Iron Crotch

Yep, Mr. ET. I pity the fool who steals my Reece's Pieces! Here is an odd little factoid... Tim Hortons (recently purchased by Burger King Worldwide Inc.) has significant market share in 3 countries. Canada, of course. The United States, of course. And.... ...the United Arab Emirates. Weird!

Great venue for concerts and basketball... but it has about 2000 obstructed view seats for hockey and is just not a good fit for the sport at current (e.g. rink has to be off-center putting the scoreboard over one of the bluelines).

Not sure there is much of a debate about the "C" - I can't see anyone other than Gionta getting it. The "A's" on the other hand could go to any number of guys. That'll be interesting to see.

I hate the over-the-glass rule because more often than not it seems to be based on luck (e.g. the puck jumps up when it gets to a guy's stick) rather than intent. Meanwhile we routinely see games where guys are killing each other all over the ice and the refs don't call a thing... the message seems to be that you can maim each other, but don't accidentally botch a clearing attempt or you will immediately be escorted off the ice! :D Almost every single call in the books is based on the ref's discretion. I'm not sure why this particular call needs to be automatic when we trust his judgment for the others.

This. CoHo was on the wing at the end of last season and played wing for Canada this summer too. He's not good enough defensively for center.

...I'm ready for training camp to start too. ;)

I had a student years ago (when I used to teach big undergrad courses) who was the very definition of psychotic. Kid was a danger to all those around him and I found out about this kid's issues when I had one of his classmates show up in my office crying after he threatened to kill her. Since I had no direction on how to deal with the situation, I pulled him out of the classroom population and tutored him one-on-one through mutual agreement. Was a judgment call on my part, but I didn't want the others disrupted by him and he seemed happier not having to interact with his peers. Anyway, after one of the sessions an urgent email was sent around the building notifying faculty and students that an assault had taken place in the building and the perpetrator was still at large. I immediately thought of this kid and sure enough, he had attacked a middle aged admin not 5 minutes after leaving my office. Come to find out this kid had already been kicked out of several schools on campus yet for some reason was still allowed to remain a student. Getting anyone at your school to care about kids like this is nearly impossible as I'm sure you'll soon find out, so unfortunately IMHO you have to go with your own instincts in such a situation. You really do have to be part instructor and part psychologist at times. Statistically about 1 in 100 Americans are psychotic and unfortunately some end up in college classrooms.

Irrefutable logic for placing a team in Houston! (courtesy of P.K. Subban) http://bloguin.com/p...of-beyonce.html

LA has had a team since 1967 and I don't remember them drawing well until they brought Gretzky to town (second biggest market in the U.S., of course, helps as well).

A glaring difference between the Southern U.S. markets: hockey hasn't done well in cities with NBA basketball teams due to direct competition for the sports entertainment dollar. The only one you could make a case for is Dallas, but they won a Cup shortly after moving to the city.

I like Rule #57 (below) Rule 57 – Tripping The rule relating to "Tripping" will be revised to specifically provide that a two minute minor penalty will be assessed when a defending player "dives" and trips an attacking player with his body/arm/shoulder, regardless of whether the defending player is able to make initial contact with the puck. But, in situations where a penalty shot might otherwise be appropriate, if the defending player "dives" and touches the puck first (before the trip), no penalty shot will be awarded. (In such cases, the resulting penalty will be limited to a two-minute minor penalty for tripping.) Breakaways are among the most exciting plays in hockey and they're routinely eliminated by a diving defender who gets a little piece of the puck, but demolishes the offensive player. I like that this is now a penalty.

I think whether this team improves dramatically over last year depends a lot on the goaltending and defense (Out: Hank, McBain, The Hoff; In: Gorges, Benoit, Meszaros). I don't think there is any question the team should be better up front. But, can they keep the puck out of their own net? That'll be interesting to see.

One year contract for Orton. I don't mind the move. He is a journeyman, but is better than Tuel/Lewis should EJ get hurt. http://www.dallasnew...ffalo-bills.ece Edit: The Seahawks released Terrelle Pryor. He might have been an option.

Deadspin's "Why Your Team Sucks" Buffalo Bills edition... http://deadspin.com/...ills-1628452314 :D 88 wins over the last 14 seasons. A whopping 39% winning percentage since last making the playoffs in 1999. Oof.

I think most on this board will agree that the Sabres made the correct moves by loading up on first and second round picks when it was clear the team needed a change of direction. It hurts in the short run, but should pay off in the long run. That's what infuriates me about the Bills trading away high picks when they're still far away from being a contender. They should be stockpiling young players, not gambling the franchise's future on one or two (EJ and Watkins).

Last year's draft was one of the deepest wide receiver drafts in history. So.... we trade our first round pick next year to move up a few slots to pick a receiver? If EJ shows that he isn't the answer this season then we'd almost certainly end up with a top-10 pick in next year's draft which should have several franchise-type QB's available (Mariota, Winston, Hundley)... But, we traded the ###### pick for a receiver who doesn't have a quality QB to get him the ball. And plenty of other very good WR options were available this past draft (e.g., Jordan Matthews, Kelvin Benjamin, etc.). Not smart. Total lack of foresight IMHO. Welcome to year #15 of missing the playoffs and counting...

Help us Obi-wan Pegula. You're our only hope. I missed last night's Bills debacle in favor of sitting through Vanderbilt's worst opening day home loss in the program's not-so-illustrious history. It was a bad sports day all-around.

We talk hockey economics and expansion in one of my courses and after working through the financials, the majority of students always go with Houston, a city that is missing from the above list. Houston is the 5th biggest city (MSA) in the country and has the 2nd most Fortune-500 headquarters of any U.S. city. And, is one of the fastest growing cities. It'd have a natural rivalry with Dallas and the Toyota Center has a ton of luxury suites and is NHL-ready. No hockey culture there, of course, but the size of the market is hard to ignore.

Las Vegas has been a consideration for over a decade (along with Houston, KC, Seattle and a few others). IIRC, MGM Grand has an arena that can be used temporarily for hockey for a year or two. It would seat around 14,000. A new arena with the usual over-the-top Vegas-style amenities would be built close to the strip.

Just watched the hour-long Steve Gleason "Football Life" on NFL Network. Very well done. Adds a ton of perspective on ALS. I highly recommend you watch it if you can. http://www.teamgleason.org/

EJ Manuel is looking more and more like the Bills version of Ville Leino.

If we're talking busts, I might throw out Shawn Anderson (5th overall in 1986). And, then there were a bunch of 1st round picks like David Cooper (11th overall in 1992) who couldn't even crack the Sabres' lineup.

....obviously a strong recency effect to poll responses.

http://youtu.be/6Cf7IL_eZ38

He has a football name, he will never make it. Too bad he isn't named Gord or Stu or Lanny.