StevetheClub

I feel like this should have been a reply to one of those PM's

You ever been married?

It is a hard cap. 
And the rich don't get rich by spending their money on things that lose money. 

Clearly all those other sports are awash in cheap shots, dirty hits and untalented goons who's sole job is to target star players.  They *need* fighting to clean up their sports.  A good bench clearing brawl in Water Polo would go a long way to cleaning it up.

The same sad argument people keep trying to use... fighting doesn't slow these things down... multiple game suspensions, ie multiple game cheques, is what will prevent these types of cheap shots... the only thing fighting does now is provide a little extra excitement...

This I don't get.  Is there any proven correlation to support this?  Furthermore, the idea of enforcers protecting star players seems like an outdated notion anyway.  Which enforcer is Pitt employing strictly to protect Crosby?  Or Tampa with Stamkos? How about the 20+-years-straight-in-the-playoffs Detroit Red Wings - simply an exception to your rule?
Fighting, at least in my lifetime watching hockey, certainly doesn't curtail any of the "chippy" things you mention. It's typically a response to the above mentioned actions. So not sure how a lack of fighting would increase occurrences of these acts,

Why isn't fighting needed in any of the other major sports?
Yes there are altercations in football, basketball, soccer, and baseball.  These usually involve bigger brawls that quickly get diffused.  Most of these sports have immediate ejections and fines for even throwing a punch.  The NHL .. you get a coincidental 5 minute penalty.  
No other sport (other then MMA, boxing, etc) will have two people square off and hit each other with bare knuckles while everyone else stands around watching.
Football is a bigger contact sport than hockey.  Why isn't fighting needed in football to "police" the game.
Fighting is part of hockey, not because it is needed, but because it has traditionally been a part of it.  All the other sports have proven that it is possible to police the game without the players having to take things into their own hands.

It might seem that way. But having the best odds of winning something should always be the preferred option. 

It looks like what happened spurred a conversation that will hopefully be the first steps in transforming what has been a place so many people avoid to a place where a sense of community could develop. That sounds good to me. 

Yeah, there's a chance. But the cost would be high. Probably 3 or 4 scouts and some support staff..

I wish that one person never said that last place has an 80% chance of not getting the 1st overall pick.  It seems to really confuse people a lot.
Let me put it this way.  I offer you one of 14 lottery tickets for $1 Million dollars.  I pull out the first one and say this one has a 20% chance of winning BUT an 80% chance of losing, do you want it?
Your response is.  Oh no, 80% of not winning is not really good at all, give me a different one.
I say okay, here is the next one.  Well, it turns out that one has a 13.5% chance of winning AND an 86.5% chance of losing.  
Now since odds mean nothing, you really don't care which one you get ... right?

Odds mean probability.  Not guarantees.  Unless you have 100% odds, there is a chance you won't get something.  But if you have higher odds than someone else, it means you have a higher chance than them  It is mathematics and it can't really be argued.
You should go work in Vegas.  They love how odds mean nothing.
Edit:  Also, it is nothing like a lotto max ticket.  In Lotto Max, every single ticket has the exact same odds of winning.  Not true in the NHL draft lottery.  Every team has different odds of winning. 

Can we please leave politics out of this? I can list off many faults with political parties at all different levels and different affiliations. Corruption and mismanagement exists everywhere. Part of the reason I enjoy sports is to get away from that garbage please check your garbage at the door. There are plenty of other places to spout infective.

I thought I'd wade in here with a few thoughts, just to discuss a few points people have made (WARNING: very long post). First off, I have a doctorate degree in Earth Sciences, have worked as an active researcher for a number of years, and have published a number of papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. I'm NOT a climate scientist, so I don't have any credentials/expertise in that field. What I do have is an extensive background in Earth Science and I know how the scientific process works from a research perspective. I also have friends/colleagues who are climate scientists and actively involved in leading research in the field. If you really want to understand the topic of climate change you need to go to the original source which is peer-reviewed scientific publications - not blogs, magazine articles, CNN, etc. The problem is that most people don't have access to the publications, and they're highly technical and require an appropriate background to really understand them.
 
As far as the debate goes there are two very important things where the debate is pretty much over among people with the credentials necessary to really understand the topic. First, since the beginning of the industrial revolution humans have pumped unprecedented amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere and CO2 is very efficient at trapping heat. No debate there. Second, there is almost no debate about whether Earth's climate is getting warmer. The real debate is over what the connection is between human produced CO2 and warming, and whether there are other significant natural factors that also come in to play. Given the first two points, there really is no debate that humans have had a significant effect on global warming. The question is what the contribution is of natural causes, what steps (if any) can be taken to mitigate the effects, and what the cost-benefit is (i.e. is it worth taking any steps).
 
One topic that has been brought up in this thread is that the Earth naturally goes through variations in climate. True. In fact, the Earth's average temperature throughout its geologic history has actually been several degrees warmer than it currently is, and this is not even including the first few hundred million years when Earth was essentially a ball of molten rock. A well known example is the 135 million years when dinosaurs ruled the Earth - the average temperature was at about 5 degrees warmer. In fact, we are currently in a cool period in Earth's history with alternating cycles of ice ages and warmer periods (our current state). Why the ice ages first started is still unclear - one theory is that the rapid rise of the Himalaya's disruputed global climate patterns and changed the climate. That doesn't change the fact that human society is optimised for our current climate state, and any significant changes in climate would have significant effects on human society. Human society would likely adapt, but the time-scale to adapt will be on the order of decades, not centuries.
 
