NHL Payroll

Seriously. I don't mean to sound like a pompous a--, but I should be on the NHL payroll.
Prior to arriving at Indy's hockey oasis, the only bar that I've found that has CenterIce, all that was on was American football and basketball.
I walk in, sit at the bar, and get hockey on TV. First the Versus game. Not just above the bar either. One of the managers turns it on, and then it's on several screens throughout the lower level.
About 10 p.m. I ask for the Red Wings - Canucks game. He tunes it to that game while the Versus game is still on other TVs.
Finally enough American football fans leave.
"Can you please turn the football game sound down and the hockey game up?"
"Well we're not supposed to." It's corporate rules - Indiana sports, Monday night games, etc.
In any case they - bartender and a manager - make an exception.
Now, listening and watching Red Wings hockey, I'm in hockey heaven. Sadly as the bar is closing I have to leave early in the third period.
I'm hard on the NHL at times, but I'm also a passionate fan. I promote the game whenever and where ever I can. Tonight was no exception.
By the way, it's to bad the Wings can't hold onto a lead.

Two Nights

Two different nights - tonight and last night, two different Internet connections, two different browsers and I still can't listen to NHL games on NHL.com's GameCenter.
GameCenter is a joke. I can't imagine the problems I'd be having if I paid to try to see games.
I hate GameCenter! This now makes the fourth, maybe fifth time, I've tried to get it to work, and it just doesn't. It's awful, buggy, and slow!

Below are two messages I sent to NHL.com earlier this month.

This one I sent Nov. 2, 2008. I was trying to listen to a Red Wings game
What happened to NHL radio online? I can't hear the games anymore. I tried going to the GAMECENTER link, which by the way takes way too long to load, and clicking on Radio. It doesn't work.
Last year I switched to listening to games directly on WXYT using iTunes, but right now an NFL game is being broadcast. That's the FM side. I believe WXYT-AM would be the Red Wings game, but I can't hear it on NHL.com.
So much for Detroit being Hockeytown, and so much for the NHL caring about its fans.
Fix this NOW!

I sent this one a few minutes later that night.
GameCenter is a joke! Please make a link to the audio feeds without going through a Flash-based site! I'm on broadband; I've used three different browsers, and it's not working! I am acrimonious!!!
The new site looks nice, but overall it's very cumbersome and clunky! It's just horrible! NHL Connect is a joke too! It's horrible to navigate through when it was so easy to use. It's taking all the restraint I have not drop f-bombs and use other course language.

The generic response I received.

Dear User,
Due to the volume of comments and suggestions we've been receiving with our new Web site launch, we regret that we cannot guarantee individual responses for most items (but we will read them!). We certainly appreciate the time you've taken to send us your feedback.
Please also be sure to check out our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section, where we post answers to some of the most common issues.
For GameCenter and GameCenter Live issues, please visit the GCL FAQ, report a problem to technical support, or contact one of our customer service representatives via phone during our evening support hours.
Thank you,
The NHL.com Web Team

Other Problems
This is an e-mail from NHL.com earlier this season, when I was posting blogger, aka blogspot, links on my NHL Fan Connect blog. They were deleted, and then the NHL tried to bribe me. About two weeks later I'd finally calmed down enough to respond.

From Brad at NHL.com
Blog
fans-connect@nhl.com to me
Auxlepli,
Unfortunately, we don't allow users to promote outside blogs on our site.
However, we truly enjoy having you on our site, and we'd like you to remain.
We'd like to send you a small gift, in return for your return - and if you'd like to critique our publishing tool, we'd be happy to send it along to our tech team. Things are constantly being updated and changed, and I think your input would be great in allowing us to better serve you and the rest of the community.
Regardless of your decision to stick or leave, please let me know your size and address, and I'll throw something in the mail. If not for your return, consider it a thank you for your use of our site up to this point.
What do you say?
Brad
My Response:
Me to fans-connect@nhl.com
Brad,
As much as I would like to think you enjoy having me on your site, I don't believe it.
NHL Connect is much harder to navigate now. Below are just some of my problems with the re-designed site.
When logging into Fan Connect using Safari I tried tabbing over to the Password box. I couldn't. I had to use my mouse. Typically "tab" will work; it does usingFirefox.
My username shows up in many places as all caps. It's meant to be all lowercase.
My blog titles are also all caps. I don't want to be screaming at other people. On some occasion I might use all caps to emphasize a word in a title. With NHL defaulting my titles to all caps, I can't.
The page on which one posts a new blog entry is far too cumbersome. The box is way, way too small to be effective. Sometimes html coding works correctly, sometimes it doesn't. It seems haphazard.
In the old style of NHL Connect I could access everything - photos, friends, blog - from almost any page. With the re-design I can't. I'm forced to always go back to my profile first, then to friends, messages, blog, etc. In a word, cumbersome.
Tonight, I'm finding NHL.com is just as cumbersome.
I can't access things easily like I have been for years, since 1999. The GameCenter feature takes up way too much bandwidth, and I can't find what I'm looking for, which I guess would be called a Roster Summary.
The sites look better than the old sites. Yet there's too much black in my opinion. More frustrating is how hard it is to find what I'm looking for in an easy manner, and both are exceedingly hard to navigate.
Thanks for your time.

