Spike

@Viva la FCB Stan Bowman was just sacked due to the sexual assault cover-up of 2010. Brad Aldrich made advances on several players and then after that was reported and binned, he made an advance on an intern. It's a whole management ordeal, apparently Quennville was in on the cover-up, as well as then president McDonough, Jay Blunk, and Kevin Chevedayoff (what will happened in Winnepeg?). The players knew (that only being Kane and Toews now), and this was before Jeremy Colliton was a part of the org. This is big and it's a fantastic excuse for the management to put Bowman's head under the guillotine and get off as the heroes, especially amongst the team crashing and burning right now. The Hawks have to get a long term GM in place right now, one that can secure the team going forward. Maybe Sakic or Yzerman want a lakefront house...

@Viva la FCB I was at the Hawks Wings game yesterday... this is what I had to say about it

Went to a hockey game yesterday. Awful weather, constant rain and wind, a Chicago speciality, but it is indoor so that is okay. The seats were fantastic 6th row from the ice, skewed just about a quarter of the way towards one net. Sat in front of a group of yuppies, constantly talking, talking, talking, talking, about their lives and themselves. I feel like I know these people intimately and I should be going out to dinner with them. One kept talking about school in the richest suburb in Chicago and how people from New York 'only work for the big banks or wall street', it was maddening being sat next to these crazy, out of touch people that live in their little world so distant from anyone else's. Also the away fans had some louder chants than the home fans and the people I was by were all limp wristed and never joined in the the chanting and calling. Now, I understand why you lot hate fairweather fans and executive suites so much.

One thing that has driven me insane is the inconsistency of what players are on the blue line. They have cycled through young players like mad, and these rookies aren't going to improve by bouncing up and down between AHL and NHL. Either give them faith, or let them play in the AHL. STOP TRADING THEM AWAY. Nicholas Beaudin, Henri Jorkiharju, Adam Boqvist,, Ian Mitchell, Wyatt Kalnyuk, Lucas Carlsson, Alec Regula, Dennis Gilbert, Gustav Forsling, these are all defender that have been u-24 that have played for the Hawks in the last few years. None of them are with the Hawks right now, whether it be affiliated or traded away. Riley Stillman is the only u-24 dman they have on the ice right now.

I don't listen to anyone on reddit. They think Philadelphia and Seattle are now rivals. Here is my opinion, I'm not going to have the most in depth analysis because how many strategies and tactics are there in hockey? Dump and chase, transition rush, left-wing lock forechecking, 1-2-2 forechecking, et al. You know them but I struggle to see how a system change would improve much with a different coach. Ultimately, Patrick Kane isn't backchecking or forechecking, Toews isn't a 100 point centre, and telling them that they now play a strong-side overload isn't going to change the amount of individual mistakes that have been occurring, it isn't going to make Kirby Dach score the three one on ones he has had this season, it's isn't going to stop Fleury from having puck handling meltdowns. Ultimately I think there could be a more cohesive strategy for the Hawks but the tactical management isn't going to change much, right? How much can a head coach do to a game? He can control the lines, when they come out, who is on the the lines for the kill and the play but since hockey is such a fast sport how much of the on ice decision making can he affect? Patrick Kane is always going to play slow and methodical, he will always sit on the puck for as long as he can to make a play, no coach will change that, and if they did, he'd probably ignore them because he is one of the greatest hockey players ever. I just don't understand what other fans want? Maybe I'm too new to hockey to fully appreciate the tactics but it seems to me to be a sport of strategy over tactics, and the overall strategy for the Hawks seems to be puck retention, speed, and puck cycling, which they should be doing very well but are struggling hugely. The Hawks have the best PP in years but everything else is so bad, so something in the offensive system is clicking (Hawks had a very bad PP under Quenville, it was endless puck cycling, pass to the office, pass to blue line, pass to blue line, pass to the office, for two minutes). What do other fans want? Tortorella? The man that would throw a tantrum when Kane and DeBrincat don't backcheck like Patrice Bergeron on every shift? Babcock, whom that manipulates young players and hazes them in front of the locker room? Maybe it's just a morale problem, maybe they just need a unifying presence to get behind, to buy into an ideal. You'd think they'd have that with Toews back but maybe there is too much discrepancy between the ages of the old guard and young players, without enough players in their 'prime'.

As far as they go Chiefs and Braves are the least offensive of the bunch. If they change it so be it, I just want to see consistency, ban the Notre Dame 'Fighting Irish'. For fucks sake, look at this.

Seattle fans saying that Philadelphia are their rivals now. The big two game a season rivalry, how embarrassing. Even the Blackhawks and Red Wings rivalry couldn't survive two games a seson, and that was one of the most played rivalries of all time.

Makar stands out on one of the best teams in the league, you could slot him into any team's top two defensive pairing. At 19 he debuted in the Cup Finals and played at a standard higher than nearly every other defender in the finals, this player is a freak, beyond a freak. Nothing I've said has been at Hughes's derision, I just don't think that Hughes is at or will ever be at Makar's level, and that's okay because Hughes is still one of the best young defenders in the league and I'd definitely take him on my team in a hearbeat. Just because McDavid is a freak and above Leon Draistl doesn't mean that Draistl is bad. The two things I will give Hughes is that he is more durable than Makar (hopefully both can have a long career), and he is better with the puck (I think Hughes will end up with more points but less goals at career's end, I think Makar shoots a bit more), but I will always maintain that Makar's all-round abilities and style push him higher than Hughes. He looks more composed, takes less penalties, hits a lot more, gives away the puck less (which I'd tie into their point production, I think Hughes takes riskier plays that have high risk/reward), and has that steely presence of a veteran at 22. I also understand that you are a Canucks fan and will always rate Hughes higher than me, and I'd do the same thing if Hughes was a Blackhawk. I think the comparison is unfair and both are quite different. A neat little fact when I was researching their stats was that Hughes' has nearly a perfect production split between PP and even strength. Ultimately I just think their skillset is comparable but Makar has a bizarre level of maturity to his game, plus a bit more physical edge. I also do not buy the 'he is one a better team argument' one bit. That doesn't diminish his ability or talent.