It's been mentioned in this thread that increasing output from the Sun is the cause for warming. Variations in output from the Sun of even a few percent can have a significant impact; however, actually measuring the variations accurately is surprisingly difficult. It's only been possible to get accurate measurements since we've been able to launch satellites which has only been in the last few decades. It's not really possible to establish any type of long-term pattern in solar output in that amount of time. So people who state that increasing solar output is the cause of warming, and basically state it as fact, really have little data to base it on.
 
Another topic that has been mentioned is how climate scientists flip-flop - how 40 years ago we were told we were entering an ice age and now it's the opposite. During the mid-20th century there was a global cooling - I certainly remember some pretty brutal Winnipeg winters in the 70's, and those were by Winnipeg standards. However, the idea that we were entering an ice age was pretty much a media creation - there are no scientific publications where any climate scientist claimed that. As I mentioned above, we are in a current warm period between ice ages, and it's highly likely that in a few thousand years the Earth will enter another ice age. But it's not imminent and no climate researcher ever said it was.
 
Someone in this tread said that the people mostly concerned with climate change are left-wing liberals. The many scientists I know run the full range of left-wing liberal to right-wing conservative (including climate scientists), so to catagorise everyone concerned with climate change as left-wing liberal is wrong. Just published in the Washington Post is an article about ExxonMobil executives who believe that climate change is real and a serious problem. I'm going to go on a limb and say that most of those executives are probably right-wing conservatives. And this is a multi-billion dollar company whose business relies on pumping CO2 into the atmosphere.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/even-exxonmobil-says-climate-change-is-real-so-why-wont-the-gop/2015/12/06/913e4b12-9aa6-11e5-b499-76cbec161973_story.html?utm_source=hootsuite
 
On a positive note, the first helium-plasma fusion device has commenced operation in Germany. This could be a crucial step towards finally achieving the holy grail of nuclear fusion, which has always been 50 years away from being 50 years away. The next step is to do it with hydrogen-plasma. A controlled hydrogen nuclear fusion reactor would essentially solve all of Earth's energy and emission problems.

Nice, you mixed this one up a bit:
 
Colour coded for ease of understanding:
 
Deny
 
Deflect
 
Denigrate

If you knew anything about me, you'd know I am very anti Politically Correct. 
 
Firstly, I was just answering his question, I wasn't trying to be facetious.  Maybe if you thought about where he was, i.e. KFC, a fast food place where you would find a lot of fat white people (fast food places and Walmart), you'd understand why I said 'fat white people'.  You don't exactly get treated like a prince working at places like that.  And the people that work there aren't exactly getting the customer support award no matter what race they are.
 
Goalie also left out the part that he was talking about people that grew up here.  In any case no matter who it is, maybe put yourself in their shoes and see where their coming from.  Hell, how does Goalie even know that the person that he was dealing with just didn't have a bad day.  What if someone that guy knows is in the hospital or something.  That goes for anyone of any race, not just muslims.  If it was a black, white or asian kid, he wouldn't have even made the comment.  But because muslims are the "item of the day", that's what we're all focused on.  I'm just saying, maybe put yourself in their shoes (and when I say their, I mean anyone's shoes, not just the muslims you're judging).

Culture barrier, language barrier - new immigrants trying to find their way.  Try to picture yourself in Syria or Palestine right now...
 
My aunt used to manage an immigrant shelter in Winnipeg - it closed a few years ago. She'd like to give you a good piece of her mind right now...

I think its important to reiterate that no one (as far I know) is suggesting that all Muslim's are bad or that the religion per se is bad.  One could argue all organized religion is a problem (Maher).  That's not the point of these discussions though.
 
I think most people that suggest radical Islam is a problem are not bigots.  Speculating about motives is fair game as humans but it seems its politically incorrect to speculate when it's a potential Islamic motivation.  And I find people are quick to defend Muslim's when for the most part Id like to think the discussion of radical Islam is not an attack on Muslims. 
 
You never want to have to pause to remind everyone you're not a racist or bigot.  Its a sensitive subject, I know.

It doesn't have to.

From the article:
 
"The Niagara Falls, Ont., native went unselected in the 2014 CFL Draft largely because he wasn’t back to 100 percent after suffering a freak ACL injury in practice halfway through his 2013 season. That made Rush a free agent and he turned a spectacular final season at Guelph into a pro contract."

From the article:
 
"The Niagara Falls, Ont., native went unselected in the 2014 CFL Draft largely because he wasn’t back to 100 percent after suffering a freak ACL injury in practice halfway through his 2013 season. That made Rush a free agent and he turned a spectacular final season at Guelph into a pro contract."

And I find it offensive that I'm not able to feel that some things are weird. Perhaps if we both learned to manage our own emotions better we'd be more ok with those of others.
 
I don't mean for this to sound like an attack on you, I'm just using your post as an example. While I do think that there are lines out there that should not be crossed and I recognize that those lines are often blurry and hard to pin down, there are many, many situations in which people just need to learn to tolerate and accept their own feelings rather than deny or attack someone else for theirs.

Is "Shiny Pony" part of the respect for the office that was discussed prior to the election?

"Don't even need polls. Use common sense." That is what you have just said to support your belief that a majority of a people are antithetical to you and your conception of Canada. That, unknown, is called xenophobia. 

Speak for yourself when you say this and please don't use the pronoun "our," because you certainly don't speak for all of us.
 
And the principal that you're expounding, that we should discriminate against an entire group of people because of certain individuals sharing commonalities with that group, is a dangerous one.