Around the NHL 2023-24 Season

[Wyldnwoody44]

23 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

I love the tiny bit of Romania they had.

[Wyldnwoody44]

Just confirmed with the Latvian waiter here, they declared it a national holiday when Team Latvia beat Canada and took 3rd. The whole country had off. He told me there is no rivalry with Lithuania at all with Hockey. They love Ted Nolan and Zemgus here. I'm still trying to track him down 😂😂

[PerreaultForever]

4 hours ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

Just confirmed with the Latvian waiter here, they declared it a national holiday when Team Latvia beat Canada and took 3rd. The whole country had off. He told me there is no rivalry with Lithuania at all with Hockey. They love Ted Nolan and Zemgus here. I'm still trying to track him down 😂😂

I think that's only because Lithuania isn't good at hockey so in translation there's no rivalry because there's no real competition. Lithuania is more into basketball as was said earlier. The countries hate each other though. The only thing that unites them is both hate Russia. 

[Wyldnwoody44]

5 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

I think that's only because Lithuania isn't good at hockey so in translation there's no rivalry because there's no real competition. Lithuania is more into basketball as was said earlier. The countries hate each other though. The only thing that unites them is both hate Russia. 

This isn't the feeling I am getting, Latvians and Lithuanians are more like brothers, linguistically similar, they consider each other a Baltic nation and Estonia a Finnish nation more or less. They consider themselves as 2 of the only Baltic states. I have asked probably 15 people over the last week or so and have received the same answer from both counties as I was genuinely curious before I got here. Not like in Finland where they def don't want to be mixed up with "ruskies" or in Australia where a lot of Aussies don't want to be "kiwis" from New Zealand. They Def have a distinct disdain of Russian that goes back decades but has obvious been increased. 

 

Side note, Today I was on the Curonian Spit and was at the border of Lithuania and Kaliningrad. Saw a bunch of NATO soldiers ripping people out of the car with guns pointed , snipers up in the trees, crazy times. I was a few hundred feet from the border having a lunch beer on the sand dunes watching it all go down. Crazy times. 

[PerreaultForever]

3 minutes ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

This isn't the feeling I am getting, Latvians and Lithuanians are more like brothers, linguistically similar, they consider each other a Baltic nation and Estonia a Finnish nation more or less. They consider themselves as 2 of the only Baltic states. I have asked probably 15 people over the last week or so and have received the same answer from both counties as I was genuinely curious before I got here. Not like in Finland where they def don't want to be mixed up with "ruskies" or in Australia where a lot of Aussies don't want to be "kiwis" from New Zealand. They Def have a distinct disdain of Russian that goes back decades but has obvious been increased. 

 

Side note, Today I was on the Curonian Spit and was at the border of Lithuania and Kaliningrad. Saw a bunch of NATO soldiers ripping people out of the car with guns pointed , snipers up in the trees, crazy times. I was a few hundred feet from the border having a lunch beer on the sand dunes watching it all go down. Crazy times. 

I guess I should have said this up front but my father was Latvian. My mother Estonian but grew up in Riga. I was around those communities all through my youth. Now it is possible that the younger generations over there have buried their dislike for each other in their common hatred of Russia and Russians but the older generations certainly haven't. Lithuanians look down on Latvians and Latvians look down on Estonians. Way way back it's kind of like the British-Irish-Scots. Each tribe pushed the next one further north and took the land. The Soviet Union though brought in Russian "settlers" similar to the way the Jewish settlers  take and claim Palestinian lands. Russification was a real thing to attempt assimilation so people lost a lot of property to those Russians in that time. Some of it was slowly given back after the Soviet Union collapsed. It's a long complicated history. 

I still remember when my wife (as a nurse) started work in a hospital and a prominent surgeon who was Lithuanian saw her Latvian name (which are similar to Lithuanian in form) and warmly greeted her in Lithuanian, then English, asked if her parents were from Lithuania and then when my wife explained she'd married a Latvian the doctor said "oh, why would you marry one of them?"  and then never spoke to her again. I could give you other examples. It definitely was a real thing. It may not be one now in the current political climate. Joint hatred of another can unite. 

[Wyldnwoody44]

That makes more sense, yeah I'm sure the older generations may have that. I have spoken to mostly young-ish people here; a lot of the elderly here are very fluent in English and I know next to zero of the Baltic languages. I get a small feeling that Lithuania does have a bit more money here just based on what I saw while driving.

[thewookie1]

1 hour ago, PerreaultForever said:

I guess I should have said this up front but my father was Latvian. My mother Estonian but grew up in Riga. I was around those communities all through my youth. Now it is possible that the younger generations over there have buried their dislike for each other in their common hatred of Russia and Russians but the older generations certainly haven't. Lithuanians look down on Latvians and Latvians look down on Estonians. Way way back it's kind of like the British-Irish-Scots. Each tribe pushed the next one further north and took the land. The Soviet Union though brought in Russian "settlers" similar to the way the Jewish settlers  take and claim Palestinian lands. Russification was a real thing to attempt assimilation so people lost a lot of property to those Russians in that time. Some of it was slowly given back after the Soviet Union collapsed. It's a long complicated history. 

