danzig6767

Yes, they didn't pay him which that in itself was a win.

The formation of a Big Ten hockey conference was more or less a formality when Penn State added hockey. The Big Ten requires at least 6 member schools to play under the Big Ten name and the NCAA requires a minimum of 6 teams in a conference to award an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Despite the great rivalries in the WCHA and CCHA, I believe the potential revenue from Big Ten Network games and a conference tournament was too much to forgo. 6 would be the critical mass for any of the major conferences to play under their primary conference brand. Man, i so wish that North Dakota would join the Big Ten conference. Has there ever been any talk of them being potentially invited and if they were, would they strongly consider it?

One thing which has surprised me is that the BTN doesn't televise more hockey games. To often there is fluff being televised and the Badgers hockey isn't on or is on some other odd network. So far i don't see this huge weekend series vs Penn St being televised anywhere in the Milwaukee area. The BTN is showing Minnesota vs OSU on Friday and Saturday night, but why can't they show games by region or state? I'm very annoyed that i can't watch either game.

Yea, i couldn't believe they gave up another goal with under a minute left to tie the game. Had they not won in OT and lost instead, that could have been a huge blow to their tournament chances. To leave a Michigan St player completely alone right in front of the net for a game tying goal was so frustrating.

It takes not just length for this defensive system to work, but also five really smart defenders on the court and if any off ball defenders blow assignments, things fall apart and guys are left wide open for threes.

I wonder if the Badgers will ever revive that weekend tournament they played for a couple of years at the Bradley Center. I went with some friends maybe 7-8 years ago and one of the games was against North Dakota. Our seats happened to be right by a section with a few hundred North Dakota fans and me and my friends had such a good time interacting with those Dakota fans. In fact, it just may have been the most fun i ever had at any hockey game i've attended in person. For whatever reason Wisconsin stop playing that weekend tournament in Milwaukee.

Churning the bottom of the roster hoping to get lucky and find a diamond in the rough is exactly what Stearns should be doing.

That was a huge win last night by Wisconsin. I watched the game with a friend and when the Badgers gave up two goals in the last two minutes to tie the game, i feared an OT loss which could have been devastating, especially after not scoring a goal on a 5 minute major and a two minute minor that lead to a 5 on 3 power play. I had high hopes when this new coaching staff was hired, but i didn't expect a turn around this quickly. There are some new players, but Granato has turned a team that was inept offensively under Eaves to a team which is now 6th in goals per game in all of college hockey.

When i was a kid my cousin played Pee Wee hockey at Wilson Park and i was so jealous that i couldn't play because my parents couldm't afford it. Anyways i'd spend weekends at his house and we'd look so forward to those replays of Badgers hockey on PBS at 10PM. After the game was over we'd go in the basement, put on his hockey gear minus the skates and play for pretend with a tennis ball. I have very fond memories of that. Plus, back then the Milwaukee Admirals practiced and played at Wilson Park and my uncle worked there. So he'd let me and my cousin in to watch them. The players gave us sticks and pucks, and sometimes they'd let us skate around with them after practice. it felt like such a cool thing as say an 8-9 year old kid. Man did i love hockey back then. I can still remember just loving the smell of a small hockey rink and skating.

I think an NHL team would draw initially since it was new, but would be more win/loss dependent to survive compared to the Bucks because of TV money. The NBA owners are swimming in TV revenues and thus aren't as dependent of attendance to survive as NHL teams are. The Bucks and the NBA also has star power to draw in fans when good opposing teams come to town. The Bucks have a 45 plus year history in Milwaukee. Ask the average sports fan in Milwaukee to name 10 NBA players, and most could name at least 20. Ask them to name 10 NHL players and most would struggle to name just 5. Almost any type of sports franchise can thrive in a city if they are consistently good. It's when they are very mediocre to bad for an extended stretch where a history and appreciation of a sport is vital for survival, especially when not in a major media market like Milwaukee isn't. This is where i think an NHL team here would struggle to stay afloat, even more so when having to compete with the Bucks for entertainment dollars given their schedules are in line with each other. In fact, that very well could kill both franchises. That all said, i'd love to see an NHL team here so long it didn't kill the Bucks in the process. Odds are microscopic that it ever happens though for a variety of obvious reasons.

Oh my god. I'm trying to move on. I really am. But you're hijackjng my argument. I've never claimed there are constant "all out brawls" in basketball. I said everyone gets involved, which they do. Have you ever once seen two players get into a fight while everyone else stands around watching? Actually, i don't see any fist fights at all in the NBA anymore. Can't remember the last one which happened in a long time between two players, much less more than two players. Pushing, shoving, and lots of trash talking. Sure it happens a lot, as it does in most sports. Two guys or more squaring off though and trading punches while everyone in the arena stands around and watches as happens in hockey, i'm drawing a blank for the last time. As for wrecking the thread, nobody was posting in it until we did. Not that many people in Wisconsin follow hockey.I know lots of sports fans of various ages and only one friend of mine follows/likes hockey and even he mainly just follows Badgers hockey.

