TrueBlue4ever

It was another approach to finding a new revenue stream for the league, trying to tap into the European and Mexican markets. Of the players are not good enough, then it probably is pointless to keep the initiative around, unless the BOG sees TV and as revenue and global exposure increasing because of it, regardless of the quality of the player.

Here’s the thing though. If his “development” is such that he is still the 46th best on the 46 man roster, the. He hasn’t really developed. If he is better than other “internationals” then pay him accordingly and cut the lesser player. It actually won’t hinder the development of the global market because it forces the team to scout and find another global player who then draws more eyes to the game. Increasing the global salary actually allows teams to just keep the bare minimum of global players on hand and not expand their global base. If the global player is no good, then he gets replaced by another global at minimum cost. If he is good enough, then he should be ready-categorized as an international and get paid accordingly, the team then cuts its worst “international” in favour of him, and the team should continue to develop the global plan by bringing in a new face in that category.

Sorry if my description was unclear. These are moments you were there in person to see. Not live on TV, or most amazing moments ever seen in sports on replay, but something you saw live on person. Unless you did see all of these on location, in which case wow you have travelled well and been present for some pretty amazing moments.

That’s pretty cool! Any back story? What led you to be there?

I’ll leave that to the mods to decide. But figured it would probably have a bunch of Bomber moments in it given the demographic of this site, and would reach more eyes in this thread.

True that. But perhaps I should have clarified with “most amazing PUBLIC moment seen live”. Unless you sold tickets or shot a video to post on the web. Both of which I’m sure your wife would have loved. 🤣

Yes, I’m sure that irresponsible business strategy is how he amassed his fortune which allowed him to afford a pro sports team. Where’s an eye roll emoji when you need one?

Or overestimating Wolitarsky.

Well there is also this option. Just the guy who can claim maybe the greatest play in Blue Bomber history.

Thought about this topic after Mike Bossy’s passing, watching the fans react to his “50 in 50” moment and re-living Teemu’s rookie season in my mind. Also appropriate with Mike Gray in the kickoff countdown today and his “Immaculate Interception”. So the question today for the board: What is the most incredible thing you have seen in person? And obviously, the more limited the opportunity to see it (being one of the twelve people to see Earth from the surface of the moon would be a high bar to match) the more impressive. It can go beyond just Bombers or even sports (I had a college classmate who was in Florida as an 8 year old and witnessed the Challenger shuttle explosion from the grandstands), but I figured since many will involve the Bombers this was the place to put this post. My top 5 off the top of my head (I am sure I’ve forgotten a big one somewhere): Runners-up: 1997 flood - living inside city limits but in a low-lying area that was completely evacuated. Could never fathom that the river could get that high, especially with the floodwaters in place, or that south of the city was one giant ocean. Not exciting but just surreal to see that level of flooding. Halley’s Comet - nothing shocking, and something very common for pretty much anyone who was around, but it is almost certainly a once in a lifetime event, so glad I did not miss it. 5. Milt 4 catches 4 TD’s - the definition of unstoppable. 4. 2019 West Final - went to Sask and still trying to process the last 3 minutes of that classic, right down to the crossbar. 3. 2021 Grey Cup - the first time I have ever seen “my” team (be it Bombers, Jets, Moose, Goldeyes, Jays, Raptors, or Team Canada) win the championship game in person. 2. Dunigan’s 713 game: it was near the end of the second quarter when l got the sense we were going to see a record smashed that day. Fans all around me trying to add up the numbers as we all admired the spectacle, knowing this was an “I was there as it happened” moment unfolding. 1. Teemu breaks the rookie record - I was at the game against the North Stars where he potted 4 to get to 51. I ran to the box office right after the game to get tickets to the next game against Quebec because it was clear he was going to will himself to break the record at that game and I was not going to miss the chance to see it in person. Kind of like rooting for Bossy, or McGwire’s home run chase, these are events where the player rises to such an unreal level of performance that breaking the record becomes inevitable, even in an “any given Sunday” world. Loudest I have ever heard the arena in person, including any playoff game. My big miss - Stegall’s TD record. Season tickets for 40 years, yet I was on holidays in Halifax when this moment happened against the Tiger-Cats. Rats.

