Wilderness Walk for 12-6-2011: Game Day Edition
by BReynolds on Dec 6, 2011 10:42 AM CST
in Wilderness Walks
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Realignment will be the theme of the day. Be ready to hear about it everywhere you go, everything you read. Be sure to be prepared for that, since it is a massive story. Well... at least until Sidney Crosby takes the ice for practice.
Yes, the NHL realigned itself last night, as you all most certainly read about here at HW, right? It is good for nearly every team, and still four teams voted against it. Good for them. Always good for a team to make it clear that the name on the back is more important.
As for the Wild, this is exactly what the wanted, and makes for a much better experience for them, and their fans. It is also good for Sidney Crosby. It has to be, otherwise it wouldn't have passed. The only question that remains is... did the Board of Governors properly consults their advanced stats before making this decision.
I sure hope so.
Here is the presser from last night about realignment.
Wild News
Homecoming day for Wild | StarTribune.com - Realignment will be a theme. This is your starting place.
California prospect strikes goals | StarTribune.com - Great piece on Casey Wellman's coming home to San Jose.
Leipold gets his wish: Wild out of the Northwest | StarTribune.com - But he doesn't care. He doesn't spend to the cap. Not enough Minnesotans. Come on, now... you can find something to gripe about, right Minnesota?
Zulgad: NHL's conference plan will put Wild right where they belong | 1500 ESPN Twin Cities – Minnesota Sports News & Opinion (Twins, Vikings, Wolves, Wild, Gophers) - Yes, yes it does.
Enemy News
Minnesota Wild off to hot start despite low production from former San Jose Sharks - San Jose Mercury News - Local angles always rule supreme.
And now, a few minutes with Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi | Working the Corners - Left overs from an interview with Heatley and Setoguchi.
San Jose Sharks facts for Tuesday's game vs. Minnesota Wild - San Jose Mercury News - Game preview from the SJ side.
Fear The Fin - Your home for everything Sharks on SBNation. Another one of my personal favorites on the network.
Off the Trail
Derek Boogaard - A Brain ‘Going Bad’ - NYTimes.com - The final part in the three part series. This one is a tough read, so beware of that. We learn in it that he had CTE (a disease caused by repeated head blows) at just 28 years old. I can't tell you that I am a convert and oppose fighting in the NHL, but this certainly gives me pause. Not sure it is worth it.
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Josh. Hard. Ding. Is.
Stayin’ alive
Stayin’ alive
Being from Minnesota, it would be rude to put something clever here.
To be honest I can't get excited for a fight any more.
When reading what these enforcers have to say, along with Boogeys parents describing their hands & haveing to manipulate knuckles back in place, being crippled. That was one of the biggest, thinking of how much effort it could take to just brush a strand of hair out of their childs eyes. I understand why fighting is in hockey, but I think its time to get rid of it or make it a larger penalty, like an ejection. They have that in college now, you fight your gone. Three fights in a season & you are done for the season. Brain damage? Dementia? Just not worth it.
Blood and death are waiting like a raven in the sky
I was born to die
Hear me while I live
As I look into your eyes
None shall hear a lie
Power and dominion are taken by the will
By divine right hail and kill
Man-o-war
Tired of the Fucking idiots that post on Russo's Rants!!! Somebody put an end to MKIA & Technowild & The other losers.
You ready to take it out of the game completely? Or does it still have a place...
I am on the fence myself on this, the game is certainly evolving… Bettman still makes the comment that there isn’t a link between Hockey and the brain issues that killed Boogard… so I don’t see the NHL moving too quickly on this potential problem.
Cautiously optimistic in all things Wild, Twins and Vikings since '77
Well, I don't think you necessarily take fighting out of the game, but...
I think you gotta remove the Boxer/Enforcer role and mindset from the game. If someone is cheap-shotting Koivu, Heater, PMB, etc. than it should be expected that our Clutterbucks and other guys will give their stars some hits back. If the circumstances are right and this breaks out into a brawl, then fine, that’s how it is; fans could get excited for guys sticking up for their teammates and it would happen for less often I’d imagine.