I still remember when my wife (as a nurse) started work in a hospital and a prominent surgeon who was Lithuanian saw her Latvian name (which are similar to Lithuanian in form) and warmly greeted her in Lithuanian, then English, asked if her parents were from Lithuania and then when my wife explained she'd married a Latvian the doctor said "oh, why would you marry one of them?"  and then never spoke to her again. I could give you other examples. It definitely was a real thing. It may not be one now in the current political climate. Joint hatred of another can unite. 

Frankly the Russians make the Israeli settling of disputed land look like a child taking over a sandbox. Stalin wanted full on Russification in the Soviet Union and sought out ways to eliminate or disperse local populaces in the millions and replaced them with Russian Communist communities. Ukraine being a prime example as well as all three Baltic States, parts of historical Finland, and the Caucuses region. And that’s not even touching on the vast region of Siberia or the Far Eastern reaches of the Russian State. 
 

How the hell did we get multiple Baltic people/ descendants on this board lol It’s not like a giant population in comparison to the world.

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

Frankly the Russians make the Israeli settling of disputed land look like a child taking over a sandbox. Stalin wanted full on Russification in the Soviet Union and sought out ways to eliminate or disperse local populaces in the millions and replaced them with Russian Communist communities. Ukraine being a prime example as well as all three Baltic States, parts of historical Finland, and the Caucuses region. And that’s not even touching on the vast region of Siberia or the Far Eastern reaches of the Russian State. 
 

How the hell did we get multiple Baltic people/ descendants on this board lol It’s not like a giant population in comparison to the world.

There was a small but thriving community in Hamilton when I was a kid. They had their own community center and everything. My mom used to volunteer down there. They'd organize "aid" and packages of used goods and whatnot to ship over to friends and relatives who for them didn't make it out after the war. 

Midsummer (St. John's Day) festivals in Northern Ontario were massive annual parties.

[Wyldnwoody44]

There's also a Slavic grocery store on William st in Buffalo, so there's a little bit of a population there as well. 

Currently in the south towns there are 2 families from Ukraine that have 2 years here as they have fled the country. I see the husband and his wife at the Y sometimes, we talk in the steamroom, his English is poor but I've learned a little ukraine so I can speak with him. 

[Ducky]

Korva!!!!!

[SabreFinn]

I hope we can stay both safe and independent here in Finland and the baltic countries. Nice to hear you telling stories from Lituania and Latvia.

[Carmel Corn]

Rich Bowness retiring at Winnipeg.  Could Scotty Arniel get a HC job there?!?!  I would not mind seeing him otherwise come back to Buffalo to join Lindy.

[Brawndo]

Berube to NJ or Toronto? 

[thewookie1]

7 minutes ago, Brawndo said:

Berube to NJ or Toronto? 

Well Green helps us theoretically by hurting Ottawa. I was worried they might hire a better coach

[Flashsabre]

I don’t get Travis Green to Ottawa at all. Oh Well

[thewookie1]

Anyone see the clip bouncing around Twitter saying that Toronto sees the Core 4 as gods?

Edited May 6 by thewookie1

[Wyldnwoody44]

6 hours ago, SabreFinn said:

I hope we can stay both safe and independent here in Finland and the baltic countries. Nice to hear you telling stories from Lituania and Latvia.

Russia learned the hard way back in the day. The white sniper was not to be messed with in Finland. 

2 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

Anyone see the clip bouncing around Twitter saying that Toronto sees the Core 4 as gods?

Gods of the 4th circle. 

[PerreaultForever]

9 hours ago, Brawndo said:

Berube to NJ or Toronto? 

Berube to Winnipeg? He'd be a fit. 

Travis Green is mindboggling to me. Glad we didn't. 

[LGR4GM]

11 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

Anyone see the clip bouncing around Twitter saying that Toronto sees the Core 4 as gods?

Yea, Marner said it. It was cringy.

 

 

[Flashsabre]

1 hour ago, LGR4GM said:

Yea, Marner said it. It was cringy.

 

 

Yes, Gods that get car jacked. The comment is just as cringy to the Leaf fanbase here in Toronto. They might not be able to move Marner or Tavares if both refuse to go this summer.

[kas23]

2 hours ago, LGR4GM said:

Yea, Marner said it. It was cringy.

 

 

And this is why they get bounced early each year. If you think you can do no wrong, that you are infallible, there really isn’t any reason to do better. This also points to the city being the problem, not necessarily the team itself. 

[OverPowerYou]

The Leafs are like the Jets of the NFL. They get so much attention yet crap the bed so much 

[That Aud Smell]

Marner is rightly getting buried for that comment.

Part of me wants to chalk it up to him being a hockey player and hockey players not being the most articulate cohort.

OTOH, there's so many different things he could say there. Simpler things. "Obviously, you're playing in Toronto, this is a town where your fans just live and die with the team. Hockey's so, so important here. So we have a lot to live up to."

And so on. But he went with "we're ... kind of gods." By which, I think, he just meant "we're gods."

From everything I see, the fan base wants him gone.

[shrader]

Which one of Zeus’ kids is the Fredo?

[...]

Are people going to start burning their Leafs jerseys?