Here is a copy of the article so you can avoid the paywall. And given bb1’s comment about chasing a generational player in next year’s draft and blowing everything up, it puts him anywhere from stage 4 to stage 6. The NHL is a 32-team league with 32 different fan bases, each of which is unique. Some are big, some not so much. Some are more than a century old, some are brand new. Some are spoiled with years of excellence, some have had their ups and downs, and some never seem to get to be happy at all. But there’s one thing every NHL fan has in common: We want our team to win. Sometimes. That’s the reality of being a hockey fan, especially at this time of year. We can throw around all the clichés we want about how winning is everything, but it isn’t, at least not all the time. And depending on circumstances, winning might actually feel like a problem. When that happens, you’ve entered a very controversial zone as a hockey fan. You have to decide if you’ll cross a line, and start rooting for your team to lose. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. But it’s a perilous place, one where you want to tread carefully. And since I have some experience in this world, I want to offer you a guide. I’ve prepared a list of the 10 stages of rooting against your own team, so that you can be prepared for what you might face, and for just how deep you want to go. Stage 1: Apathy We’ll ease into our list with a category that doesn’t really involve rooting against your team at all. Instead, at Stage 1, you just stop caring … temporarily. The season isn’t going well and you know it. You also know that one bad year isn’t the end of the world, and that even the best-run teams will go through it eventually. You’re fine with it. You’re just especially interested in watching it all play out. Honestly, this stage can be a pretty reasonable place to be. You’re not bailing on your team. You’re just backing away from committing a ton of time and mental energy to caring about them. You tune out, maybe check back in around the deadline, keep on top of any major developments, and then return to the fold in the offseason, rested and ready to go. The stage makes our list only because it’s often confused with a fan rooting against their own team. But it’s not. You don’t want them to lose, you just don’t really care if they do. Stage 2: Rooting for lottery odds (after playoff elimination) OK, now you want them to lose. But it’s only because they already have, a lot. So much, in fact, that they’ve been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. At this point, there’s really nothing left to play for aside from lottery odds, and in the NHL, you get those lottery odds by losing. In a perfect world, we’d have the Gold Plan in place and fans could cheer for their teams to win their way to the top pick. But we don’t, and it sounds like we never will, so fans know how this works. Even at this early stage, some fans are too loyal to actually hope their team loses. But most of us understand that the league has decided to embrace a system where losing is better for bad teams. We want what’s best for our team, so we act accordingly, even if only grudgingly. Note: Once you reach this stage, it is 100 percent guaranteed that some random guy will have the game of his life and it will cost your team multiple draft spots, and you’ll kind of hate him for it forever. The key here is that you only root against your team after they’ve been officially eliminated. Until that day comes, anything can happen. You never give up until the math says you have no choice. Stage 3: Rooting for lottery odds (before playoff elimination) OK, according to the math they’re still technically in it, but come on. They’re clearly not going to make the playoffs, and even if they do, they’d only get swept in the first round. That’s not you being cynical — it’s just that you’ve watched this team all season, and you can see that they’re not good enough. Yes, sure, sometimes an underdog will make a miracle run down the stretch, but this team isn’t it, and there’s no point getting your hopes up. The gap between Stage 2 and Stage 3 is a narrow one; there’s a difference between being realistically out of the race and actually being mathematically eliminated, with bad teams sometimes stuck spending weeks in between those two zones. Some fans will insist on staying the course right up until elimination day, but others understand that sometimes you just have to accept reality. Teams like this year’s Canadiensand Coyotes haven’t been technically eliminated yet, but their fans know they’re not making it. So if you were the sort of fan who was willing to bail in Stage 2 anyway, you might as well get a head start. The point is that you were with them all year long, right up until they made it clear this wasn’t going to be their year. It’s not like you turned on them from opening night. Stage 4: Rooting for lottery odds (from opening night) Look, we have to be realists here. Some teams are unexpectedly bad. But some teams are bad by design, or in some cases by misdesign. If you’ve been a fan long enough, you know when it’s going to be one of those years, and there’s no point deluding yourself through October and November before accepting the obvious. These guys are bad, there’s a great prospect waiting for you at the draft, so let’s just get to losing. Often, this stage involves obvious tank jobs, like the great Sabres/Coyotes battle for Connor McDavid in 2014-15 that worked out so well for everyone. If your team’s management has sent obvious signals that they’re trying to lose, well, you root for the result your team wants, right? Nothing worse than watching a well-designed tank job go off the rails because of a few lucky wins. There’s no question that this stage can feel icky. It’s one thing to turn against your team when they’ve already lost a ton of games and fallen out of the race. It’s another to do it early, even when your intentions are good. There will be nagging doubt. This stage isn’t for everyone. But if you’ve got the stomach for it, it can be a perfectly reasonable path to take. Stage 5: When you want somebody to get fired Maybe it’s the coach. Maybe it’s the GM. Maybe it’s both of them, or someone else entirely. But somebody needs to be sent packing, and it’s not going to happen if this team keeps fluking out wins that it doesn’t deserve. And yes, this stage sucks. On one level, nobody should want to see anyone