The Unknown Poster

I'd describe myself as a casual observer. I spend a decent amount of time each week reading dirtsheets and results, just in case ... but I don't watch much anymore. Here's what I felt was wrong with the Rumble. - Awful storytelling. When the Wyatt Family reunited in the ring, it was kind of a cool moment. Until they had Bray and Harper turn on Rowan after like what ... 10 seconds? What was the point? Build that a bit more, use Rowan to do your bidding a bit (since you so easily manipulated him) and THEN turn on him. Pointless. - They sandbagged Ziggler, Cesaro, Ryback and Ambrose. Just awful booking. Made them look incredibly weak. - Incredibly predictable final 3 (or 4, whatever) and in 2015 if Kane / Big Show are in the final four of a Rumble ... you're doing it wrong. How are we supposed to believe either of them had even a minute chance? - Daniel Bryan. It's like they purposely made him look weak just to piss off the crowd. Eliminate him early, go ahead. I even get the idea of not having him in there very long if he's still not 100% health wise. But at least make his elimination more memorable. Yep, can't disagree with any of that. Except the Wyatt stuff. I don't think it was intended to be a reunion. I thought Rowan was coming down to fight them both. Its an example of their poor story-telling. They thought the crowd would be hot for the three-way face off. Which they were. Then it broke down into an excuse to get heat on Bray. Firstly Rowen is going to have a very short career if they expect him to be a babyface. Harper could be gold but they surely dont see him as such. They have a hard-on for Bray but he hasnt meant anything in ages. He's little more than a cool song and entrance now. Part of that is WWE's usual "push a guy hard, then pull him back to humble him before pushing him again" mentality and part of it is Bray's promos went to crap really really quick.

And actually freedom of speech isnt an excuse for slander.

I would love to have Mike Richards on the Jets. He's exactly the type of guy today's Jets need for a playoff run. If he was UFA or even had one or two years left, even at this price, I'd consider it just for what he brings to the table. Its the term more than the dollars. Although the Jets have to be cognizant of their spending as they have a lot of money that will be going out in the next 1-2 years and not many players they can get rid of to free space up. Also, what kind of message does it send to Frolik to be tough in his contract negotiations and go out and bring in Mike Richards?

Rumour has it the Kings talked with the Leafs and Jets in recent weeks. Let's assume the Kings were willing to eat half his deal since that is what they'd eat on reentry waivers...sounds like it still wasnt enough for either team. I wonder if it gets to the point where the Kings have to eat half the contract AND throw in a good prospect for pick to get a team to take him off their hands? I suspect the Kings might be trying to bait a team into taking a chance. Maybe they get someone on the bubble to take a shot at a guy they might think puts them into the playoffs (feeling the playoff money makes up for the over-pay on his deal). But I think they might just have to make a move or two this summer to free up space and keep Richards. They can afford the contract, it's the cap space that is a premium. They're still paying Voynov arent they? That will come off at some point...

What a surprise...Mike disagrees with me! lolI've presented my thoughts and opinions on issues and others are free to agree or disagree. Pretty sure that's the point of a message board. Keeps things interesting in my opinion. backtrack alert. Implying Bowman AND Chipman are corrupt people is not simply expressing an opinion to keep things interesting. It's practically slanderous. And ignorant.No it's called freedom of speech. Its still ignorant.

