ATD Chat Thread XVI

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Jean was the best player and Harvey was the most valuable.

That actually makes a lot of sense

 

[ImporterExporter]

Edmonton's strategy in the regular season was based on the fact that they were talented enough to coast through the regular season having fun and conserving energy, playing at a time when 16 of 21 teams made the playoffs.

In big games, their stars like Coffey actually did play acceptable defense. Of course, the Norris is based on regular season alone, so....

Meh,

I don't buy this excuse. There were tons of teams that could have and did coast into the playoffs during that time period. Potvin wasn't a one way player, but he could have been during the early 80's dynasty run. Bourque wasn't a one way guy. Stevens wasn't a one way player in Washington or the early NJ years. MacInnis wasn't a one way player as he aged into DPE.

Coffey literally played his entire NHL career on dynasties or high end rosters with players who were better than him at every stop sans the twilight portion of his career which is meaningless anyway. I don't think for one second he was as dominant as the numbers suggest, in large part because of folks named Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Kurri, Yzerman, Lidstrom, etc, and more importantly, because he was given a green light to just rush the puck at will and essentially act as a 4th forward.

His return on/off numbers are very bland for where he ranks all time. He wasn't used on the kill much unlike other top stars at the time.

I've very much soured on players who ignore the defensive aspects of the game, especially defensemen. Coffey wasn't the only gifted offensive blueliner in his day yet many others didn't play the the same one way type of hockey he did. He was fortunate to have played for the teams he did. Flip him and Housley and I think we're having the same discussion, but in reverse. Just my opinion.

 

[VanIslander]

Coffey was my childhood hero and I thought a super model of the style I played in youth hockey.

But when I actually saw him LIVE as a Penguin and Wing, I was disgusted to see him, a DEFENSEMAN, do vulture circles OUTSIDE his own blueline waiting for teammates to generate turnovers, like I have seen forwards Cliff Ronning and Bure do at Pacific Coliseum. TV cameras follow the puck deep and rarely show this. Spezza did it in juniors and was booed by fans in Windsor for it. Ugh.

I was in high school when Coffey left the Oilers and I thought oh no, no dynasty. But the next year the Oilers had their most dominant playoffs ever, going 16-2 with a couple of sweeps. The team didn't miss a beat.

Coffey and my ol' Kamloops golfing buddy Recchi are the luckiest two guys ever for where and when and who they played with.

 

[tinyzombies]

Vulture circles- never heard that before

 

[tinyzombies]

Let's assume Bourque wins ALL those Norris. 8 straight Norris from 86-87 to 93-94. Then obviously we have to give the eighth Norris to Harvey too for missing some time. So they both have 8 straight Norris.

So Norris counting is perhaps not the best way to judge their level relative to each other.

Bourque would still have the longevity advantage. Harvey the playoff advantage. And people who saw both preferred Harvey. And Harvey was probably better at playing both sides (LD and RD), not only year by year but in games. And he controlled the game moreso than Bourque - who himself controlled it a lot.

I find it hard not to give the edge to Harvey.

I mean even @seventieslord, a guy known to value longevity a great deal, ranks Harvey over Bourque. Not using this as an argument but just to show that Harvey over Bourque is a widespread belief and I'm not seeing any convincing argument that it should be abandoned.

Harvey’s Canadiens were a counter team and Ray’s Bruins teams were puck control according to HockeyGraphs. Which is how those two teams usually have played through the years.

Just thought I’d throw that in there.

 

[VanIslander]

I'm teaching a few elite 2nd year middle school students at my academy how to deliver the most famous speech of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. , Steve Jobs, Malala, and BTS member R.M. (at the U.N. earlier this year) for their end-of-this-month contest at the county office (they have no idea which one of the 5 speeches they will have to give), the top 1 to 4 students from each school in the rural region will get chosen to go to America (LA and NY for a 2-week tour at least, some say a month).

I AM SWAMPED this week and next week, accordingly.

If it wasn't for a 4g local Samsung smartphone, i'd be awol until September.

PLEASE: NOTHING next weekend... it's the last full weekend of the summer and i'm gonna be, well, all over.

 

[tinyzombies]

I'm teaching a few elite 2nd year middle school students at my academy how to deliver the most famous speech of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. , Steve Jobs, Malala, and BTS member R.M. (at the U.N. earlier this year) for their end-of-this-month contest at the county office (they have no idea which one of the 5 speeches they will have to give), the top 1 to 4 students from each school in the rural region will get chosen to go to America (LA and NY for a 2-week tour at least, some say a month).