lose their job. But this is also pro sports, where getting fired is part of the deal. If your team has the wrong guy in the wrong place and it’s dragging them down, there’s really no other path to take. It’s going to happen eventually, so you might as well get it out of the way now. A nice little losing streak might just seal the deal, and pave the way to a brighter future. Call it an investment. Stage 5 can last for a few games, or it could take most of a season. But it’s always temporary, and it ends as soon as the pink slips start flying. The moment the new guy takes over, you can go right back to cheering on your team. Let’s never speak of this again. Stage 6: When you want the roster to get blown up The more complicated cousin of Stage 5, this one has the same basic premise. Things are bad, you know they’re not going to be fixed until there’s no other choice, and so you have to root for them to get worse. The problem here is that old sports cliché: It’s always easier to fire the coach (or GM) than to trade the whole roster. That’s especially true in today’s NHL, where we’re told that trades are impossible, especially during the season. When you’re at Stage 5 and just want one guy to be fired, any day can be the day that snaps you out of it. Some insider reports that a change is being made, the press conference gets called, and you’re back on the bandwagon by the end of the day. With Stage 6, you’re never really sure how much change is enough. One trade? Two? It’s going to take more than that, but you’re not sure how many moves you need before you’ll feel like it’s worth returning to the fold. Whatever that number is, the team isn’t good. You know it. Other realistic fans know it. But management doesn’t know it, or at least isn’t willing to admit it, and that won’t change unless the losses start piling up, so that’s what needs to happen. It’s for their own good. Stage 7: When you realize you kind of hate these guys This is the more extreme version of Stage 6, and the difference between them can seem subtle. In Stage 6, you want changes because the team keeps losing and you don’t like losing. In Stage 7, you want changes because you don’t like them. The team is bad, sure, but so is the vibe. You’re just kind of done with this team, at least this particular iteration of it. Sometimes, you’ll reach this stage because of something specific. Maybe you’ve finally realized the other fans are right and these guys are a bunch of dirty cheap shot artists. Maybe you’ve heard a few too many of the same excuses trotted out in the postgame. There could be some controversy involving fans, or a bigger social issue, or the media. It could be something approaching all of the above. Somewhat weirdly, it’s possible to reach this stage even when a team’s record says they’re playing well. (Ask any current Leaf fan what will happen if they lose in the first round again.) You might arrive at this stage when a team has been stubbornly staying the course for years, and you hit a tipping point where you just want them all gone. It can be a progression through the other stages, or in the case of some sort of major scandal like this year’s Blackhawks’ story, a rapid ascent. The key is that Stage 6 isn’t personal. Stage 7 very much is. You’re sick of this team, you want everyone out, and you’re not going to root for them until it happens. Stage 8: Apathy, part two This is what comes next when you hit Stage 7 but nothing changes. There really isn’t anywhere else to go. You used to hate these guys, but hatred at least meant you still cared. Now you can’t even muster that. You raged against the machine, nothing happened, and now you’re done. Make no mistake: Despite the similar names, there’s virtually nothing connecting this stage to Stage 1. Back then you stopped paying attention, but it was always going to be temporary. You’re well beyond that at Stage 8; it’s a far darker place to be. You’re pretty close to being done. If you reach this stage, your fandom is at a critical moment. If something doesn’t change very soon, this might be it. Stage 9: You quit The natural progression from Stage 8. You’re done. There’s not much more to say. Hopefully, you gave your team plenty of chances. Stage 9 should never be a rash decision. But at some point, enough is enough. Life is too short to make yourself miserable, or to let a pro sports team do it for you. In theory, reaching this stage means you’re no longer rooting against your team, because you don’t care anymore. But in reality, anyone who gets this far doesn’t want their team to win without them. Imagine being a Red Sox fan who bailed after the Aaron Boone homer in 2003. Nobody wants to be the fan who’s pounding on the doors of a bandwagon they just abandoned, desperately begging to be let back on. A truly noble fan would leave quietly, wishing those that are staying behind the best. It should go without saying that none of us are noble. If we’re leaving, we want to toss a match over our shoulder as we go. And taken to an extreme, that can lead us to our final stage … Stage 10: Actively wanting to see just how bad it can get (aka Sicko Mode) Not to be confused with these guys, the fan who’s managed to get all the way to Stage 10 is truly disturbed. They’re not even really a fan anymore, at least in the way we think of the term. They’ve transcended that experience. Their team has spent years, maybe decades, force-feeding them angst and misery, so much so that now it’s all they know how to consume. It’s what they feed off of now. And they want more. Oh, the team has a new franchise player? Let’s see him tear his ACL. They’ve made the playoffs? Let’s blow a 3-0 series lead. A can’t-miss prospect who’s absolutely guaranteed to become the greatest hockey player ever? Lifetime deal in the KHL, baby. The owner is a hopeless moron? Have him name himself coach and GM. No matter how bad it gets, it needs to get worse. So much worse. These people are depraved. They’re also extremely rare. Oh sure, many fans might spend brief amounts of time as a Sicko Mode tourist, but very few ever stick around permanently. You might think you’re there now, but you’re probably not. And that’s a good thing, because it means you can still be redeemed. There’s still good in you. There’s hope, somewhere, even if it’s hard to find. There’s always hope for an NHL fan. Until you reach Stage 10. And if you do, may the hockey gods have mercy on what used to be your soul.