All I want is for NHL.com to work well - its radio feeds and its Fan Connect site.

Johnny Hockeyseed: Thoughts after a 4-0 Red Wings win

Finally! As a Detroit Red Wings fan it was good to finally see them play in a dominate fashion. Kudos to the Wings. They played a complete game for 60 minutes. It's the best I've seen them play so far this season.

Watching tonight's game at Indy's hockey oasis, I was reminded of my escapade last week during the Wings - Penguins game. I started out watching the game at my favorite bar. Since the game was on Versus, my bar would have it. I strolled in and sat down at the bar.
"Can I help you?" the bartender asked.
"Can you please turn the station to Versus?"
"What's that?" she asked.
"It's a sports station, the Wings - Penguins hockey game is on."
"Do we get that?" she asked another employee.
This wasn't the first time she'd seen me. She had to know how big a hockey fan I am, but then again, maybe not. She probably sees hundreds of people everyday. So I give her the benefit of the doubt.
"You do," I said unperturbed. "It's either 603 or 604."
I'm a seasoned pro at people, and particularly ignorant sports bar employees, not knowing what Versus is. Seems ridiculous, but some people just don't take their jobs seriously. Eventually the station is turned, and a Capitals game is on. I order a beer, a meal, and wait for the Wings game. Sometime during the game I realize I can't stay. I'm thinking I need to get up early for a job-related function the next day. So I leave early.
The main point behind that story is that hockey wasn't on when arrived, but it was when I left.

Heading back to my car, I realize I left way too early. It's relatively early in the night and the game wasn't nearly over. So I head to the newly opened Buffalo Wild Wings.
I make my way back to the bar, and sit down.
"Can I help you?" the bartender asked.
"Depends, can you turn on the hockey game?" It seems every other sporting event that night was on except that.
"Ahh a counter-offer," the guy sitting next to me said.
"I'll see," the bartender said. Can I get you something to drink?"
"You can if you get the hockey game on. I'm not ordering anything until I know I can watch the Wings - Penguins game."
"You must be from Michigan," the guy sitting next to said and laughed. The guy sitting next to him agreed. I'm wearing my red Red Wings jacket, and I don't feel like explaining.
"Yep, I'm from Marshall."
"I'm from Ann Arbor," he said.
In the back of my mind I'm thinking I can't catch a break.
I stay and eventually not only is the Wings game on one of the side TVs, but also on one of the big TVs directly in front of me.
The Penguins win, and I'm disappointed.
But the main point behind that story is that hockey wasn't on when I arrived, but it was after I got there.

So nearly a week later, I head down to Jillians, Indy's hockey oasis.
It's basically the same routine, albeit not the Wings - Oilers game isn't on Versus.
The bartender finds it on one the satellite stations. It's the feed from Canada.
The point being hockey wasn't on when I arrived, but it was after I got there.

Just call me Johnny Hockeyseed.

So here's my other thoughts, specifically during tonight's game vis-à-vis the Monday night American football game.

When the hockey game was tuned in for me, more screens showed it than ESPN's pre-game show.
When the American football game started the bar's management turned the music down, and the American football game sound up. That was disappointing to me. If music is on during a hockey game then it can be on during an American football game.
When both games were being played, five screens showed the hockey game, and five showed the American football game.
Only three tables, a total of about five people, appeared to be watching the American football game. Two of those three tables were empty by half time.
Only one person, me, appeared to be interested in the hockey game. I stayed the entire game.
When I left, after the hockey game's completion, four scores had been scored in each game, excluding the American football game's PATs.
It's my opinion, though I didn't see one score in the American football game, that none of those scores were exciting as any of the goals in the hockey game.
It's also my opinion that none of those scores were even as exciting as the Wings post-rattling miss.
At one moment during the games, there was nearly three minutes left during the hockey game and about 30 seconds left in the first half of the American football game, et the hockey game still finished before the American football game went to half time.

BankAtlantic Center review

Travelled to south Florida to watch the Detroit Red Wings take on the Florida Panthers. Wings won, 3-2 and Johan Franzen scored the game winner. Pretty good game, but was disappointed that the Wings once again gave up the lead, a two-goal lead, and needed a power play to get the third goal. The game was about 600 fans short of sellout. No rats were thrown, but one fan threw an octopus onto the ice. Isn't that just supposed to be a playoff thing?

Anyway BankAtlantic is a pretty decent arena, but in my opinion it's in a horrible location. It's located about 14 miles west of downtown Fort Lauderdale in Sunrise. I guess the Panthers organization researched and found a majority of hockey fans are located out there, but I prefer downtown arenas. Also the only mass transit to the arena is by bus, which is another negative.

