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BORING
Apr 5, 2010 19:35:13 GMT -5
Post by topshelf on Apr 5, 2010 19:35:13 GMT -5
Euro-style hockey SUCKS. So does the shootout!, which is the WORST thing EVER to happen to hockey. Hockey is a TEAM game, and should be decided by the TEAM, not some a$$anine shootout. If I wanted to watch a skills competion, I'd watch an all star game...But I get it, the kiddies like it, so it is here to stay. I cannot understand why the players today wear the football sized shoulder pads, because they surely don't need them. A too-too would be more appropriate.
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BORING
Apr 5, 2010 23:18:46 GMT -5
Post by computerjunkie on Apr 5, 2010 23:18:46 GMT -5
Just because it has fortunated you doesn't mean the rest of the community has the same outcome. The economy in port huron is awful. Businesses constantly closing and what not. To be honest, if I wasn't doing the B2 for the league and team, I probably wouldn't be able to afford to come to the games much either. But the economy isn't the only thing to blame either. Because of past history with Port Huron and Minor league hockey teams, the following has shrunk compared to the Border Cat days. I've been to many of those games and there was always a great crowd. Kinney has done his best to replicate that same system, and the outcome hasn't been the same. Even the style of hockey was different. Don't say it isn't, because it is. I remember seeing a lot more of the dirty and hard play from back then, than what is out there now. Euro-style of hockey is starting to make it's presence. Watching the Wings game yesterday, I even heard the commentators talk about how the league officials have been cracking down on the fighting. It all filters down. Some of these younger players are still looking for their chance to move up. With the higher leagues not looking into fighters anymore, players are starting to focus on their skills more than throwing punches. The players who just don't care and will throw down time after time have already accepted the fact that they will never go any higher. Look at Bouchard and Robinson. How many times have they gone up to the AHL. Todd has only played in 3 games and Robin has never been called up to the A, which goes to show that even their skill level isn't good enough. What kills me is everyone wants to pin this on Drulia, but yet no one comment on the players. Each player on the team has their own style of play and no matter how much you try to change them, they will still play that way. Just would like to correct you that yes Bouchard did get called up to AAA hockey back when it was the original IHL. He got called up from Flint to Fort Wayne and he wanted to come back down. Hate bouchard all you want but you can never ever question his skills. Hes the best player in this league by far and I almost guarantee he could play at the AHL level still at his age. I stand corrected, I tried to look up and decipher the many leagues so I might have over looked and got my classifications wrong. Plus at that point, it wasn't a premier AAA league like the AHL is, so that's mainly what I was referring to. Also I never said I hated him, I actually learned recently that out of all the players in this league, he tips the stick boys whenever they play here. I just care for his style of play as on many accounts, he's pitching a tent on our blue line waiting for a lucky pass. That's not really skill.
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BORING
Apr 5, 2010 23:59:00 GMT -5
Post by computerjunkie on Apr 5, 2010 23:59:00 GMT -5
YESTERDAY TOTAL GAMES AVERAGE Fort Wayne 258,638 33 7,837 Quad City 140,958 35 4,027 Muskegon 107,375 37 2,902 Bloomington 98,462 37 2,661 Flint 61,978 33 1,878 Port Huron 55,865 34 1,643 Dayton 44,679 35 1,276 TOTALS: 767,955 244 3,147 Any correlation to PIM's, yes I know QC is lower in PIM's but they do have 3 guys with over 100 PIM's. The Hawks have no one over 100 PIM's Here's where your attendance figures don't help your case. If you take the maximum capacity of the teams arena and divide it by their average, you will get a percentage of how much they draw. This is where the Attendance ratings the IHL does is retarded. So if you take QC's average Attendance and divide it by their seat capacity, you will get a percentage of 33%. That's drawing from a city with a population of 43,000 people and 3 other cities to draw from, hence their name (Quad City). Port Huron has a population of around 31,000 people with small townships and municipalities to draw from. Our Arena has a maximum seating capacity of 3200 seats give or take 50 seats, since quite a few like to stand during the games. We have an average draw of 1,643 people. That gives us about a 51% draw. Which makes us better than Quad City. The only true winner with their attendance is Ft. Wayne which has a 75% draw and that's with an expected population of over 500,000 people in their city. Muskegon only draws 5% more people than we do. So Your relation of attendance to aggressive play has just been busted my friend. Fort Wayne has no professional hockey team to compete with, where Muskegon has the Griffins, and well we are are stuck competing with the Sarnia Sting, The Red Wings, and well even Flint and Plymouth because they are all within a couple hours drive from us. you can even include Saginaw if you want to which is about a 2 and a half hour drive from PH. I know this because I drive home from Mt. Pleasant every weekend to work the games. So toughness has nothing to do with what is attracting people.