I AM SWAMPED this week and next week, accordingly.

If it wasn't for a 4g local Samsung smartphone, i'd be awol until September.

PLEASE: NOTHING next weekend... it's the last full weekend of the summer and i'm gonna be, well, all over.

What about Gretzky's tearful goodbye to Edmonton speech?

 

[VanIslander]

Lol. I didn't choose the speeches. It's a public schools' thing.

That said, **** Gretzky. The five speeches are pretty bang on in terms of historical relevance (the BTS one at the UN is arguable not as much so, yet not clearly less than any of Gretzky's speeches, all things considered).

 

[tinyzombies]

Lol. I didn't choose the speeches. It's a public schools' thing.

That said, **** Gretzky. The five speeches are pretty bang on in terms of historical relevance (the BTS one at the UN is arguable, not clearly less than any of Gretzky's speeches, all things considered.

That's debatable. The Gretzky speech walks a fine line between loyalty and self-determination. That's a tough lesson to learn, even for adults. And it's important for kids to know it's okay to cry.

 

[VanIslander]

Please tell me whose voice should silenced in an Asian country competition on a continent with ZERO ice hockey medals, great teams, heck great players (Richard Park wasn't great; Rod Langway was born in Taiwan but that was a navy thing).

Debatable? **** the Nobel Peace prize winner? Steve Jobs? Martin Luther King, Jr.? Lincoln?

Ridiculous.

 

[ResilientBeast]

Any interest in doing a fantasy hockey league for ATDers?

 

[The Macho King]

Any interest in doing a fantasy hockey league for ATDers?

I'd be down.

 

[VanIslander]

Any interest in doing a fantasy hockey league for ATDers?

Sure.

Crosby, Ovechkin, Malkin, Toews, Kane, Karlsson, Burns, Weber, Suter, Doughty, Subban, Giroux, Kopitar, Stamkos, Parise, Marchand, Chara, Letang, Pavelski, Staal, Lundqvist, Fleury.

vs.

The field

 

[VanIslander]

Hfboards has just announced I get the LIFER award for 15 years of usership as of today!

I remember that day in 2004 when I wanted to make a comment on the brand new History board, after a years or so of occasional lurking on the other boards.

How time flies!

Wait,... that seems like another lifetime ago. 15 years and 29,371 posts later seems like, well, later. Life is... long.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Does anyone here actually want "the best of hfboards" delivered to their inbox every day?

 

[Theokritos]

I'm running a voting on the best players (etc) of the 2018-2019 NHL season. Feel free to participate!

 

[Johnny Engine]

I finally found a really good price on a 36-inch canvas with a wide frame to start working on what I want to eventually have over top of my TV.

Someone posted an incredible picture in HOH of the Rangers and Americans from nineteen dickety whatever, and I'm going to paint that now. I also currently have a puffin and a loon in the works, but having more than one canvas going helps me not get bogged down with drying times and general boredom with specific pieces.

Still really interested to know what @BenchBrawl is doing!

 

[VanIslander]

While the new Seattle NHL team name has yet to be decided/announced,...

Of the 13 possibilities the owners have asked their law firm to file trademark claims to, SOCKEYES and KRAKEN have some evidence they are leaning toward.

NEWSFLASH: Recently the owners asked the law firm to file a trademark claim to JUST ONE name for the AHL affiliated team they will own:

Palm Springs Firebirds.

I like it, though there is a 30-unit condo development in Palm Springs called Firebird Estates; an OHL juniors team in Michigan a couple of years ago got the name Flint Firebirds.

 

[seventieslord]

Cool thing happened today. I was at a school function and a guy came up to me, not exactly a rando, but not my friend. our daughters hang out though so we know eachother at least that well. He doesn't know my interests and hobbies, for example.

He notices my shirt. "Sydney Millionaires, who are they?" I tell him it's a hockey team. He asks if it means Australia or Nova Scotia. I confirm it was the latter. He asks me where I got it, I tell him it was sitting on the rack at Value Village a couple of years ago in perfect condition, and I couldn't pass it up, and how it made no sense that this shirt even exists because it's the logo of some team from 100 years ago that no one's ever heard of.

