The Unknown Poster

I made mention of this exact thing at one point earlier in the season, that they might have to get back to playing stronger D. Maurice has said he has given the team the go-ahead for the D to play more offensively but you can tell the idea was for last year's play to evolve into a better offensive style but they are screwing it up. Also caught the tail end of Beyak on 1290 this morning. Did he say they were swapping Burmi and Petan?

@TSNBobMcKenzie: Justin Abdelkader on verge of finalizing 7-year contract extension with DET. AAV is expected to be $4M+.

Please explain why you think this is true

Swapped out Perreault and Ladd. Id like to see Ehlers and Ladd swap maybe.

How dare he! He taking burgers away from us burger fans!

So then you agree he has been very successful at accomplishing the objectives of his position?

Have fun trolling. Weird obsession though. For curiosity sake what business do you work in?

Yes Christian screwed up there. For someone determined to ridicule wrestling you sure spend a lot of time searching for clips!

Suspended by how poorly raw did this week: The lack of star power and three hour length of Raw took its toll last night as, even with a lower-rated NFL game than in recent weeks, Raw set another modern audience record low mark last night. Raw was down from last week's 3.24 million viewers to 3.16 million this week, with the lowest viewed hour (hour three) in modern non-holiday history, even on a night built around the first round of the WWE title tournament. When the brackets for the tournament didn't list outside stars, and the most pushed star in the tournament, Roman Reigns, had already wrestled in the first hour, interest fell greatly. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 3.48 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.18 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.86 million viewers

Interesting they are going with two face/face matches. all those matches look like winners though Ryback must have pissed in someone's cornflakes lately.

Ducky you seem to have emotional reactions but nothing of substance to refute what myself and others have said. If you think the jets came here against Bettmans wishes and desires then please enlighten us all.

Titus is great. One thing WWE hates though, is when someone gets mainstream pub for something that WWE didnt get them. So they played up Titus' father of the year award earlier this year but he was quickly put back down. Unless there is some issue behind the scenes (which I havent heard of), there is little reason Titus and Young arent pushed more. WWE does this thing when they tell guys they have to "reach for the brass ring" themselves but there are numerous examples of guys being punished for doing just that. Then they are made wishy washy for so long that they can never get over. Then WWE says hey we tried but you just didnt get yourself over. And then they are released.

I think they probably booked the final 8 guys and then decided to use it as a draw on TV by adding 8 more and doing tournament matches on RAW & SD. In theory it should draw better ratings but it makes for a less interesting tournament.

No, the game could have progressed quite nicely, even if it wasn't driven by greed. I'm glad you're happy paying that ticket price to see some very average players getting paid millions of dollars because that's what been determined for us, by the owners, and the player's association. Who's business is it? I mean sure, you could open a hot dog stand and decide to give away the hot dogs or you could have average hotdogs and lower prices. or you could feature the best hot dogs available and sell them for as much as people are willing to spend because the whole point of opening a hot dog stand was to make money. Sorry, I cant fault business owners for wanting to make money. Most of us were thrilled the Jets make so much on tickets because it means they will be here and be profitable. Bettman created an environment where the Winnipeg Jets could come here and thrive. Its possible that the NHL would be good as a 24 team regional league. But that wasnt going to remain. It just wasnt. bettman didnt invent big business. He didnt invent expanding sports leagues. He didnt hurt the game or take it away from the fans.

Maybe. Sheamus has been a bit of a joke lately though. I would agree that the first round has been pointless. When you have to fill slots with Kalisto, Titus, Tyler Breeze... It just looks bad. In a way, Sheamus is portrayed as the stupidist man in the company. Why not cash in when Seth was laying in the ring with a busted knee? Why be in a tournament where you'd have to wrestle four times in gruelling fashion when you can wait til the end and cash in on the winner? Cesaro was an upset to a degree, a bone to the fans who are behind him and it delivers the "swerve" by having face vs face in the second round (roman vs Cesaro) unless they re-jigg it. Everything WWE does is weird. They made all these announcements about Seth online when they should have simply announced his injury and pushed fans to watch RAW for an announcement about the title. A tournament on RAW and SD over a couple of weeks always seems less special than a one night tournament. And the idea that Neville, Stardust etc somehow qualified? Thats like the NHL saying **** it and putting the Sabers or the Leafs into the playoffs even if the finish bottom 3.

Well I suppose the Canadian teams could have formed their own league but then we'd be watching something akin to the old IHL because the best players, best coaches would all be in the "US" NHL. The game of hockey is better, stronger, faster and boasts more talent than ever before. I think "our" game has done pretty good. It would be nice to get a $9 ticket at 7/11 to watch the Jets play but I'd rather watch hockey thats worth $80 than hockey thats worth $9.