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BORING
Apr 6, 2010 0:15:21 GMT -5
Post by computerjunkie on Apr 6, 2010 0:15:21 GMT -5
Euro-style hockey SUCKS. So does the shootout!, which is the WORST thing EVER to happen to hockey. Hockey is a TEAM game, and should be decided by the TEAM, not some a$$anine shootout. If I wanted to watch a skills competion, I'd watch an all star game...But I get it, the kiddies like it, so it is here to stay. I cannot understand why the players today wear the football sized shoulder pads, because they surely don't need them. A too-too would be more appropriate. Unfortunately it's the change in the times. and it's not just in hockey either that things have changed. Every sport has seen changes in the way things are done. Look at basketball. They might as well dump the dribble rule and just let the players carry the ball across the court. They already let them run up half the court to do a slam dunk. All because it's more flashy. I'd rather watch the games with Bill Lambier (spelling) and the other Bad Boys, but you know that won't happen.
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BORING
Apr 6, 2010 7:07:50 GMT -5
Post by stinger on Apr 6, 2010 7:07:50 GMT -5
Good time to put this topic too bed,you seem to want to put the last 4 posts on here on every topic-your B2 lens are obviously very narrow viewing the game and your work with numbers very liberal to summarize- like Port Huron attendence competes with Plymouth or Saginaw-it's just your opinion,.Whether a tougher team attracts fans or not,the lack of certainly won't keep the ones they have.
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BORING
Apr 6, 2010 8:18:30 GMT -5
Post by computerjunkie on Apr 6, 2010 8:18:30 GMT -5
Good time to put this topic too bed,you seem to want to put the last 4 posts on here on every topic-your B2 lens are obviously very narrow viewing the game and your work with numbers very liberal to summarize- like Port Huron attendence competes with Plymouth or Saginaw-it's just your opinion,.Whether a tougher team attracts fans or not,the lack of certainly won't keep the ones they have. Actually my lens is not very narrow as I have to see the game as whole. If you only knew what is kept track of up in the booth. When you have to watch the game behind a lens you see things a whole lot differently than with the liberal vision that most people tend to watch with. Fortunately for the fans, they can see things how they want to see them, where myself and the officials up in the booth have to look at everything from both angles. If the ref makes a bad call, you all can trash him and what not because that's your job as a fan, where we have to look at it from his angle and most of the time, the call is right, whether you are happy with it or not. For the attendance part, I'm not sure how you say I'm being liberal with it, when it's simple math work. I wasn't saying our attendance numbers were competing against the likes of Plymouth and Saginaw. If you read properly, I was merely making the reference that people in our surrounding area have more choices as to where and what type of hockey they wanna see where QC and Fort Wayne don't have other choices of hockey. The fact is, Section 10 was the one that claimed the number of attendance was clearly reflected on the toughness of the teams. That is incorrect. It's not an opinion it's a fact. The math clearly shows it. In this matter of numbers, you can't go strictly based on how many people attend the games but by the percentage. This is why we are always either last or second to last in attendance because we have one of the smallest barns in the league. If the league actually went by percentages, we would be up higher. For us to have a 50% average attendance is a pretty good thing. 4,000 seats filled in a 12,000 seat arena doesn't really qualify as successful attendance numbers.