So here’s a fun article on the stages of rooting against your team. What stage is everyone at? https://theathletic.com/3144334/2022/02/23/down-goes-brown-the-10-stages-of-rooting-against-your-own-team/

Some pretty juicy candidates for the #53 spot, including Pat Neufeld, Philip Hunt, Steve Patrick, Dom Picard and Aaron Brown (although both wore other numbers), and rocket man Pete Catan, but the selection is a Ring of Honour member and defensive player of the half century.

Then the next scapegoat will emerge. Dubois will start getting bashed for all the penalties he takes (right now the worst in the league) and people will ignore all the penalties he draws (best in the league). I’ve said it before , and I’ll repeat it until it sinks in - Wheeler is not being traded. His contract is not something that is moveable with the cap situation In the NHL right now. And they aren’t going to retain 50% of his salary and operate with a salary cap of $4 million less than every other team. The Jets are not going to waive him and give up 15-20 goals and 50-60 assists for nothing, besides, his no-move clause prohibits it. If they buy him out, it costs them $2.5 million for the next 4 years, again, to have nothing to replace him. Now, of a team is interested in Scheifele with his contract and it benefits the Jets, then nothing is off the table. But to give up a 30 goal, 85 point centre because fans are pissy because of one missed playoff year is a path to disaster. Watch the Oilers and Sabres for the past decade overreacting to every tough year. Do not care to become that, thanks.