But the staged fights or boxer-esque rivalry fights (Hordichuk and Staubitz for example) just don’t seem as exciting and, most importantly, as relevant. A fight now and then likely won’t hurt you too much barring an incdient. But one guy fighting every game or many, many times a season for many years as Boogard, Rypien, and Belak did…that’s where the adverse effects come in it’d seem like.
Unashamed Alex Burrows Fanboy, MN Wild Lover, and believer in the FLA Cats Blueprint
Very much this!
I don’t think it can or should just go away. But I think the niche if ‘enforcer’ can. Let a fight come from a scrum. The refs do a decent job of corralling the players in scrums after whistles but if two guys are really pissed off at each other and are able to break away, let them go, fight the anger out and let it be.
Exactly!
This greatly cuts down on guys being trained to fight instead of play hockey and inject more guys in the league who can play hockey but are expected to defend themSELVES. Which can be a problem when you have a guy like PMB tied up with a big guy, but maybe Butch should (and probably does) know not to mess with the big dudes, leave that to your big dudes.
Also, you know, the NHL can be doing more to take those cheapshots out of the game. Period.
By penalizing and if necessary, suspending, not just actions but intent (e.g. EJ’s flying elbow and Whitney’s flying knee) the NHL will go a LONG way in removing the perceived need for “retribution” staged or otherwise.
Even then it won’t be easy. While it is becoming apparent that change is indeed needed (put me squarely in the “pro-fighting” camp until recently—and even now I’m still “on the fence” like so many others), curbing/removing fighting will be a HUGE culture change; ask the south how long fundamental culture change takes—and is still taking—to come about…
Being from Minnesota, it would be rude to put something clever here.
Me either
I used to be indifferent to fighting in hockey. Fun to joke about sometimes, but this article has really changed my mind. I can’t imagine what these guys have to go through. To me, it just wouldn’t be worth it.
The NHL needs to enforce existing rules in a way that eliminates the need for fighting in the first place. Players in any sport shouldn’t need to enforce their own brand of justice to keep games clean. I think as a sport and a society we have matured enough that this just shouldn’t be neccessary.
I understand that being a referee, line judge, umpire, etc…. in any sport is hard. My father was a professional umpire for college baseball for years and I watched him climb the ranks to get to that level. So I know it’s not easy. But to say that they can’t control the players enough to justify fighting is just not true. It’s just not needed any more.
by MinnesotaRage on Dec 6, 2011 11:50 AM CST up reply actions
No, not take it out completely
But to make it more of a passion play. Not the cold ritual it is now. I guess I mean make it more honest. The staged fights etc just don’t hold any appeal. If a fight happens from the flow of the game thats one thing.
Blood and death are waiting like a raven in the sky
I was born to die
Hear me while I live
As I look into your eyes
None shall hear a lie
Power and dominion are taken by the will
By divine right hail and kill
Man-o-war
Tired of the Fucking idiots that post on Russo's Rants!!! Somebody put an end to MKIA & Technowild & The other losers.
by FightingWild on Dec 6, 2011 12:02 PM CST up reply actions
Funny Thing is
In youth hockey, fighting is not allowed, in high school hockey, fighting is not allowed, and in college, like FightingWild said – fighting results in an ejection – 3 fights in a season and you’re done. But fighting is allowed in the NHL – and for all the kids watching fighting in the NHL – IMO, sends a mixed message – they are not allowed to fight, but the NHL’ers are.
The problem is...
How do you get rid of staged fights, while keeping the intensity alive? You just can’t install an “if you fight, you’re suspended” policy, that would pretty much kill scrums…
Maybe something along the line of
If you have half as many penalty minutes as time on ice, your suspended for a game without pay. Get rid of the Staubitz’s pretty quickly.
I've been saying this for years
Make the players wear full face masks. How many guys are going to punch a metal cage? It reduces pucks to the face, sticks to the eyes, and should help stop fighting.
You know you're a Wild fan if Spam Whoopie Gerald-buns comes up in conversation
Regressing all the way back to high school hockey.
This is a very US-centric view. Fighting is allowed in most Canadian youth leagues after a certain age. Most players come from Canada, not college.
Editor:Hockey Wilderness Editor:In Lax We Trust Now with more Twitterness: ReynoldsSBN
Master of unsustainable passive regression.
