Rich

What did he do? Missed it.

Congratulations to Calgary. Great season from start to finish.

Hamilton marching here...

Please post on the topic at hand and not callout individual posters. If you don't like what someone has to say, there is an ignore function.

Even if they report themselves as straight, they are still gay.... The question is whether or not the same percentage would be applied to professional sports, and why wouldn’t it be? You could argue that it is a small sample size compared to the general population and the stats would be skewed somewhat, but by that rationale, the percentage could just as easily be larger as it would be smaller. Seems people want to believe that the percentage would be smaller because professional athletes should be more “manly”. Its more like, professional team sports -- especially football, hockey, baseball, etc -- are life long pursuits. You start when you can basically walk -- those that make it to the bigs are those whose talent matches their ability to endure 20 years of training, 20 years of locker rooms, 20 years of not so subtle homophobia. Its only logical that many gays -- especially until the last 10 years or so -- would gravitate towards non-team endeavours where their sex life would never come up. Its why many gay men went into diving, rowing, fencing, even martial arts. This I can accept as a plausible explanation. It is also just a theory. We will never really know what the true numbers are.

Even if they report themselves as straight, they are still gay.... The question is whether or not the same percentage would be applied to professional sports, and why wouldn’t it be? You could argue that it is a small sample size compared to the general population and the stats would be skewed somewhat, but by that rationale, the percentage could just as easily be larger as it would be smaller. Seems people want to believe that the percentage would be smaller because professional athletes should be more “manly”.

Probably 10% for sure. I can understand why they'd prefer to wait to come out til after their career is wrapped up though. Probably for sure? I'd don't think the stats for the general population translate equally to pro sports. Not that I think Sam is the only gay football player out there, but do you really think there's an average of four gay players per team in the CFL? Yes. Why wouldn't it apply to professional sports?

I read an article a few months ago where the writers admitted they wrote themselves into a corner from day one. They seemed to be amused at it actually. I found it very unprofessional. And I think they had the end date confirmed with about three seasons left so they had plenty of time to plot out a satisfying conclusion. I seem to be in the minority that I really liked the finale and felt it was highly emotional. But most of the plot developments in the middle of the series were just awful. Agreed. First couple of seasons were really good. The middle seemed to have have no direction (like the show was "Lost"). I also liked the ending, though it really wasn't that much of a surprise for me by that time. Would have been a much better show if it was 4 seasons of 6. A show like that relies combines the compelling stories (and flash backs) of the cast with suspense, cliff hangers and surprise to keep the audience guessing and coming back each week. Can only do that for so long, especially with the flash backs.

I'd still list Lost as a success for him. The cultural impact and audience size it gathered makes it as such. I've also heard rumours that the network forced them to draw it out longer then originally intended to milk it for all that they could. Then they were forced to come up with side stories and plots.

I wouldn’t say he kills everything he touches, you can’t deny the successes he has had and the credits to his name, especially with his TV properties. It could be argued that he has had much greater success as a producer and writer over director.

Neither, because Pavelec played quite well last game. If Hutch continues to play well I think he will be rewarded with more playing time, but Pavelec will still be the clear cut starter (at least for now). If Hutch maintains anything close to his numbers with increased playing time and Pavelec goes up and down with his play, I think Hutch will continue to get increased playing time. To me, that means the controversy really happens / heats up by February when maybe they are splitting the games. Purely conjecture of course, but I do like to see Hutch pushing Pavelec.

Good game by Pavs yesterday. He does seem to do better when there is competition to push him. Be interesting to see who they play against Boston. Do you play Pavs again after a good performance, or do you play Hutch against the team that drafted him? Having two goalies playing well is a good problem to have.

Odds and Sods switched over to regular forum posts in the middle of last season for that very reason!

No, it isn't his accent, it is his bias for Montreal. No issues with him in games where Montreal isn't playing.