I question how much you watch if you don't think this is rare. There's an average of 1 fight every 4 games. Games with more than one fight haven't reached 100 since 2010-11. The AHL introduced new rules this year where you get a 1 game suspension for your 10th fight, a subsequent 1 game suspension for every fight until your 13th fight and then a 2 game suspension for every fight after that. Fighting just isn't a huge part of the game anymore. None of that is my definition of rare. Rare is the amount of fights in the NBA and other pro sports. Yes hockey isn't what it once was in he old days, but for me at least, it should happen far less than it still does. FWIW, i'm not saying this as someone who hates watching two guys fight. I'm a big fan of UFC and grew up loving boxing with my dad. I even used to love watching the fights in hockey. Now as i've gotten older, the fighting just looks silly and minor league. I much prefer watching the playoffs where fighting is pretty rare and in the Olympics where it doesn't happen. That's what a major league team sport should look like. Not refs watching two guys circling around throwing haymakers at each other until the refs decide, well now i guess it's time to break this up and send the two guys to the penalty box for two minutes.

Yea, Ted has whiffed to often on defensive picks. The lack of speed and playmakers on that side of the ball is glaring.

You are simply flat out wrong on this. I follow both sports and know without any question that actual fighting of any kind involving players punching each other rarely happens anymore in basketball, much less all 10 players on the court brawling as happens every year in hockey. And all 10 players fighting in hockey isn't all that rare. Fighting in hockey is a culture issue. Hockey won't get rid of it as all other sports have because they believe their fans want to see it. Go to a hockey game and a fight happens. Most everyone in the crowd stands up to watch. The crowd starts yelling and gets all excited. Hockey could end this easily, but they don't want to. In the NBA, if a player on the bench simply just walks on the court as an altercation is happening, they get suspended, regardless if they don't get near that altercation. So where do you get this nonsense from of all out brawls in the NBA anymore since that big fight in Detroit over a decade ago? Or coaches being involved also?

The Patriots have been great at filling holes on their roster from year to year via some combination of trades, big time free agents, and/or smaller priced free agents who fit their system. Mix in the draft and they advance far into the playoffs consistently.

None of this is remotely close to the truth. Geez. All there is to go with for NBA fighting gone bad is that huge brawl 13 years ago involving the Pacers in Detroit. That's it and ever since fighting in the NBA is pretty much non-existent outside of pushing/shoving and maybe a very random punch or two being thrown. Fights with fists being thrown on the ice involving everything from two to 10 players all fighting like a scene out of the movie Slapshot are still common. And BTW, fighting isn't allowed by the rules. A penalty is given. Hockey leagues are alone though in simply slapping players on the wrist with a feather for fighting and using sticks violently unless of course someone gets hurt bad. Hockey coaches get nuts in ways NBA coaches would get crushed for. There have also been vastly more violent altercations involving hockey players and fans compared to basketball. Nowhere close. Watch this video and telling me how basketball players would be viewed by you and many others if they did stuff like this anywhere close to as often. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhUCpDeCYhY

Yea Osiecki was a beast at recruiting and coaching up defenseman while he was an assistant under Eaves. In fact, things started to unravel once Osiecki left to take the job at Ohio St. Eaves owes a chunk of his success to what Osiecki brought on that area of the team.

Add in the 75 million spent on Dellavadova and Teletovic, the Bucks front office blew their wad to the tune of about 170 million dollars on four guys that none of which are a starting caliber player, and now the Bucks cap situation looks ugly going forward once Jabari is extended. Hammond is such a frustrating GM. Overall i think he does a good job in the draft, but when it comes to handing out money the guy is an idiot. Just because the team had some cap space available this offseason doesn't mean they had to use it all and even worse on the Plumlee contract, he was a RFA so why in the hell did they offer him 54 million dollars before another team first offered him any sort of ridiculous contract like that? As Giannis and Jabari keep getting better, it will be hugely important on what type of role players surround those two. That's where cap room will be important. Not because the Bucks will lure a superstar here, but for the right surrounding cast. This will be much harder after blowing 170 million on Dellavadova/Teletovic/Henson/Plumlee.

Long ways to go and alot of bad teams ahead of them. If Mids comes back pretty soon and we try to add a defensive presence down low I don't see a reason to throw the towel in on this season yet. No we won't win any titles but it would be great to get in the dance and get some experience for the guys. It helps that Kidd finally benched soft as hell John Henson. Plumlee is a scrub himself and got vastly overpaid, but he at least brings a physical nature to the position, will set hard screens, and won't get backed down under the rim like Henson does. It's still very troubling that those two are owed 90 million dollars over the next four years because Hammond is clueless on giving out contracts, but Henson had to be removed from the rotation. Plumlee is the better scrub among the two.