I'd describe myself as a casual observer. I spend a decent amount of time each week reading dirtsheets and results, just in case ... but I don't watch much anymore. Here's what I felt was wrong with the Rumble. - Awful storytelling. When the Wyatt Family reunited in the ring, it was kind of a cool moment. Until they had Bray and Harper turn on Rowan after like what ... 10 seconds? What was the point? Build that a bit more, use Rowan to do your bidding a bit (since you so easily manipulated him) and THEN turn on him. Pointless. - They sandbagged Ziggler, Cesaro, Ryback and Ambrose. Just awful booking. Made them look incredibly weak. - Incredibly predictable final 3 (or 4, whatever) and in 2015 if Kane / Big Show are in the final four of a Rumble ... you're doing it wrong. How are we supposed to believe either of them had even a minute chance? - Daniel Bryan. It's like they purposely made him look weak just to piss off the crowd. Eliminate him early, go ahead. I even get the idea of not having him in there very long if he's still not 100% health wise. But at least make his elimination more memorable. Agreed on all counts. In the case of Bryan they DID make him look weak on purpose. Every so often someone comes along that the fans love and it drives Vince nuts. Whenever Vince says "we listen to the fans and give them what they want" he really means "We dont care what the fans want because they should want what we give them". The only reason we had the great Daniel Bryan story last year is because the fan reaction was simply too massive to ignore and they didnt want WrestleMania to be 4 hours of fans going insane for Bryan and boo'ing everyone else. bryan was going to lose the title to Brock at SummerSlam if he hadnt got hurt and they would have considered the Bryan experiment over. He's had 4 TV matches (I think) since he returned and lost the first 3. It was the right call to eliminate him early under the circumstances but the wrong call over-all. The fans are rejecting Roman because he's being rammed down their throats. And since he's a Vince project, Vince is writing his promos and they are awful. Think about this: They know Roman isnt over but instead of going with guys who are over, like Bryan or Ambrose or even Bray (who I dont love), they paid The Rock what was likely a fortune to come out and endorse his "cousin" to try and get him over. Basically WWE has two problems but they are directly related. Vince is so much out of touch its almost amusing. And their team of writers suck. The three-way was fantastic. Brock might be the best thing in the business right now and possible in the last five years. The fact he won *might* signal that he's signed with WWE again (heavily rumoured to go back to UFC for a few massive pay days). I cant imagine a scenario where Brock works Roman in the main event of WM and Roman isn't boo'ed out of the building.

Maybe. But there have been examples of stupid contracts being given out by teams who needed to get to the cap floor before. I think Richards is $3m in real dollars those last two years which isnt unreasonable (especially by the time we get there and where salaries go). Again, any team is going to want LA to eat some of this. ofcourse, if a lousy team takes on his contract, how good is Richards going to perform in a situation he's not happy about. Isnt there a mechanism where a team can waive a player and mutually agree to terminate the contract? There is so much money left I cant see Mike doing that...but I guess you never know. All the talk last year was how the Kings were going to buy him and the Jets would have a good shot at him. Supposedly his gf lives here (A doctor I think).

278 additional seats. If I understand what I've heard correctly, they're basically stripping down the current LED ribbon, extending the overhang of the 300 level over the suites a bit and using that space to add 278 more seats. They'll add the new ribbon to the face of those seats. Danke. I guess an additional 3000 seats added to the overhang was out of the question. Not to mention absurd! Almost as absurd as squeezing an arena into the old Eatons footprint. "MAIN SCREENS THAT WILL BE 2.5X THE PHYSICAL SIZE AND 3X THE RESOLUTION OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM!" "FOUR (4) HD 6MM LED SCREENS WITH 720 LINES OF RESOLUTION" It's 240 res now? I was just reading a non-related argument about how UltraHD is advertised compared to regular HD. UHD is called 4K whereas HD is called 1080. But they are different numbers. But the argument was its still 4000X resolution because of how resolution is calculated (or something). Im no expert but either the current screens are below SD level or the way resolution is calculated, 720 (which is technically HD) is 3X SD (which is usually measured as 460, I believe). But again, Im no expert. I went to Visions and said show me the best TV you have...then I bought the second best one. lol

Atomic - you sure are grumpy today and do a lot of nitpicking without contributing much. So whats your prediction? They send him to minors, bring him back and pretend it never happened? Whats the end game? (I think I know but since you're an expert, you tell us). The reason the Kings didnt buy him out was because during exit interviews they asked him to do X amount of things over the summer (I believe that entailed fitness related things) and he apparently did more than was asked and they thought he'd contribute more. It was a stupid decision not to buy him out then. Will someone take him? Probably. If Im a team struggling to get to the floor, he's the perfect guy. He has 5 years left and the real dollars are less than the cap dollars. Not a great situation for Richards, but pretty good situation for a broke team.

Why wouldnt the Jets want an All Star Game. They make money and brings all sort of sponsors and business tycoons to town. It creates 3 (do they still do the young guns game?) additional events that they can sell tickets to. What's the average ticket price - $150? 45,000 x 150 = I can think of 6,750,000 reasons why they would want the all star game. Plus concessions. Plus an opportunity to show off their facilities and city to a lot of bigwigs. You always hear about how the league and sponsors thought of the team and city at these events. For example, "word" was the league was "blown away" by Columbus this past week. Thats good press. A little bit of tourism in the dead of winter is nice too. We might not be big enough for it but it would be nice to have. The fact we can draw from the Twin Cities is a bonus.