Never much been a fan of Proulx. Always seemed to be bad calls against the Bombers when we played Montreal. However this is his 5th Grey Cup game and 3rd as head referee. Must be doing something right. Other then Kim Murphy, don't recognize much of the other names. Which is probably a good thing when you are a referee.

Pinball was able to make the jump right to Head Coach. But I think he is more of the exception then the norm.

No plans to remove chat. Not necessarily looking to save money, like I said it isn't a huge amount, just no point in paying it out if we aren't using it. So far it looks like it really isn't used.

Put me in the camp of those who have soured on Pavs. I’m not calling for Hutch to replace him as the starter, not yet anyway, but I think it is time that Hutch starts getting more starts. At least 1 game out of every 3 -4. Pavelec was certainly out to a hot start, but he has regressed back to what he is. His career save percentage is .906 and while he is at a .917 right now, he is .884 in the last 5 games. Was his earlier play the new Pavelec? Or was it a blip and he is coming back to his career average now. He has 5 years as a starter now, I’m not sure he is going to magically change into something else. We pretty much know what we are going to get with him. Would like to see Hutch start getting more starts to see how he handles an increased work load and tougher opposition.

So it is time to renew the software we use to run the board. Some of the money goes to pay for security updates and maintenance of the software, some goes to pay for the chat room that we have. The forum software has many modules (including ones we don't use) that you can kind of pick and choose to customize your forum. Two that we do have are the Pages and Blogs section. The Blogs section is pretty self explanatory. The Pages section is really supposed to be a place that pulls content from all the different areas of the site together and summarize it. Since we don't use a lot of the other modules, mostly it is just the forum info that goes into there. I don't mind keeping these areas going but there is a cost associated with keeping them, and while certainly not exorbitant, there is no point in paying for it if people don't use it. So a quick poll to see what peoples usage patterns are.

I think the other question has to be asked on effort ... is that if the team is finally putting in the required effort night in and night out, they've bought into a system and style and sticking to it, and we still miss the playoffs .... then what?

And to be fair, as I think about it. If True North ever sold the Jets, no guarantee all of their revenue streams would be sold with it. If they moved cities for example, the concert revenue, government gaming revenue, etc wouldn't move with the Jets. It is an arbitrary assessment. No one really knows the finances other then True North and the NHL (depending on what they need to know for Cap revenues).

It is interesting that the revenue is listed at $102M and player expenses at $62M So if our operating income is only 3.3M, what are we spending the other $36.7M on? Coaches, GM, travel, minor league expenses, scouting. That can't all be that much. The only possible big expense that can contribute to that is debt repayment. Not sure how much they owe on the team or arena, but that is a bug chunk of money.

According to that article operating income means: I find it hard to believe that their operating income is so low. Does that take into account concession and merchandise sales? Just ticket sales? The mention of not much in the way of concert revenue makes me question all of their numbers. Also the premise that a building needs an NBA tenant to be profitable. I also question whether or not the Jets need to make the playoffs to make a profit. We aren't a cap team at all.

I'm okay with the Jets making it into the playoffs and getting knocked out in the first round (or course I'd prefer if they would win). That would at least be progress. Look at the roster and the playoff experience on it. These guys need to get a taste of what the playoffs are all about and be able to prepare themselves for it. Teams often need a year or two of just making it into the playoffs before experiencing real success. What I hate is just hovering a spot or two out of the playoffs. You still get a "decent" draft pick, but not as good as if you suck completely. But you just don't get over that hump to get into the playoffs. Mired in mediocrity. I don't want to mortgage the farm just to make it in and have an early exit (and by that I mean mortgaging the future for a playoff rental like Atlanta did), but this team needs to taste the playoffs to make that next step. Then they know not only what it takes to make it into the playoffs during the regular season, but what they need to do once they are in.

What happens IF the Jets were to actually make it into the playoffs. At that point the games get tougher, more physical, more intense, everything is ratcheted up a notch and you've got the wear and tear of 82 games on your body. You need to be able to rely on your 4th line contributing more ice team.