Neville is in the tournament so maybe he will be champ?!?! ☺ Well he's one of the top 16 guys in WWE I guess! lol

Would Lapo consider Winnipeg moreso than other teams due to "unfinished business"? Or would his time here sour him more than other teams. If he doesnt get a HC gig, he has to jump back into the water somewhere and if he comes here he's either the HC in waiting or part of a success story which makes him even more likely to be everyones first choice as HC of another team down the road.

This wont be popular but just want to say one thing. Those people who have had the opportunity to spend time with Marcel will attest that he was always a gentleman and a really great guy to be around. Very humble and kind. I had met him in passing a couple of times and then quite some time later met him again at a house party and he walked right up to me and said "we've met before" but couldnt remember the details. He and his wife are good people. Wish them the best.

Im not sure what you mean by Bettman said salaries could go up. There wasnt a salary cap. There was inequality through the league between the haves and haves-not. Bettman was hired to expand the league and increase revenue and because of his labour experience, to bring in cost certainty. He did all those things and made the owners swallow things they didnt want to like currency issues and revenue sharing. The game is more popular than its ever been, sells more tickets, attracts more fans, is more global and everyone from the owners to the players makes way more money. By every metric, Bettman has been a rousing success for the NHL. Fans dislike him because he's the commissioner and its "cool" to hate the commissioner and everthing bad that happens has to be someone's fault. Yes he's often condescending, yes he's always evasive and yes he will flat out lie than admit anything is bad (or good for that matter). His one responsibility is to the owners and he doesnt care one iota if fans dont like it and he will lie to your face if he thinks its in the best interests of the owners, his bosses. He might not be the Commissioner we wanted but he's the Commissioner the NHL needed.

Ken Wiebe @WiebeSunSports Looks like Ondrej Pavelec will start in goal for #NHLJets vs #mnwild

If I recall, wasnt Lapo a coach of the eyar finalist and lead the team to first place and a Grey Cup appearance? And was the last winning HC we had?

You cant really say a team is failing if its in the bottom third of attendance. No matter what, there will be teams in the bottom third of attendance. Atlanta failed but one could argue it was worth the chance. A MAJOR US market. I think people fail to understand the point of expansion which was to grow the league and grow the revenues which required being in large US markets. Ill say again, revenue quintupled under Bettman and he brought in a salary cap, currency-stablization revenue sharing. If were going to blame work stoppages on the NHL, blame then equally on the players too. It takes two to tango. The Jets left town partially because the lockout of 94 didnt produce a salary cap. Bettman promised he'd get one and he eventually delivered. Difficult to call a guy a failure when he was delivered every single mandate of his position. If there are things you dont like about NHL policy, blame the owners, not Bettman. Chipman himself has said True North and fans wanting the Jets back have no better friend in the league than Bettman. And while the truth might hurt, Bettman didnt chase the Jets out of Winnipeg. He has repeatedly said there are two criteria to owning a team: 1) Fan support 2) building 3) owner. Jets didnt have a building and didnt have anyone willing to own the team while a building was constructed. Jets left because no one here wanted to pay their bills.

Under Gary Bettman, league revenue quintupled. And TV revenue and corporate sponsorship increased significantly. Player salaries also increased so his time has been good for them too. In a world of escalating salaries, however, he brought cost certainty in the form of a salary cap the PA said would never happen. He actually pushed for the currency stablization fund and helped keep Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa in the league (despite those that would say all he wanted to do was move teams to the US). His cost certainly policies, league revenue, cap etc allowed Minnesota and Winnipeg, two traditional hockey markets, to get their teams back. League expanded to 30 teams from 26 under his watch, adding Nashville, Atlanta, Minnesota, Columbus, and relocated Winnipeg, Quebec and Hartford. Only one of the expansion or relocated teams failed (Atlanta) and it could be taken as a compliment how hard Bettman has worked to keep the Coyotes in Arizona. Southern Expansion as a whole gets hung on Bettman but of the teams he actually expanded or relocated, most are doing well and there have probably been more established or traditional franchises with issues then the ones he expanded/relocated to. If creating a new sports league today, he's definitely on your shirtlist of Commissioners if you want to be successful.

Is your point to try and illustrate that he was better when in the tag team than as a singles guy? You chose two clips from his tag days one of which is a pretty sloppy fallaway slam variation and you compared it to possibly the worst clip from his awful WWE run. He was more athletic when he was younger (so was I!) but if athletics was the defining feature of top stars than Neville would be World Champion.