Drunkard

I think the tank has tempered my emotions with the team. I definitely prefer wins but losses don't bug me in the least (hopefully because I still see improvement and not because I just don't care). When we win it's a good feeling and when we lose I look at how far down we are in the standings and I think about getting one of the top tier players (I don't follow undrafted kids other than on this board but the consensus so far seems to be that there's a drop-off after about the 6th spot). Another stud like Matthews would be great but so would a good right winger or a left handed defenseman. It's gonna take some time for this team to be contenders but the best thing about the team is that all of our best players are young (Eichel, Reinhart, Ristolainen, O'Reilly) and much of the supporting cast is also young (Psysk, McCabe, Girgensons, Ennis, Deslauriers, Kane, Foligno). Most of the guys who are underperforming are older and most of them won't be on the team in a few years.

Yep, he was only 5 but he was tall for his age and already sporting a beard so they let him vote anyway.

I can definitely see where you are coming from with this and I agree that they should have some skin in the game. There could be some middle ground where it's either highly subsidized but not free or something like it's free as long as you pass but if you flunk out from partying too much then you are charged for the classes you don't pass or something along those lines. The fact that a 4 year degree at most universities means you basically come out with student loans akin to a mortgage (without the house) before you even land your first decent job is definitely not helping the majority of society escape poverty though.

Many companies also consider full time as something like 28 or 34 hours per week, not the traditional 40 hours per week. I agree that too many people live way beyond their means and that greatly exacerbates the poverty situation as well but it's not the primary cause of it. To me, modest means is making enough money to pay for necessities which I consider to be housing, groceries, heat and power, water, trash, having the ability to own and maintain a vehicle for work, and a telephone (whether it's a landline or basic cell phone). Beyond basic but not what I consider living high on the hog would include internet, a cable/satellite subscription (or Netflix/Hulu), having a cell phone with a data plan and being able to go out to eat once or twice a month. I live on the slightly elevated end of this category as the majority of Americans probably do. I probably spend too much on "tv" but I'm also a homebody these days because going out costs money and staying home and watching tv helps me save. My directv runs about $110 per month (and I'm seriously ready to cut this out every month at bill time), standard internet with a wireless router $50, Netflix is $22 (up to 4 simultaneous streams at one time), and a cell phone that runs about $50. I also have free Hulu because I use my Dad's login and password in exchange for me giving him my login and password for Netflix. We might go to an actual restaurant maybe once a month on average and might go out for fast food 2 or 3 times in a month. I make about $33k per year working 40 hours per week for the gubment and my girlfriend makes almost the same as the General Manager of a Dunkin Donuts putting in 50-60 hours per week. She started out as part time for minimum wage for several months before they opened the new store they hired her to work at. She was then promoted to shift leader which bumped her pay up to $8.25 per hour and being scheduled for 40 hours per week but usually working about 10-20 hours of OT on top of that. She then got promoted to General Manager at $27,500 but losing her OT pay so her weekly pay checks ended up being about the same (I did the math and her pay would basically be about even as a Manager at $27,500 or as a shift leader working 56 hours at $8.25 due to 16 hours being at time and a half). She put in the long hours but her store has been incredibly well performing and the owner (who now owns about 10 stores) bumped her pay up to $32,000. Now she is a great example of the Republican mantra of hard work and dedication paying off and getting rewarded for it as she now earns about the same that I do without any college degree while I have degrees coming out my ears. I could also argue that I'm completely overqualified for my particular government job but I'm happy in it and I'm not looking to make a change unless a better opportunity just falls into my lap but I digress. She has worked incredibly hard and put in long hours to get where she is and be successful but she's one person. There's only 1 manager job at each store and 4 or 5 full time shift leaders who make around $25k per year if they are putting in 50-55 hours per week. Beyond that there are 25-30 or so regular employees who are a mix of part time and full time and probably earn anywhere from minimum wage to $10 per hour if they've been there for several years. Some of these people are high schools and college age kids but the majority of her workers are adults with families. This is just one Dunkin Donuts. The owner of her business owns another 9 or 10. Then think about the fact that there are dozens of fast food places exactly like this is every town in this country. Things are similar in all of the other retail businesses as well (Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, Grocery Stores, Gas Stations, Cell phone places, etc.). Extrapolate that and you can easily figure that there are millions of people in this country trying to eek out a living in the retail industry and this is where most of the job growth is coming from thanks to the death of manufacturing. The story replicates itself across the landscape. One owner (nice guy too in my example) making money hand over fist (and good for him, I don't begrudge him his success despite the conservative assumption that all of us on the left hate successful people or are jealous of them). 10 General Managers making a decent living with 40 or 50 people making enough to live within modest means ($25,000 per year for the average shift leader in this area I'd guess). 250-300 or so more people working for wages that probably set them somewhere around the poverty line, especially for the adults with kids who find themselves working retail where crappy jobs outnumber the good ones by 20 or 30 to 1. There simply aren't enough good jobs out there for poverty to not exist. Instead of helping them, though, let's call them lazy, takers, and bums. Let's vilify them and blame them for the national debt rather than all of the wars that have been waged or the tax breaks that go to these businesses so they can hire more workers where the vast majority end up in poverty. I pulled up the site but I don't think they have services in my area (Jacksonville, NC).

