Winter Classic

Panger really came with the hard questions

 

Why not? They played an exhibition game in a Vegas parking lot in the early 90s. And it was a hell of a lot hotter than 70 degrees there.

 

Great win for the Caps. No letdown Tuesday. Battle for first in the Southeast as Tampa comes to the phone booth.

 

Other than a few hits and a pretty good fight, crappy hockey game. The ice was obviously the shits and no one could do anything with the puck.

What Jimmy McNulty said about a Montreal/Toronto game is true but there's no outdoor stadium in either city big enough to hold the event.

Milbury was shitting all over the Caps? Huh? Everything he said was true: both OV and the Caps have been underachievers in the

 

You really believe that don't you. How cute. The NHL gets something like two thirds of its revenue from it's six Canadian franchises. Its U.S. TV deal is a joke but it bows to the peacock in hopes that they may someday actually get some kind of a deal out of them and to maintain a foothold on a national network, even if it is the bottom step of the ladder.

 

Fort Chipewyan -- a community in the far reaches of Northern Alberta -- did just install the first ever ice rink with a plastic ice surface.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/12/31/plastic-hockey-rink-alberta.html

 

Oh, yeah, when they changed ends halfway through the third, I was expecting someone to yell 'CAR"

 

You really believe that don't you. How cute.

It's about 25-30 percent depending on the year from the six Canadian teams, not 66 percent, and the vast majority of that made up by the Toronto/Montreal contingent. The amount has also been been significantly lower in recent memory even when Canadian teams made up a statistically greater percentage of the league.

Fun game even if it wasn't the best played game of the season. A lot of times, you don't get the best performances on the biggest stages. But the pageantry of a game like that is always enjoyable.

Funny that Pittburgh skipped the handshake at the end, which IIRC has been a part of the previous Winter Classics (and possibly Heritage Classic, though it may have been so cold that night they didn't do it).

 

That's an awesome story, but I can't see the NHL utilizing it until at least five years down the line.

I would love to try that surface out.

 

JR -- Milbury just came off as totally ignorant, like he hasn't paid attention to the Caps at any point this season. He argued that at some point the Caps would have to adjust their style to learn how to play defensive hockey to grind out games. Anyone who a) follows the Caps or b) has watched 24/7 knows that's precisely what the team has done in the last two weeks. There have been countless stories written about the philosophy shift. I'd hope the guy analyzing the highest profile game of the (regular) season would have some fucking clue of what he was talking about.

 

I'm in Ahwatukee and it's damn near cold enough for my pool to freeze. Let's do it!