Rich

There has been enough interest that I will for sure investigate and experiment with some alternatives. Current chat goes away at the end of April, so will need something setup for the draft.

Chats are logged today, however it is not usually as fun a read as a GDT. It can be harder to follow after the fact, and the conversation is a bit more all over the place then a GDT. People tend to post smaller one liners in chats as opposed to what you get in a thread, and there can be multiple dialogues going on at the same time between different groups of people ... or at least the attempt to do so. It would also be a huge wall of text as opposed to neat compact posts. I will typically go back to read it only if there have been complaints made, and even then it is usually filtered on a single person or time frame. It can be overwhelming to try and take in. I have no idea what kind of logging any new chat room might have at this point.

The fact that the Star Wars text is in red makes me think that the dark side is going to win out in this movie. Luke will teach Rey to be a Jedi then die just like Yoda did in Empire after teaching Luke. Though I would expect Luke to die at the hands of Snoke rather than from old age.

You actually voted no

Cost isn't really an issue for this. It will probably actually be cheaper in the long run because there has been an additional yearly fee paid for the chat room as it was hosted on IPBoard servers. That fee will be going away and alternatives I've looked at are not extravagant and a one time fee only.

I've been notified that the chat room service that is part of the board's software is going to be discontinued this spring and before next season starts. There are some alternatives I can look at purchasing and integrating into the site, but before I do I thought I'd start a dialogue on people's thoughts on the chat room. To be clear, I have no issues investing into an alternative if it is a service that people really like and will continue to use. So if you like it and use it, please speak up. I don't use it on home games because I am at the game, and my usage on away games has been hit and miss over the last couple of seasons, so curious on other peoples thoughts. So some questions for you all to ponder... Do you want to see the chat room replaced? How important is it to you for the game day experience on the site? Do you find it to be superior to a "Game Day Thread" to follow the game? Any other features in the chat room you would find useful or that is lacking in the current version?

Word around the Twitterverse this morning is that Burris is going to announce his retirement today.

http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/world/russia-set-to-move-closer-to-decriminalize-domestic-violence-1.3251960

I just hope all these people who are protesting actually went out and voted. If you didn't vote how can you complain about the results.

Lawless doesn't watch or scout at that level so good chance it is either someone in the Jets organization who is feeding him or someone like Craig Button at TSN

One of these teams decides not to dress their starting goaltender because he is struggling. Jake Allen not travelling with the Blues

If only....

I told you to go start your own blog because of a snarky answer of how I would be "sorry" when you were proven right in all your glory I also never disagreed he holds his glove too low. I said it was too early to write him off and he needed time to see if he can adjust to the NHL.

Interesting article from Arlene Dickinson on how fit (or unfit) Kevin O'Leary would be to lead the country. http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/opinion/kevin-o-leary-conservative-run-arlene-dickinson-opinion-1.3942349

In Maurice's post game, he hinted that Ehlers was demoted because of lack of effort when he didn't have the puck.

Agree the bigger the consulting company is, the worse it likely is. IBM and HP are mostly consulting services and if you are with the wrong company in a consultant role (mostly the big corporations) you are more likely to get overworked for average to mediocre pay. As long as they can bill you though, they will typically keep you employed. IT roles in Silicon Valley and startups may be considered cut throat as well, but I'm not sure those are much different then anyone trying to start a "new" business in any sector. If you work in an IT department for a company (still private sector), it typically isn't as bad. Some IT roles may still require you to work overtime or off time hours (evening / weekends) depending on whats going on or for support, but I wouldn't call that cut throat.

What I find very interesting is the Jets are projected to be $5M under the cap this year. That still puts them bottom 5 in the league for salary, but a $5M difference in overall salary is about 7% of the cap. As the cap has stayed relatively stagnant in the last few years, while I haven't actually done the analysis, it feels like the gap between the top spenders and low spenders is shrinking.

Next year. Signed a 3 year deal in 2015.

Yes. https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-expansion-draft-rules/c-281010592 Hutch has an NHL contract even if he is playing in the AHL, and would therefore qualify as a goaltender who is under contract for 2017-18. Don't think he would qualify if he was on an AHL only contract (for a player on an AHL contract to move up to the NHL, he would have to sign an NHL deal and I believe would have to go through waivers in that situation). And if not, they could have called him backup before the last game of the season so he is on the roster.