Not at all. People get their heads turned by point production and Hughes has that in aces but he was never close to Makar defensively.

Hughes is a budget Makar that can't defend.

Jakub Chrychrun is better than every single defender on Vancouver.

It's a hard thing to do, @Eco makes sense to when you take in the sentimentality of the Russian players, especially those from his mother's hometown. There is one Australian in the NHL and he did win a Stanley Cup with the Capitals but his very much a bottom 3 guy and fringe AHL player. It's cool what he has done but he isn't in my top five. As far as sentimentality goes I do really like Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, and Brent Seabrook but that is very biased because I'm a Chicago fan. If we go outside of Chicago, I like Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, Patrice Bergeron, Conor McDavid, Viktor Hedman, and a bunch of others. Those were just some names that popped in to my head, others would be Anze Kopitar, Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Artemi Panarin, Joe Pavelski, Phil Danault, Shea Weber, Drew Doughty, it'd probably be more fun making a list of players I hate.

Nah there is only one place for Price and it is Montreal. Unless you are talking about current players only, the Canadiens of all teams are spoilt for choices and they could probably list 100 before Petry (and I really like Petry). Just off my head, the Richard brothers, Guy Carbonneau, Guy Lafleur, Chris Chelios, Guy Lapointe, Patrick Roy, Jacques Plante, Jean Bealiveau, Carey Price, Bob Gainey, Tomas Plekanec, point being they have a ludicrous history of players. But hey nothing wrong with liking who you like. Speaking of less popular players, I was shocked that the Canadiens let my guy Phil Danault leave to LA.

I don't think Jeff Petry being on a list for 'most favourite players ever' is very common at all.

I know these are old posts but I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. It's incredibly smart from Seattle to not take those two players. For one Carey Price is 34, has had problems with injuries, and only four years into an 10million 8 year contract, it would be insane for Seattle to commit 1/9th of their cap to one player like that, especially one that has no value on the trade market, if things go awry, an unfortunately *rumours of drinking problems in the past*. Great player but comes with baggage and a huge reputation that could backfire very easily. For second, Tarasenko also has injury problems and with an expensive contract. He has reportedly told St. Louis he wants to leave, weakening his trade value, making it very possible for Seattle to trade for him in the future unless he has a *no trade clause* in his contract and x-d out Seattle as a destination. Overall it's a headache of a situation and wise to just skip the situation.

That is an awfully strange list. I don't think anyone else would pick those exact five or even come close.

This thread sucks.

No Time To Die (2021) 5/10 A potentially great filmed ruined by several things for me. Craig, Seydoux, and Malik are great and I’d recommend this to a Bond fan or a casual filmgoer but if you’ve played any Metal Gear Solid games give this a pass, just replay the games instead. It is too damn long. They wrote female 007 an unlikeable possible and the actress tried so hard, but ultimately was done dirty by the direction and script. The plot is nearly a verbatim tip off of a fucking 1998 videogame, Metal Gear Solid. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, this ultimately ruined it for me. FOXDIE and nanomachines, son!

Suspiria (1977) It's a giallo film. 8/10, it's scary.

That's literally what he said, 'I want to sue Jordan privately'

Barilaro resigned

What do the right wingers you know think about it? I bet they are the same people that say things like 'WHY THE FUCK DO WE HELP OTHER COUNTRIES WHEN AUSSIES NEED HELP AT HOME?' lacking the critical thinking skills to realise that helping other countries isn't humanitarian pity, it's investment. Also why do we need submarines? why do we need nuclear submarines? why are we so hostile to the most powerful country in terms of raw man power and manufacturing in the world? why do we tell china to fuck themselves when Australia is constantly selling land and mineral resources to China? why does china own large quantities of water in the murray darling basin when most of the land around the basin is in perma-drought?

It's got me thinking @Devil-Dick Willie what times have you guys actually been worked hard? For me, all when I was a kid Eric Bischoff's smug fucking smile JBL's entire WWE title reign, especially the really fucking racist stuff about Eddie Guerrero Chris Jericho getting fired after losing to Super Cena (I was already sick of Cena despite freaking out when he won WWE title from JBL) Cena constantly beating Kurt Angle after getting Chris Jericho fired How bad the December to Dismember PPV was, I think that was one of the last one I bought. Now that I think about it, the last was the one on the day Chris Benoit killed himself and his family and no-showed for a match, I was really confused and when I heard the news, I literally just dropped WWE like a bad habit, couldn't take this shit anymore, sick of seeing the Eddie Guerrero name dropping, Rey Mysterio and John Cena winning all the time, and Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle gone, and Benoit a murder. Literally all four of my favourite were either gone from WWE or dead. I guess I really only religiously watched from 2004 to 2007. Though I had stopped watching for many years, I was channel surfing and somehow had the luck of comign across CM Punk's pipebomb and I thought he really was having an unscripted rant on the tele.

John owes me 27 packets of peanuts. Preferably the Australian brand Nobby’s Nuts.