I guess I equate “problem in the room” differently. Throwing a player’s tracksuit in the shower, that’s a problem in the room. Ehlers’ criticism is that players are passing up basic shots to make the pretty play, or not playing straight line hockey, and as he says it’s team-wide, not just one or two guys. And then he himself was guilty of it on a power play, passing up a slot shot to pass down to Connor on the goal line. But the suggestion seems to be that Wheeler and Scheifele get to dictate the line combos and run the team. Maybe it’s just that they have produced well enough together to be our best two players the last 5 years, and adding Connor made Connor an elite scorer in the past few years. In the end, the whole “problem in the locker room” angle seems to suggest that the issue is culture and not personnel. Well to me to harsh truth is that this team does not have the talent to compete right now. Wheeler still can make passes with the best of them, but his body is breaking down and he should be more of a Joe Thornton 2nd line guy by now. Dubois looks like a good power forward but still takes too many penalties. Scheifele is still playing the old “transition off the rush” system that worked when the team had a mobile, puck moving defence, but he has not adapted to the changing personnel around him or other teams’s adjustments. And there is definitely something not right between the ears since he got suspended. Ehlers is still brilliant at zone entry, but again is somewhat injury prone. And Connor is a sniper who still has the same defensive deficiencies. And that’s about it. Stastny has probably over-achieved, but I don’t think he is reliable for 20+ goals again. Copp was a good third liner who they needed to play top line, which speaks to a depth problem. And Lowry is being overpaid if he is a 4th liner, and playing above his head and underproducing for a what a 2nd or 3rd liner should be. The only blue chipper in the pipeline right now is Perfetti, and he is a few years away from being top-line ready. And the defence was not fixed with the trades. Morrissey is not an elite number 1 d-man and I don’t really think anyone else right now is better than a second or third pairing guy. Sanberg may be a second pair guy next year, and I think Heinola is still a ways off, especially with his lack of size. This team wants to play the way they did 4 years ago, but they don’t have the personnel to play the same way. At this point none of their bottom 6 are “must keep”. Maybe a wholesale coaching change and a new defensive philosophy are needed until they can re-stock their cupboards after sacrificing a few picks to keep the playoff window open. Unless Barry Trotz shakes free, maybe a Ken Hitchcock type.

Please elaborate. You have said this again and again, along with Maurice saying he doesn’t coach your favorite pariahs, but do you have any hard evidence or just internet rumours? And a player taking a bad penalty or not back-checking or missing his assignment does not always equate to a “problem in the room”.

Was in the same graduating class as my father.

Matt Sheridan wishing your mother a Happy Easter.

Millen complaining again, this time about Hellebuyck’s workload. When did it become impossible for a goalie to play more than 60 games? Brodeur played 70+ every year and he never complained about being tired or suffered for it in the playoffs.

Nice to see the ref call a retaliation penalty to even it up. The hit was late but not dirty, players need to not be so sucky when they get hit hard and turn everything into a scrum to “defend the code”. They sure take their sweet time announcing goals in the building in Tampa.

To be fairer he did just what he was complaining the whole team has been doing in not being “accountable”. Just because he isn’t Wheeler or Scheifele doesn’t mean he’s not immune to the odd critique.

Jets are terrible about giving up slot shots, but they may be worse at not shooting themselves when they are open in the slot. Ehlers passes one up to pass down low.

Knew they were going to challenge before the broadcast said it. Worst rule in hockey.

This will get called back on offside

Which player do you want?