StanleyCupOneDay

Accurate observation @RUPERTKBD

Couldn’t get enough of Duke Nukem or Worms when I was younger. There’s actually a lot of websites now where you can play these older classic/vintage video games for free to relive your youth. Unfortunately most games from those times either aren’t available to buy or are far too expensive to afford being collectors items now so it’s basically the only way to enjoy the games that meant a lot to many people way back before graphics.

Bang on. Monopolistic corporations own basically everything now and with no competition can charge whatever they want knowing consumers don’t have any other options. It’s greed plain and simple for why everything’s skyrocketing in price now. Blaming governments you don’t like because of their ideology for inflation is ridiculously narrow minded and purely agenda driven bias. Same goes for any Albertan liberal/progressive blaming it on Kenney’s former government.

Sutter was way better then most fans here give him credit for. If it wasn’t for that maskless idiot Gaudette and his wife infecting him and derailing his health (and potentially his entire career) with long COVID he’d still be on this team. He was the perfect 3C for us.

I said it at the time, but the Beach assault basically was the crack that finally at long last broke the dam around assaults/unacceptable behavior in hockey (maybe even sports in general). There’s many more stories still hidden in the dark. For the first time that I recall the overwhelming majority of the male dominated hockey world response was empathy for Beach and anger at anyone who knew (let alone the person who perpetrated the vile act). This was a different and new kind of response. It quite honestly happily surprised me. There of course were still those who blamed the victim or didn’t believe him, but they were a very, very small minority. Once victims of crimes feel comfortable enough that they will be believed (by far the most important factor in deciding whether to come forward or not) they start to come out to tell their stories. And one person leads to another feeling comfortable in coming forward. That person leads to another person and so on and so forth. As one of the clearest recent examples of this phenomenon look at what happened after 1 woman accused Trump of sexual assault. It lead to 22 others coming forward as well as a Republican woman telling her story coming out against former Senatorial Republican candidate Roy Moore in freaking Alabama of all places. Those other victims have said nothing for decades and would continue to be silent if not for that brave and courageous first person who started the domino effect. Any previous incident/assault reported in the hockey world was treated as ho hum or waved aside by the public/hockey community at large, but now that the paradigm has shifted after Beach and the standard response has become belief of the alleged victim and anger/disgust towards those accused (and anyone who knew, but did nothing), it’s leading more victims to feel safe to tell their own horror stories. Don’t believe for 1 second this is the last story to come out from Canada hockey, Canada sport or Canada in general, there are hundreds if not thousands more waiting to be told and far more then that around the world we haven’t heard yet.

I guarantee it isn’t only Canada sports programs with these issues. It’s men sports in general that has this problem and it’s been ongoing for decades if not centuries. Only recently has this kind of behavior been deemed unacceptable by our society and generated public backlash. Even 10 years ago this would be a “boys will be boys” waved aside issue. Other countries aren’t as concerned about the protection or safety of others, just about winning those medals. I also guarantee you far worse has happened with other country’s players in their sports programs. Canada is usually (but not all the time) ahead of the curve of the world when it comes to right vs wrong issues and in recognizing the need to rectify and change what is and isn’t acceptable as we evolve further as a society. That’s not saying we’re some perfect country, we most certainly aren’t. There are definitely far more others that are worse though; the states for example. You think drunk sex that’s alleged as an assault gets one bat of an eye from anyone down there reporters included? How about Europe? Don’t get me started about the atrocities that occur in underdeveloped country programs. Just because no one’s been accused doesn’t mean nothing bad has happened. The only difference between the rest of the world and us is ordinary Canadians care enough now for reporters to dig into both past and current incidents/assaults and so they’re being brought to light while the rest of the world’s atrocities against women are still hidden in the dark.

Free depth defenceman that costs only minimum salary in cap space? Sign me up. Can never have too many D.

Throwing out usable vaccines is a travesty that should never happen in our modern world. I also don’t know what specifically Canada did or did not do in trying to find takers for the vaccine. That said in order for vaccines to get administered properly there has to be the infrastructure in place to deliver them where they need to go in a timely matter otherwise we’re basically just giving garbage to other countries. This is purely speculation on my part, but the vast majority of country’s populations that are still unvaccinated are very poor so I wouldn’t be surprised if they lacked the proper facilities/doctors/infrastructure necessary to deliver these vaccines to the people who want them. Or for the people who want them to get to a facility that has them. Unfortunately it’s not as simple as just shipping them the doses.

I get what you’re trying to say here Alf and while murder of anyone is cowardly and revolting it’s also important to remember bad people grow old. Nazis age too. Just because someone’s old doesn’t mean they’re absolved of any crimes or atrocities they committed earlier in life. Now before anyone gets the wrong idea I’m commenting in general, not at all about this specific situation of which, like you, I do not know of. I also hope the murderer is caught by police.

Very well thought out and informative post OP, kudos! I don’t think we should forget about Brady Keeper though even if he’s likely to start in Abbotsford this season. He had a terrible freak accident injury prior to last season, but before that he was on the upswing and still has NHL potential. That said I do agree with your assessment that overall our forwards line-up should on paper be better then last year’s. Will it actually? Time will tell.