I'm not complaining about "flashy black athletes". I am comparing my perception of the NHL players and the NBA players. That's all. I find t telling that of all the stuff I listed you choose to focus only the race of the most of the players, which I'll remind you you are the only one who brought up. Is it even possible to say something bad about NBA players without it being blamed on race? And why is it assumed that it's only NBA players that bother me? I'm bothered by some of the stuff the NFL players too. And guess what. I thought some of things Carlos Gomez did when he hit home runs was obnoxious too. They are called "professional" athletes for a reason. If you want to celebrate that's one thing. But some athletes take it way too far. That's what bothers us crabby old white guys. Not the skin color of those who do it. Come on, regardless that you didn't say black players specifically when you ragged on NBA players and their fancy clothes, cars, and jewelry, it's what you meant given the NBA is about 90 percent black. For whatever reason it bothers you how some of those players spend their money and i've heard other white guys complain about that also. If someone simply likes the sport of hockey better i get it. I like the NBA better, but i'm still a hockey fan, especially Badgers hockey. I've just heard though over the years to many people either say flat out racist things about NBA players or more coded things about tatted up flashy NBA players by only older white guys for that to be a coincidence. So then it ends up with when hockey players fight during a game, they are showing toughness, but if two NBA players threw punches or trash talk as happens all game long in hockey, they get labeled negatively. Back to hockey-- Man the Badgers are so much more enjoyable to watch under Granato compared to Eaves. It's not just the better record, it's a style of play aspect also. Granato plays a more open system and after last weekend, i believe the team now has 12 straight games with at least 30 shots on goal. The Badgers under Eaves were not only bad, they were boring as hell. This should help recruiting, especially with scoring forwards.

Sorry for highjacking the thread with non-hockey stuff

NBA players in general. Im not going to pull up an all time roster and liist off which players I think show off the bling and which players don't. I have had dealings with some players at work too, which is where I get sone of this from. It's just an opinion. Maybe NHL players do it too and I just don't know about it becuase we don't have NHL players here in Wisconsin very often. But don't try to deny that these young 18-21 year old millionaire NBA players like to show off their money. A lot of rich people in every avenue of life flaunt their money and spend extravagantly. So what. Hell, our new president brags about and flaunts his wealth on a daily basis and "blue collar" voters were his base of support. I wouldn't say nobody cares. I think a lot of people get annoyed by the extreme celebrations every time a player scores a touchdown or, you know, tackles someone. NFL ratings and attendance would say otherwise. Because if the physicality and how the game is played. You have to work much harder to play hockey then you do basketball. NBA players sit out games to "rest" while NHL players get their teeth knocked out and come out next period. They fight but can mostly control themselves and follow the unwritten rules whereas when NBA players fight all hell breaks lose. There are never fights in the NBA. Name the last one since Detroit/Indiana 13 years ago. In the NHL, the league is still full of goons who's main role on the team is to fight on the ice. It's 2017 and hockey has yet to evolve. It's the only sport that not only is ok with fights during a game, there are times where every player on the ice is fighting in a huge brawl. Great example for the kids in the crowd. I love hockey, but it's time for the NHL to grow up. Olympic hockey is a joy to watch in comparison. Physical minus the talentless goons fighting. If NBA players fought a lot, they'd get labeled thugs. Look agree with me or don't. I don't care. But don't suggest this is somehow about race. All i'll say is that the only people i ever hear complain about flashy black athletes, their clothes, jewelry, and cars are middle aged and older white guys. And for some reason their ire mainly just gets aimed at rich NBA players, not all of the other rich athletes, celebs, business men etc who blow millions frivolously. The Bucks front office is been fine. Are you being serious? Giannis was an amazing pick by Hammond and so was the Middleton trade. Brogdon good. Parker fell in their laps. That's it. They handed Henson/Plumlee, two scrub centers for 95 million combined. Incredible. That after giving 17 million per to Monroe, also a center who they have been badly trying to trade. Gave 40 million to Delledova who has been bad and 35 million to Teletovic who has been worse, so he rarely plays and neither does Plumlee. They capped out the roster for years to come with about 175 million in the last two years on Henson/Plumlee/Delledova/Teletovic, none of whom is starting caliber and two who rarely even play at all. And Parker yet to be paid. I feel for Giannis and Parker.

Thompson has been really good at drafting offensive players and crap for awhile now drafting defensive players. This just might be the worst core of cornerbacks in the league Inside linebacker has been a weakness since Thompson took over a decade ago Defensive line lacks any playmakers besides Daniels. With Clay aging and beat up from years of injuries, Peppers old, and Perry being inconsistent, when Capers only rushes four, rarely does that generate pressure. If he blitzes and it doesn't get home, that further exposes a terrible group of corners. Ted has spent a lot of picks in the first four rounds of the draft on defense since the team won the Super Bowl, yet the defense is devoid of playmakers and is full of weak areas. I'd let Capers go just for a change, but whoever replaced him would be inheriting a very talent deficient unit.

Hell or High Water was my favorite movie of the year.

It also helps that there are no pro sports in North Dakota. That hockey program probably has state wide love. Speaking of real North Dakota hockey, as a big Badgers hockey fan, i miss playing North Dakota home and away every year. They along with Minnesota used to be the Badgers biggest rivals. Plus, i thought they had the best looking uniforms in college hockey, especially when they still had the Fighting Sioux head on the front.