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BORING
Apr 6, 2010 8:33:02 GMT -5
Post by section10 on Apr 6, 2010 8:33:02 GMT -5
Computerjunkie, I can tell you that the Bordercats averaged way more fans than do the Icehawks. Why? They were ENTERTAINING. You are to young to remember. Jason Renard being quoted in the Times Herald that he was getting payback for a teammate that night against Brantford. It was damn near a sellout. Then on the opening faceoff he beat the hell out of the guy he was lined up with because that guy cheap shoted his teammate the game before. The place went ballistic. Curtis Saylor, Chris Scourletis, Mark Gerant, Jason Simon, John Freeman, Jason Renard those guys filled the seats at McMorran. I like the way Tetrault plays. I loved Josh Aspenlind. They bring it every night like they are suppose to because they are professionals and get paid to. We as paying CUSTOMERS should expect that every night. I'm sorry to offend you, but if you think this team lately has been bringing it every night you need to clean your lens or use the other eye to look through it. I want you to watch tonight how many guys actually finish their checks and how many either snow plow or turn away. I'm not talking FIGHTS, I'm talking hard hitting action. Let me know tomorrow what you see tonight.
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BORING
Apr 6, 2010 8:55:11 GMT -5
Post by computerjunkie on Apr 6, 2010 8:55:11 GMT -5
Computerjunkie, I can tell you that the Bordercats averaged way more fans than do the Icehawks. Why? They were ENTERTAINING. You are to young to remember. Jason Renard being quoted in the Times Herald that he was getting payback for a teammate that night against Brantford. It was damn near a sellout. Then on the opening faceoff he beat the hell out of the guy he was lined up with because that guy cheap shoted his teammate the game before. The place went ballistic. Curtis Saylor, Chris Scourletis, Mark Gerant, Jason Simon, John Freeman, Jason Renard those guys filled the seats at McMorran. I like the way Tetrault plays. I loved Josh Aspenlind. They bring it every night like they are suppose to because they are professionals and get paid to. We as paying CUSTOMERS should expect that every night. I'm sorry to offend you, but if you think this team lately has been bringing it every night you need to clean your lens or use the other eye to look through it. I want you to watch tonight how many guys actually finish their checks and how many either snow plow or turn away. I'm not talking FIGHTS, I'm talking hard hitting action. Let me know tomorrow what you see tonight. When did I say they weren't entertaining?? I even said in earlier posts that I remember how great it was to watch them play and how Kinney is pretty much trying to replicate what they did to be successful, however, the community from the start didn't welcome this team because of the burned bridges that happened between the Cats and today. I've also posted that yes this team doesn't give their all every game. That I agree with that they should do every game. This whole thread wasn't about aggressive play and giving their all. This team is much different from the team we had the first year they began Don't try and change the topic. Your first post was about a 6-0 game being unentertaining because there were no fights and skirmishes after the whistle. I quote this from your starting post, "That may have been the most boring game of hockey I have ever seen. It was nothing more than 2 very talented non-checking mens league teams waiting for the game to get over so they can drink some beer. Seriously, minor League hockey is dying because there is no entertainment value. Fans want to see hitting, fighting, after whistle skirmishes, and some emotion from their players." That is better known as Goon hockey. A style that is fading away to the skill style. This is the point, whether you accept it or not. It's not an opinion either as it's being implemented in many leagues including the NHL, AHL and OHL, fighting is starting to be tightened down on with harsher penalties. In the OHL, if you take your helmet off to fight, it's an automatic game misconduct. The issue is you expect things to be the way they were 33 years ago and you refuse to accept that it's not like that anymore. It's changed. In order for hockey to stay popular and exist , the fans need to adapt to the changes, otherwise it's slowly going to disappear to nothing.
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BORING
Apr 6, 2010 14:45:00 GMT -5
Post by section10 on Apr 6, 2010 14:45:00 GMT -5
That is better known as Goon hockey. A style that is fading away to the skill style. This is the point, whether you accept it or not. It's not an opinion either as it's being implemented in many leagues including the NHL, AHL and OHL, fighting is starting to be tightened down on with harsher penalties. In the OHL, if you take your helmet off to fight, it's an automatic game misconduct. The issue is you expect things to be the way they were 33 years ago and you refuse to accept that it's not like that anymore. It's changed. In order for hockey to stay popular and exist , the fans need to adapt to the changes, otherwise it's slowly going to disappear to nothing.
The fans don't need to adapt, hockey needs to cater to the fans. You see No Fans = No Hockey. Most of the old time hockey players can't stand this Ned Braden type of hockey. By the way, fighting is up in the NHL. Why was Snowball called up last year to Erie, for his scoring? No for his aggressive style of play and willingness to drop the mitts. Why was Jon Mirasty in the AHL? Check out other boxscores besides the Wings? You'll see a lot of 5 for Fighting
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