IKnowPhysics

I think it's premature, even for this board, to speculate on Hodgson's salary. We haven't seen him play with us much, his role hasn't been established, his productivity hasn't been established, he's been injured within the past few months (I doubt this is a big deal), the CBA is brand spanking new, and the cap figures are in flux. I couldn't even begin to construct a leg to stand on if I guessed at a salary.

I think we're mostly on the same page here. He works hard, he's a good PK guy. He's a veteran presence. Ruff mentioned he was in his best physical condition he's ever seen him last year (a testament to his work ethic). He's a puck possession guy. He's capable of 40 points. He's responsible with the puck. He plays well away from the puck. These are all qualities you look for in a third/fourth line guy, especially when the potential alternatives (see: Adam) haven't yet demonstrated many of these qualities. We'd all bitch if he were putting up 40 points as a top six guy and making $3.5M+ to do it, but it's looking like that won't be his role. At the end of this, my one hope is that he's able to skate off of the ice his last game.

Nailed it.

What that might look like, so we're on the same page:

From my point of view, the only REAL damage done as a result of the lockout is collateral- Joe bartender, Jane shop owner, and Bob stadium beer salesman who make extra bucks when the Sabres are playing. The rest of it, this idea of being cheated by not getting to watch a sport is imaginary to me. Maybe some folks feel disrespected or offended by it, by the crassness of it, disgusted from listening to millionaires argue billionaires. I don't; to me it's a labor issue. It's business. Unfortunately, it's part of the sports industry, at least until they sign a 100 year CBA, and I accept this. I'll remember all of the sniveling and money-grubbing, and that'll reflect on how I view the individuals involved, but that doesn't tarnish the sport to me. I still love hockey at its highest level. Will I boycott? Nope. Rebel? Nah. Instead, I'll keep in mind that Joe, Jane, and Bob only got paid for a 48 game season. Maybe I'll tip Joe a little more. Maybe I'll buy that extra Sabres hat from Jane. Maybe grab that extra tallboy of Blue from Bob. I think they'd need it more and appreciate it more than anyone would if I left an empty seat in FNC.

You know what it would do? It would make watching TSN on July 1st not un-######-bearable to watch like it has been the last 5+ years. Players might have their minds made up in time for the signing period, and hopefully the whole thing'd be over in about 4 hours. That's better TV than watching a small army of Canadian peckerheads staring at an unringing phone like it's got tits and speculating for 1056 straight hours.

In what sense? Population? Economy? I'm confused, because you're right on with the second half of your sentence: our hockey TV ratings are phenomenal (and I'm guessing that won't change post-lockout).

Phil Kessel.

Speculation on where the call was from: Nashville. They lost Suter and didn't pick up anybody. They tried for Matt Carle, but he went to Tampa. Their two young guys reportedly haven't really torn it up in Milwaukee either. They're pretty hungry to keep winning after last season, and we've been trade partners before. Even adding Mike Weber would be an improvement to their back end. http://www.tennessea...an-roster-moves I won't speculate how how these trades could occur, but Craig Smith and Colin Wilson are both NHL-established blue chip prospects. Either of the those two would likely yield us one hell of a group of centermen in about 3 years. That said, Nashville probably won't part with the future of their club (it's not their style to trade away good, cheap youth), and they'll probably pick up some schmo off the free agent list.

Yawn.

It'll prove I can get great seats for the home opener for a good price.

Somehow I had only heard about last night's game yesterday afternoon. When I went to look for tickets on tickets.com, they were sold out, leaving only ridiculously priced tickets available on StubHub and VividSeats, and seemingly shady overpriced dealings on CL. I checked a few times throughout the day with no improvement. About 6pm, I went to StubHub and saw that they had 0 tickets available. I couldn't believe that they had sold all the tickets at the prices they were asking, so I figured it was possible that they dumped them back on the box office. They did! A couple of minutes after 6, there were dozens and dozens of single, pairs, and three-seat options available for face value. I will-called a pair of tickets and enjoyed the game thoroughly. For future deadline take-it-or-leave-it events, I may employ this strategy again.

He worked hard and played well on the PK. SH vs WAS:

Helmet cam from one of the participants; skip to 2:20 for the trial run: Neat.

I see you negotiatin' 'round town about the sport I love and I'm like, ###### yoooou! I guess the ticket in my pocket wasn't enough and I'm like, ###### yoou and, uh, ###### them too!

He never really wanted the attention, but then he realized that his Mom might like to see the honors while she was still around. That's not ego, that's empathy. So as soon as one hall inducted him and word got out that he was open to the idea, the flood gates opened. He deserves to be where he is. There's nothing negative about this story.

State Farm. Parents put me on their policy way way back, so when it was time for me to get my own, I got a large loyalty discount. I now have a lot of coverage on my vehicle, but the discounts and clean record bring the price down a lot. A few years ago when someone ran a red and hit my old car, I felt they lowballed its value somewhat, but they did fight to get me my deductible back when it turned out the other driver was uninsured. More recently when someone jacked my car cover, they covered it, and when someone busted up my door with a shopping cart, they effortlessly got the money from the other insurance company.

Larry Quinn feels the need to speak up, and the shocking part is that I don't think he's entirely wrong.

Tweets with specifics: http://www.reddit.co..._split_82_game/

Ah, must have started this year or last year. My true mistake was trying to defend the intelligence of ESPN commentators.

I'm ok with this vibe. Hopefully we're back on track by then, but if not, it'd be good to get some of the local rivalry games into the FNC (like the Cansius-Niagara game scheduled for Saturday February 9th), and promote the hell out of it with cheap tickets and half price food/beer and whatnot. Hell, make it a double header with a high school hockey game leading off. Or a triple header with a girls game to start it all. "Homegrown Shootout," or the like. Good for fans, good for the teams, good for local hockey.

It probably doesn't help that the names on Dynamo jerseys are spelled using the Russian alphabet. Maybe some US television exposure of Russian and European hockey would be a good thing for the sport. More hockey in general on TV is likely a good thing. See also: nationally televised college hockey. Edit: Quick, pronounce this guy's name without looking at your phoenetic chart: If you said "SO-LOV-EE-YEV," you should be on ESPN3. Also, you were right, that is Miro Satan in the back.

We were ranked 23rd last week: http://espn.go.com/n...son/2013/week/1 Moving up 13 spots without playing a single game. Seems legit.

And on a somehow even slower news day, it's front page again on NHL.com: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=643115&navid=DL|NHL|home