Cineplex. Do they still show them? Hmmm...I went to one show at a theatre back in 2002 and I enjoyed it because the crowd acted like they were there live. Side note: We had booked Curt Hennig for an upcoming show and he had a guest spot in that show I watched (Rumble 2002). He got a great push and we were pretty excited...then the more he did, the longer he lasted the more guys bumped for him, we realised the sad truth...he had signed a WWE contract. Good for him though. Usually we get a group together at a house for WrestleMania. Theatre is a great back up plan. Do you watch them MIke?

A little off topic but still wrestling related. Does anyone go anywhere to watch WWE PPV's? I generally dont watch a lot of WWE programming but Im a sucker for the Royal Rumble (and ofcourse Wrestlemania). Pony Corral seems to be the only place in town that consistently shows them and everytime I go there I come away swearing I will never go back. Went there last night with a buddy for the usual **** show. Got there early (because I am nortoriously late for everything) to get a good seat in the lounge only to be told they had to show the NHL All Star Game there (keeping in mind the lounge was empty). I pointed out the game was ending shortly. Then I was told they had to show "the football game" in the lounge. When I asked what football game, they didnt know. I then realised it was the Pro Bowl. THE PRO BOWL?! Long story short, Pony Corral really hates wrestling fans. If the food didnt taste like sneakers with ketchup, I could put up with it. But bad food, lousy service, nasty attitudes and being treated like third rate customers aggravates me. I might try to convince Vodka Rocks to show the big ones and promote it for them...I dont know. Just curious what other people do. The B-level PPV's arent going to draw. But the big four could. On a side note, WWE once again decided to go against the grain by anointing someone as the new top guy instead of letting a guy get over organically. Roman Reigns won the Royal Rumble and was boo'ed out of the building, even with The Rock there to "endorse" him. RAW looks to be cancelled tonight with the massive blizzard hitting the North East. Probably for the best.

Why wouldnt the Jets want an All Star Game. They make money and brings all sort of sponsors and business tycoons to town.

Trade makes more sense because we could trade a limited asset and get Kings to retain salary. Jets wont go near him at that salary for 5 years. The last two years, however, are not too bad at $3 million (even though its a higher cap hit). Kings would have to retain some salary though. What were they thinking not buying him out? Not every team can afford to pay a guy a lump sum of ~$20 millon to not play for them. The Kings can. You don't know the first thing about their finances. Please inform us all of the intimate nature of their finances then. I don't know anymore than you do. Which is to say neither of us know anything. You read some speculation, good for you. It didn't happen did it? So maybe you shouldn't always believe what you read. You're right. Applying common sense and logic to this, the Kings are willing to send Richards to the minors and still eat most of his salary but were not financially able to buy him out after winning the Cup.

Trade makes more sense because we could trade a limited asset and get Kings to retain salary. Jets wont go near him at that salary for 5 years. The last two years, however, are not too bad at $3 million (even though its a higher cap hit). Kings would have to retain some salary though. What were they thinking not buying him out? Not every team can afford to pay a guy a lump sum of ~$20 millon to not play for them. The Kings can. You don't know the first thing about their finances. Please inform us all of the intimate nature of their finances then. Or are you really going to be so anal as to pretend it wasnt widely believed by almost all hockey insiders that the Kings were going to buy Richards out last year and were certainly financially capable of doing so? im not really sure what the Kings' end game here is. Perhaps this is a desperate move hoping someone blinks and snatches him but if he clears to the AHL I believe the Kings are still on the hook for $4.8 million of his cap. So why not trade him and retain $10million - $15million of his total contract and see if a team would take him.

Trade makes more sense because we could trade a limited asset and get Kings to retain salary. Jets wont go near him at that salary for 5 years. The last two years, however, are not too bad at $3 million (even though its a higher cap hit). Kings would have to retain some salary though. What were they thinking not buying him out? Not every team can afford to pay a guy a lump sum of ~$20 millon to not play for them. The Kings can.