Not off hand, but if you look at the companies that employ the most people in this country such as Wal-Mart, McDonalds, UPS, Home Depot, Lowes, and insert whatever other fast food joints, big box stores, gas stations, places that sell mobile phones, and restaurants that are pretty much notorious for paying low wages, I wouldn't say that my statement is making a particularly big leap. In fact WalMart got nailed in the press for encouraging their employees to apply for government assistance because we they knew that the majority of their employees would qualify. Instead of raising the minimum wage to a level where people who work full time could actually make enough money not to qualify for public assistance though, we should go the other way and scrap the minimum wage all together. After we do that we should give them some huge tax breaks because that will enable them to hire more workers they can underpay and even more people can go on the public dole.

My bad, man. I wasn't trying to piss in your corn flakes. It was beautifully written.

Nice theory but I don't think there is a goaltending whisperer. Save percentages are higher across the league in general because of bigger goalies, bulkier pads, and the clog up the middle style of play. Hasek was arguably the best of all time and every year there are 10 goalies putting up stats comparable to his career numbers.

You've raised some good points too but when you look at long term trends on the macro level the businesses that are succeeding are making money hand over fist while the majority of society is having a harder and harder time making ends meet with the way things currently are. It's becoming a winner take all society with more and more people falling by the wayside. Businesses used to be concerned with all of the stakeholders of the company (to include the workers, surrounding community, and the environment in addition to the stockholders) and now they are focused 99% on the stockholders with 1% going to PR nonsense and general lip service about customer service. I'm not really sure how I feel about Uber in general to be honest. I've never used the service and don't plan to. I don't really go out drinking much these days but when I do we have a driver and if the DD ends up drinking we just call a cab. I think the more interesting point is the fact that the economy has gotten so tough that so many people have had to resort to this whole new sharing economy. In some ways I just feel fortunate that I don't have to rent out a room in my house to strangers just so I can make the mortgage payment or pay the light bill. I don't imagine that most of the people who have resorted to chauffeuring people around for a living felt like they had many better options. A lot of this also falls to the prominence of consumerism though and people living beyond their means. The fact is that even most of the full time jobs in this country don't even pay enough to live above modest means without some type of government assistance. Factor in that a lot of these companies won't be even offer their employees full time hours because they can claim globalization is forcing them to slash expenses in order to remain competitive (which is how WalMart can make more profits than anyone yet still treat their workers like garbage). That's why people have to resort to things like second jobs and things like Air BnB, Uber, Angie's List, and stuff like that.

Without a doubt politicians can be corrupt but I'd be willing to put my trust in people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or someone like Ralph Nader. You seem to be to the right of center politically (at least fiscally) though so I don't blame you for trusting nome of them when you look at the candidates fighting for the GOP ticket.

Because owners want to win and it's too risky to play a wide open game like that because it even ordinary goalies are putting up Hasek like stats. Between the pads and the fact that goalies these days are starting to be the same height as NBA players, the best way to win is to play boring hockey. Crowd the net and hope f9r garbage goals and rebounds.

You raise a fair point but given the choice I'll take over regulation rather than under regulation the vast majority of the time. It's a matter of purpose. The purpose of government regulation is (in general) to protect citizens, workers, the environment, etc in the interest of public health and safety. Businesses want to deregulate in the interest of boosting short term profits usually at the expense of the safety of employees, consumers, and the environment. I'll take the road to hell that is paved with good intentions rather than the path to hell that involves corporate cronies selling out public health and safety for the sake of their stock going up a few points.

I understand that players will push the edge no matter where the line is placed but scoring is already low and allowing the few goals that are scored to be overturned just kills a big chunk of the joy out of it. Football does the same thing. Touchdowns used to be way more exciting a now I find myself looking for flags instead of celebrating. It leads to less enjoyment of the game for many of us and it shows in the arena. None of these leagues will care until it starts showing on the balance sheet though. Hopefully it will soon and they make improvements. I used to pay full price for Sunday Ticket and Center Ice. Then I only bought them when I got a big dsicount from Directv. Now I threaten to cancel service without free Sunday Ticket and I don't even bargain over Center Ice I just illegally stream it. I used to watch every hockey game now I watch maybe 1/3 of them. The product is going down hill fast when I'd rather watch something online or on Netflix that I could literally watch any other time. I've got matching Bills and Sabres tattoos on my shoulders and I'd rather rewatch an episode of Shameless, Ash vs the Evil Dead, or Vikings that I've already seen to get my buddy caught up than put on the game. I'm definitely not the only one whose enthusiasm has dropped as evidenced by this thread.

