy. The officiating sucked major balls -- they really don't know what legal contact looks like -- killed about 8 power plays and didnt have one themselves until the 3rd. Luckily this allowed the Flyers to show off one of the best penalty kill units of the league. There was a 4 on 4 in the first, after the refs decided to break up a fight before it started. Haha, mortal fools. As soon as both players were done their "unsportsmanlike conduct" penalties, they dropped gloves at mid-ice and put up their dukes.
The Carter/Scottie line was one of the most dominant lines I've seen in a game, though the Richards line also did pretty well. Jeff Carter showed why he's going to the all-star game (though only as a reserve, cos of the massive Montreal based letter writing campaign -- really, the Canadiens have starters in this game, BS -- and because the League itself has its head so far up its ass, they couldn't even list Jeff Carter on the website for voting. That's right, you had to write him in, even though he was leading the league in goals for most of the season, and shares the tie for it now. Also, how is Mike Richards not going, he is the emotional leader of the team, much like Primeau used to be.) Anyway, Jeff Carter, Scottie Upshall, and Scottie Hartnell were involved in every single goal in some capacity -- even though statistically one of them was unassisted. They took over the game and forced the Flyers to win. Biron did pretty well on his end to make sure this happenned as well. He made some amazing saves that I thought only Nittymaki could make (though somehow this leads to Nittymaki giving up more goals).

- BSC
Or is it the BCS, or who really knows anyway. Well, put two and two together, if I was at the Flyers game, then I couldn't possibly have been watching the BCS title game (I refuse to call that abomination a national championship) unless I was in one of those snooty personal luxury club box suite. Can you even see the game up there? Do you bang on the box window instead of the front glass? Alas, I digress.
The game pitted the young and plucky Sam Bradford against He Who Is Tim Tebow. The game didn't end up the scoring affair anyone thought it would be, but it certainly didn't resemble the defensive slugfest that was Bob Stoops first (and for now, only) national championship -- Florida State's only points came on a safety. In the 4th it was tied, but eventually the mighty Tim Tebow called upon the stregnth he used to previously circumcise all the Filipino children of the world and willed his Florida team to win, on a Percy Harvin direct snap when Tebow was on the sideline.
But really, it doesn't matter. The National Title was already decided when undefeated Utah beat one loss uber SEC powerhouse (one loss there is like negative five in any other division, right?) Alabama.
The injustice? While Utah came in second in the final poll, a close second as well, the AP Coaches poll put them at 4th, behind 3 schools with one loss, and equally as strong schedules (ok, I guess I get Florida, cos they won the agreed upon game, but USC and Texas weren't even picked to play in the title game, and also had a loss). Wittingham, the coach of Utah, used his vote to vote for his own team, and rightfully so, but the irony is he may actually lose his vote in the future. You see, the coaches are, by coaches union rules or whatever, supposed to vote for the winner of the BCS game as the end of the year number 1. Hopefully the coaches will see their stupidity if they actually pursue this course of action. While Wittingham does not have the clout that JoePa has, the coaches never sought course of action against JoePa for splitting his 2004 (?) vote among the winner of the title game (USC, I think), Auburn, and Utah -- all of whom finished the year with an undefeated season and a BCS bowl victory (the title game was then simply one of the four bowls, as opposed to a separate one). Wait, so Utah's done this before? Yeah, funny thing is, the head coach then was current Florida coach Urban "I LOVE to run the score up" Meyer; guess a florida coach just has to do it.

- Politics
Uh-oh, Barry O has some trouble in paradise already!
-Bill Richardson, a man several times passed over for positions in the last year (President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Treasury) has decided to drop his name from nomination for Secretary of Commerce, and return to being Governor of New Mexico due to allegations of pay-to-play politics in his home state (so this sort of thing happens outside of Chicago?). The charges against him are kinda weak, which means he probably just didn't want to be Secretary of Commerce. That, or the liberal media is making a molehill out of a mountain, and this is actually a big fuggin deal. No way to tell until the investigation is over, but the position of Governor of any state, besides Alaska, is a higher position than Secretary of Commerce. Everyone knows that.

-Pannetta to be head of CIA
Fwahhhhhh????
I really don't get this at all. The man has no experience in any intelligence bureau at all, not even as like a clerk or secretary (like a real secretary, not that secretary of whatever shit).

-Who is Hilldawg's Senate successor?
We all know she didn't really want to be Senator of NY anyway, and her Chapaqua residence was about as flimsy as they come, but who's gonna be her successor?
Could it be Caroline Kennedy, whos credentials include -- being a Kennedy?
Or Andrew Cuomo, whos credentials include -- being a Cuomo, and married to a Kennedy?
wait, seriously, its pretty much down to these two? I thought we were done with the Kennedies.

Where's Lee Harvey Oswalt when you need him? too soon?

Damnit, can't take it back now.

-- Knuttel

Trouble on the horizon

ESPN, an already evil enough organization (trying to lowball NHL, for shame) is on a path to take over the world.

They must be stopped

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/25/sports/ncaafootball/25sandomir.html?_r=3&em

http://deadspin.com/5098814/exploring-the-espn-business-model-hint-it-involves-swimming-in-piles-of-cash

The most efficient way may be to start with the head, to take down Disney itself.

Godspeed

-- Knuttel