People were nice, and the lower level sight lines were decent. I didn't check upstairs, but I can't imagine they'd be very good as they're above two levels of club seats. Anyway the major surprise to me that some vendors sold Molson Canadian. It wasn't on tap, but in 24-ounce cans. That they had it was great though. Molson Canadian and hockey are synonymous to me. However it was $12 a pop, and I thought $10 at Staples Center was bad. If I'm not mistaken that was for 16-ounce beers.

So now I've seen the Wings play in following arenas. Eight down, 22 to go.
Detroit - The Joe Louis Arena
Colorado - Pepsi Center
St. Louis - Scottrade Center
Nashville - Sommet Center
Chicago - United Center
Columbus - Nationwide Arena
Los Angeles - Staples Center
Florida - BankAtlantic Center

Hockey Hall of Fame honors Larionov

Igor Larionov, as part of the Russian Five, means a lot to me. More so now that he's been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame along with three other players.
The AP story and Larionov quotes. This is the part I really liked.

Larionov — known as The Professor to his teammates — was a thinking man's hockey player who helped make the "Russian Five" fly in Motown.
"Our style was to control the puck as much as we could, make a lot of passes," he said. "I guess that game was accepted in Detroit."

Still accepted and a reason why I'm such a Red Wings fan.
Over at mlive.com George James Malik found these two gems, one from Sportsline and another from ESPN, about Larionov.

Sportsline's Wes Goldstein:
Scotty Bowman still chuckles at how Igor Larionov inspired the creation of what became known as the Russian Five.
The unit gained fame and was a central component of three Red Wings Stanley Cup teams in six seasons, and according to Bowman, the initiators of the puck possession type of game Detroit has continued to play with masterful success since. But it came together by chance, after the legendary coach was barking instructions to his struggling power play unit during a practice and not at all happy with what he saw.
That was in late 1995, and normally players didn't approach Bowman in those situations. But Larionov, who will become the fourth Russian inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday, apparently was unaware of the protocol, having helped pave the first road to the NHL for former Soviet players only six years earlier.
So ever the thinker, Larionov went ahead and suggested the coach put him together with teammates Slava Fetisov, Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov and Vladimir Konstantinov. The unit spent the next minute and 45 seconds skating and moving the puck feverishly in perfect sync, but never bothered to take a shot.
"I told Igor after that his guys had just killed the penalty for the other team," Bowman laughed. "He said he told everyone not to shoot because he didn't want me to stop them by blowing the whistle."
Bowman had no intention of stopping Larionov. The veteran player was 36 years old when the Red Wings traded sniper Ray Sheppard to San Jose for him, and he wasted little time turning into a leader in the room and a force at both ends of the ice. It helped that Larionov's offensive creativity tended to get him compared to Wayne Gretzky in terms of on-ice vision, and his ability to think the game earned him the nickname the "professor."
"I'd say he was probably the last piece of the puzzle for us," Bowman said. "And the thing that was most underrated about him is that people don't realize how good he was defensively. He was as sure a player as I ever had in the last couple of minutes defending a lead. He knew how to play."

ESPN's Pierre LeBrun:
"He was a special kind of player," [Scotty] Bowman said. "The part about him, really, is how good he was defensively. I hardly ever had a player as good as him in the last five minutes of a game when you were protecting a lead. His positional play was so good. It's like having a playing coach on the ice. I thought because he was battle-scarred from all the big tournaments he played in. He was calm. He just made all the right moves all the time."
For [Sergei] Fedorov, it was a reunion with a player he tremendously admired. As a timid teenager on the Soviet national team in the late 1980s, Fedorov didn't really get to know the legendary Larionov. But he watched and learned.
"When I joined Red Army team, he was one of the most gifted and talented centers in the game, if not the best," Fedorov said. "His stickhandling, the way he saw the ice, for me as a center, that was key to see and work on."
Nearly a decade later, they were teammates in the NHL. It was a dream come true.
"At that point, I felt he didn't mind if I talked to him," Fedorov said. "We were more like friends in Detroit, not work colleagues. That was a fun time. Eventually, we would play on the same line and that was a thrill."
It was Bowman, the NHL's winningest coach, who had the vision to unite his Russian players. The Russian Five was the NHL version of the Red Army's Green Unit, with Fedorov, Vyacheslav Kozlov and Vladimir Konstantinov joining veterans Larionov and Fetisov.
"Huge credit goes to Scotty," Larionov said. "He was a huge fan of Fetisov and the Soviet way of moving the puck and creativity. It was amazing to have that opportunity to play that style of hockey again."
Holland believes the Wings' Russian Five had an impact on the NHL game that's still felt today. "It's a puck-possession game today, and I really think Scotty and the Russian Five had something to do with that."

Though the Wings only won one Stanley Cup with the Russian Five, they made an incredbile impact on the team and game that's still felt today. They also made an incredible impact on me.
Thanks Professor.