The issues have already been discussed before but things like increasing scoring, fights, cheaper tickets, and cheaper beer would all go a long way to a livelier atmosphere. It's a goddamn travesty that a dozen or more goalies are putting up Hasek like numbers thanks to the style of play and the big pads. Scoring needs to be far more prevalent along with improving the flow of the game. Offsides should be way less prevalent and they should find a way to stop overturning goals and stopping the game flow for ticky tack infractions. Make the damn line 5 feet wide or get rid of the neutral zone altogether and just have the center ice line determine it. The average scoring play consists of getting the puck back to the point, screening the goalie, and trying to jam in a loose puck that squirts free because the average goalies covers 80% of the net with ease. This play happens 20 or so times a game for each team but with the vast majority leading to nothing but a clearing of the puck so it's tough to get excited for it when it usually leads to nothing and to top it off when someone finally does score most people no longer want to celebrate because you still have to hold your breath and hope the goal doesn't get overturned because 45 seconds earlier somebody wasn't offsides by 3 mm that could only be determined by looking at replays from various angles in high definition for umpteen minutes while the fans wait to see if one of the few exciting moments in the game even counts.

Exactly. It's also better to put in regulations to keep people from dumping poison into rivers, lakes, streams, and ground water than it is to just punish people after the fact. It's also better to mandate safe working conditions for job sites rather than punish the employers after deaths and injuries of employees happen. Sometimes the genie can't be put back into the bottle and no amount of penalties, fines, or even jail time (which doesn't usually happen anyway) is enough to make up for the damage incurred.

The we built it people are wackos because they believe that they created their businesses in a vacuum. They rely on the government just as everyone else does for roads, utilities, fire, police, patent protections, the justice system, and a host of other items too numerous to list. So keep researching for a prosperous country that succeeds without government regulation and intervention, but you won't find one.

May not be you personally Neo but take a good look at every one of the candidates running on the Republican side. Each and every one of them with the exception of maybe Rand Paul (who polls at 2-3%) uses the Jesus card in some form or the other. It doesn't change the rest of my post though so maybe I should have left it out so you wouldn't be able to use to deflect the rest of my point. Regulation is essential to keeping the crooks from becoming even bigger crooks and if you think removing regulations from the people running things would benefit the majority of people you are mistaken. The vast majority of the population benefits from regulation. Without it workers would make pennies on the dollar, work and living conditions would be toxic, and the environment would be uninhabitable.

He can't let facts get in the way of his agenda though. Jesus and "we built it" wackos are the only things steering the US economy. The job creators would act completely ethical and things would be better for everyone if we just got out of their way and let them do business without any regulation or oversight. They promise they won't use their money and power to take advantage of the impoverished. They won't pollute the landscape to uninhabitable levels either.

Oh yeah, the ever popular deregulation myth of the right wing. The economy is this mythological beast that can only be stopped by the magical chains of regulation. If we could just remove the shackles of regulations the mystical economy would grow and grow by leaps and bounds and the wealth could be shared by all. Nonsense. Never mind that all the biggest economic collapses in our history have stemmed directly from deregulation, most recently with the weakening and then repeal of Glass Steagall. Regulation is also needed to prevent things like collusion, price fixing, protect the environment, and improve working conditions for employees.

Good. Let it keep dropping. I'm glad the Saudi's led the decision to keep production levels up and I hope Iran floods the market with even more production. I filled up the other day for $1.74 per gallon, I hope it drops below $1 like it was in the late 90's when I started driving.

I wish the Feds would compile a list of everyone in that complex and seize their houses, lands, and any property they don't have with them at the compound to give them a taste of their own medicine until they surrender. Then they should be tried for treason.

Exactly. Wayne Gretzky wasn't able to pass down his talent to the teams he coached in the desert. It could be a good move and I'm willing to give him a shot but great players generally don't make great coaches.

Is actually a hybrid human/octopus.

Of course. I remember Pegula scolding the media for being too hard on the Sabres. Participation trophies for all of our guys (Bills and Sabres) and now each team should have a staff of media fluffers to keep them brimming with confidence as we strive for good enough.

Hue Jackson was the guy Whaley supposedly want to be our HC but he was overridden by those meddlin' owners. It's a shame. Hue would have been better than Rex and also supposedly would have kept Schwartz as DC.

Would they keep those awesome gray pit stains though? Please say yes.