After reading these articles
and hearing some enforcers say that this wasn’t a role that they relished, but something they felt that had to do, something that kept them awake at night, something they and their families really worried about.
No one should be expected to put their health at risk in order to fulfill their “role”. Injuries happen in hockey, but to have guys walk up to each other knowing they are going to have damage to their hands, faces, brains. I don’t want to watch that. That shouldn’t happen for my entertainment.
"Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever." Shane Falco
"The Sharks got the better deal. They got a Burns. The Wild lost a Burns. You need a Burns to be good." KFAN's Jacques Lemaire 6-25-2011
You also forget thought..
Those roles give guys who wouldn’t normally play in the NHL a chance. This is every little PeeWee’s dream, to play in the NHL. While they might talk about how much they hate their role, they’re still there, because they get a chance to play in the big league.
Not saying its worth it.
Far from it. I don’t like the enforcer role. A person’s health is everything. But how do you tell that to someone who has a shot at fulfilling a childhood dream?
I didn't forget
A teenager is really not in a position to make those choices and coaches, parents, fans and culture need to do a better job of not putting kids and young adults into this position. They will give up everything/anything for their childhood dream and have little concept of the long term consequences.
So few PeeWees actually make it to the NHL, yet somehow they move on with life. Everyone needs a Plan B and Plan C and Plan D (and the adults in their lives need to guide them and encourage them to have many options). They may eternally regret that they didn’t make it, but they will have a life and their health and some day they will learn that there are more important things in life than playing hockey.
"Pain heals. Chicks dig scars. Glory lasts forever." Shane Falco
"The Sharks got the better deal. They got a Burns. The Wild lost a Burns. You need a Burns to be good." KFAN's Jacques Lemaire 6-25-2011
by minnesotagirl71 on Dec 6, 2011 4:48 PM CST up reply actions
Lundin
NHL.com has listed him as “on injured reserve due to back spasms” for last game and this one, but I’m pretty sure he played 19 mins against the Ducks. Is someone just not getting the memo?
The Wild are too boring to pay attention so they probably don't even update anything once the season starts
/sarcasm
Unashamed Alex Burrows Fanboy, MN Wild Lover, and believer in the FLA Cats Blueprint
It's tough
because a lot of these players have huge contracts and their health can mean the success or failure of the franchise. When you have agitators taking liberties with your star players, you can’t have them pissing blood because of an elbow to the kidney on a forecheck. Also, sometimes teams are made up of younger, scrappier rookie types (hmmm…know any teams like that?), and vets can tend to get chippy with them and push them around. Still further, you can have teams that will just decide to brawl with you because they can’t beat you in a flat out skills contest (I’m looking at you 1970s Flyers).
These are all reasons for the enforcer role to exist, and why I think it will continue to exist. A cheap goon is an insurance policy for your multi-million dollar top line. Concussions and CTEs are sad, and I feel especially bad for the people who are pushed or coerced into the goon role by the team over time, only to give up on their skills as legitimate players. Still, I don’t see the role disappearing any time soon.
fighting
The League can deny the studies at the risk of HUGE lawsuits in the not to distant future.When considering that there has been many studies of boxers that confirm the high risk of damage, and they wear gloves. It seems the college rules would allow for some spontinaity while protecting the players.
HAHAHA
TSN and Scott Cullen at it again…
This week’s Power Ranks:
Wild 10th
Vancouver 4th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No bias there.
The only rankings I’ve found recently that I can at least kind of get on board with are (sadly) the ESPN Pierre LeBrun rankings. He has the Wild at #5 behind Boston, New York Rangers, Detroit, and Pittsburgh.
Boston is scorching right now and haven’t lost a regulation game since October, so no-brainer. Detroit can rattle off wins left and right, but the inconsistency could hurt them. The Rangers are 15-5-3, so they’re no slouches themselves. Pittsburgh is one point behind Minnesota, but their depth probably has them ranked ahead of Minnesota. Not the worst rankings out there, actually.
You know you're a Wild fan if Spam Whoopie Gerald-buns comes up in conversation
Regressing all the way back to high school hockey.
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