Yes, the 30% of the facts he presented was 100% true. Wade took exception to Bettman leaving out the other 70% of the truth to paint them as the bad guy in this situation. Which seems to have worked on you. Funny, my kids know that deliberate omission isn't the same thing as telling the truth. You and Bettman, well, I guess my children could teach you some maturity. You're being deliberately obtuse when you knew my statement was factual. NHL wanted December. Bombers said no. End of story. Not sure why you're getting your panties so knotted about that. Is Wade your brother? (kidding, I know Wade's brother).

Trade makes more sense because we could trade a limited asset and get Kings to retain salary. Jets wont go near him at that salary for 5 years. The last two years, however, are not too bad at $3 million (even though its a higher cap hit). Kings would have to retain some salary though. What were they thinking not buying him out?

I would absolutely not make a claim with full salary. Im not even sure I'd do it at half the salary although someone probably will. he's got three or four more years on his deal I think. At half the salary....? Hmmmm, Im just not sure he's useful three years from now. But yeah probably at half the salary I'd take him because he's instantly make our bottom six a lot better and he's a proven playoff guy who will bring a lot of emotion and "lead by example" in the playoffs. But I assume LA didnt want to retain half his salary or whatever it might have taken to get him. Im sure the Jets would love to have him under the right terms and since the Kings wanted to trade him, we can assume Kings and Jets spoke about a deal. It didnt work out so I would suspect strongly the Jets wont be in on a claim for him.

Nah, I'm pretty sure I know who Bettman is, and I'd even have a beer with him, But trust him? or believe he has hockey's best interest in mind? No way. But - you keep telling yourself - that he doesn't talk double-speak, and that the only thing he cares about is the hockey for hockey's sake - if that makes you feel bettman better. Ofcourse he talks in double speak. This is the guy who said the Thrashers were not moving, were not in trouble and everything was fine up to the very moment he appeared at a presser in Winnipeg to announce the relocation. Thats his job. He has the best interests of the NHL and the owners in mind. That's his job. And the NHL as an organization is bigger and richer than it was before he came along. So he's been very successful at his job.

Mike Richards on waivers. What a mess in LA. Should have bought him out when they had the chance. I assume he will clear but maybe a team grabs him on re-entry (unless Im mistaken LA eats half his salary if claimed on re-entry???)

What a surprise...Mike disagrees with me! lolI've presented my thoughts and opinions on issues and others are free to agree or disagree. Pretty sure that's the point of a message board. Keeps things interesting in my opinion. backtrack alert. Implying Bowman AND Chipman are corrupt people is not simply expressing an opinion to keep things interesting. It's practically slanderous. And ignorant.

Add a hockey fighting competition.

Ah, the classic "No offence, but (says something incredibly offensive)." Saying you have nothing against Wade in a preamble means very little when you have demonstrated on multiple occasions elsewhere that you do. So that was your takeaway from reading that article? Goodness. All parties had agreed on a date in February, then 2 weeks ago the NHL changed it's mind. They scrambled to find an alternative date. Two possibilities were looked at. One in January, one in December. The Jets nixed the one in January. The Bombers nixed the one in December. Your takeaway from all of this? Miller is a **** who is out of his league? Give your head a shake. Better yet, don't do anything to enhance the concussion you may be experiencing, and re-read the article: Yes, thank you for reiterating my point that waht Bettman said was 100% true and what Wade said was not. Wade took exception to Bettman's 100% accurate comments and then proved them true by what he said. Regardless of the Feb date, the NHL then asked for December and the Bombers said no. Thats what Bettman said. That was true. Maybe get your head out of your ass, it makes reading easier.

Why so mad bro? I didnt realise Bettman was responsible for training the next generation of NHL players. You realise if you were commissioner when there were, what 24 teams, and you told the owners your plan was to keep 24 teams and make the on ice quality that much better, they would immediately fire you. Bettman works for the owners. His job is to increase revenue and expand the league. Not every expansion franchise was a mistake and the idea only the southern expansion franchises were trouble is a myth. Winnipeg Jets 1.0 were on the verge of bankruptcy (bailed out by the government), Ottawa went bankrupt. Buffalo went bankrupt. Edmonton almost moved. But keep telling yourself that Bettman is the devil. Without that devil you wouldnt be watching the Winnipeg Jets right now.