Montoyo obviously was not the main problem for why the Jays have struggled despite lofty expectations and by all accounts is a great human being. I wish him nothing but the best for his future endeavors. That said yesterday’s game felt different while watching. Not because of it being a clean slate so to speak, but in game decisions and calls. Starting runners early to grab an extra base, good game plans against Wheeler who is an exceptionally tough pitcher to hit against. Having Vladdy go for a sacrifice fly to get an extra run instead of trying to hit a home run. Those are just the ones that come immediately to mind, I’m sure there were more. It truly was a game that Schneider the interim manager said he wanted to play: aggressive. Usually after a firing a team does have a good stretch, but it felt under Montoyo that the Jays just kept finding ways to lose games by bad decisions (both from players and managers/coaches) and that he was too timid for making in-game decisions like leaving pitchers in too long when they were obviously struggling. That feeling was exemplified in Montoyo’s last game when Vladdy clearly was telling the team that he wasn’t on the bag and not to challenge (which if they still had would have come in handy later on it turned out), but they did anyway and lost it for the rest of the match. They still won, but there was another example of a game they could have lost because of a bad decision. Now obviously this was only 1 game and there’s a ton of baseball left to play, but having every player have a hit (except 1) and get on base in the first game under a new team manager is impressive nonetheless and at least shows some evidence of immediate impact from a new leader. This was the Jays team everyone expected to see. Hopefully win or lose this is the team we see for the rest of the season.

The biggest thing on my wish list is an available challenge to a penalty call for each team playing. I’m tired of seeing refs making a boneheaded decision that effects the end result. Obviously I don’t want hockey to become like other sports where stoppages for coaches are abundant, but I feel this rule change for a single challenge would be a good balance so the better team actually does win the game.

Wow, so when a person who faces atrocious crimes done to her actually believes the investigation will be proper and impartial instead of a cover up she decides to participate. Whodathunkit?

While these changes are necessary and a good, but long overdue first step forward, the sincerity of their statement rings extremely hollow given they only finally decided to do the right thing after they started losing money from sponsorships and government funding being cut off. Doubly so for once again defending what they did in response despite apologizing for it. I don’t think the current Hockey Canada leaders are the ones to actually enact and strictly adhere to these new policies. They’ve broken that trust not only from their original actions, but also their tone deaf unacceptable responses after. Everyone involved in the decision to settle that lawsuit should be fired as far as I’m concerned. Like Gymnastics Canada, Canada Soccer and the future coming scandals yet to be unearthed in our national sports organizations (there will be more, it’s an endemic problem) they will have to earn my trust again over many many years. All sports need to be inclusive and safe for everyone period end of story.

I seem to recall quite a few people here who tried in vain to warn others that change isn’t always better amidst a plethora of ZOMG Benning worst GM in history, new management best ever posts. The grass is not always greener on the other side. That being said I’m withholding judgement on our picks until they develop further. Just like I did with the previous group’s choices. There were a ton a of Pettersson bashers at the time, but that pick worked out pretty great in the end. Wait and see for me.

Maybe you disagree with me on this, but I think the new Seattle arena is the coolest one I’ve ever seen.

Apparently everything.

Honestly, avoid a messy court battle. Pay the $10m, consider that hit in the pocketbook as a lesson learned and a reason to do better in the future when choosing who Canada plays. Besides, $10m isn’t going to break the bank for Canada Soccer. I’m kind of surprised they aren’t asking for more from us.

Something I predicted actually happened. Guess I need to go buy a lottery ticket or start a psychic hotline

The answer is yes to this question.

About freaking time. Take all the money we raise from the sale of these drugs and put it into mental health, safe use sites and drug addiction programs. This is and always has been a health issue, just like tobacco/nicotine and alcohol, it’s way past due we started treating it as such instead of a criminal one that punishes those who are suffering and most in need of help.

It’s not a problem solely occurring in this tournament either. The NHL could benefit from a rule change allowing a challenge on 1 call per game. I don’t want hockey to become like the NBA where the game starts and stops constantly, so I’m wary of too many challenges and timeouts, but I do feel there’s enough evidence we’ve seen to warrant 1 additional challenge for each team on a penalty call in any hockey game. Refs mess up, they’re human beings, we all make mistakes, but adding this to the game prevents glaringly obvious total misses from changing the outcome of a game.

Looks like as I expected this call generated a lot of conversation. Here’s my penny’s worth. This call was egregiously awful. Like absolutely the worst possible call I’ve seen in a very long time. Why this tournament doesn’t allow for referees to review video of a call they made in regards to a penalty is beyond me. Moving forward I think each bench in any hockey game should get 1 challenge on a goal and 1 challenge on a penalty. That would enable most game deciding wrong calls to be eliminated and the game to be more fair. I also think it’s important to have less European referees calling games. There were many questionable calls in tournament games when it came to the US and Canada playing against a European team. Without this terrible call Canada wins gold, it’s really that simple and I don’t think it’s arguable. That said, the call in overtime was the proper one to make and I have no objections to it. There’re been other instances of awful calls effecting the outcome of games in past tournaments too. It’s important to remember that as passionate as we get about hockey, especially when it comes to our team Canada, it is only a game for entertainment purposes. Next year we will come back with a vengeance to reclaim our throne and title.

I’m horrified at this completely despicable vote. It really does show an old boys club. The reputation is well earned. I am also encouraged that instances like this are both being reported on and also generating public backlash. It wasn’t that long ago this type of instance was chalked up to boys will be boys and was acceptable behavior. We cannot create a better society until we stop the abuse of other human beings in any form.

I hope that we can both find peace along with our friends/significant others some day. Or if not peace at least being able to live with it. I’m so terribly sad to know that they also were forced to go through these atrocities. I don’t have much that can bring comfort to people in these situations, but I’m sending a big virtual hug over the internet to you and the victims of these crimes. I also know there’s many more stories like this or even worse that happened to people who users here know. They just haven’t told you yet. We are evolving to become better humans, but this is one issue we have so much work to do on especially in Canada and BC.