He says, "yeah, there have been a lot of different teams back then. I guess that there was a Montreal Maroons, and even Saskatoon had a team in the NHL." I corrected him, saying it wasn't the NHL, and he said, "well, no, but an equally high level". Now my interest is piqued, because for him to know of the WCHL and that it was a good league is kinda impressive.

He says, "I really like the old guys. There's a guy named..." and I'm thinking he's gonna name some player from the 70s or even the O6 era, to show off his old-timey cred. He completes the sentence, "Newsy Lalonde. Ever hear of that guy? I was looking at his stats, he was really dominant too, like as dominant as Gretzky!" I had to correct him on that of course. And then I went into Cyclone Taylor, Frank Nighbor, my history with hfboards and THN, etc, and as stunned as he was to find out how into hockey I was, I was even more shocked to talk to someone in real life, who knows who Newsy Lalonde is. By no means was he an expert, and he really didn't claim to be, but if you took 1000 random Regina citizens including him and I, he'd probably know his hockey history better than 998 of them.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Cool thing happened today. I was at a school function and a guy came up to me, not exactly a rando, but not my friend. our daughters hang out though so we know eachother at least that well. He doesn't know my interests and hobbies, for example.

He notices my shirt. "Sydney Millionaires, who are they?" I tell him it's a hockey team. He asks if it means Australia or Nova Scotia. I confirm it was the latter. He asks me where I got it, I tell him it was sitting on the rack at Value Village a couple of years ago in perfect condition, and I couldn't pass it up, and how it made no sense that this shirt even exists because it's the logo of some team from 100 years ago that no one's ever heard of.

He says, "yeah, there have been a lot of different teams back then. I guess that there was a Montreal Maroons, and even Saskatoon had a team in the NHL." I corrected him, saying it wasn't the NHL, and he said, "well, no, but an equally high level". Now my interest is piqued, because for him to know of the WCHL and that it was a good league is kinda impressive.

He says, "I really like the old guys. There's a guy named..." and I'm thinking he's gonna name some player from the 70s or even the O6 era, to show off his old-timey cred. He completes the sentence, "Newsy Lalonde. Ever hear of that guy? I was looking at his stats, he was really dominant too, like as dominant as Gretzky!" I had to correct him on that of course. And then I went into Cyclone Taylor, Frank Nighbor, my history with hfboards and THN, etc, and as stunned as he was to find out how into hockey I was, I was even more shocked to talk to someone in real life, who knows who Newsy Lalonde is. By no means was he an expert, and he really didn't claim to be, but if you took 1000 random Regina citizens including him and I, he'd probably know his hockey history better than 998 of them.

What I find amazing is that there's probably a lot of guys like that around—but somehow they never found their way on this forum—at least not as regulars. He went as far as checking Newsy Lalonde's stats online; the step to finding the HOH section on hfboards was not huge.

 

[seventieslord]

What I find amazing is that there's probably a lot of guys like that around—but somehow they never found their way on this forum—at least not as regulars. He went as far as checking Newsy Lalonde's stats online; the step to finding the HOH section on hfboards was not huge.

Yeah, exactly. He took notes of the guys I said to look up, and when he said there's never that much information on the old guys on the internet, I said to include the player's name as well as hfboards when googling.

 

[BenchBrawl]

I also wonder how many potential HOH regulars we lost from Quebec that can't speak english. Probably something like 20-30 along the years—and I mean true regulars.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Yeah, exactly. He took notes of the guys I said to look up, and when he said there's never that much information on the old guys on the internet, I said to include the player's name as well as hfboards when googling.

So bizarre though. Perhaps he only checked it once or twice—here and there. If someone does it regularly then not finding this forum is an accomplishment.

Maybe he'll find his way here—let's hope !

 

[BenchBrawl]

@seventieslord

It's always nice when you randomly meet someone who shares a-little-deeper-than-surface level enthousiasm for something you're passionated about—but that you're isolated with IRL.

I have about 5-6 topics like that and I can count the amount of times this sort of meet happened on the finger of my hand.

 

[VanIslander]

I live in a desert of hockey.

South Koreans know a lot about MLB, the NBA and European soccer, but they know nothing about hockey. 99.99% (at least) have no idea who Gretzky or Crosby is.

Fellow foreigners who are British, Australian, Kiwi and South African might know a few names but have zero interest.

Americans are hit and miss and i am crestfallen when i meet a fellow Canuck who says "am not into" hockey.

The oasis was the Seoul ball hockey league i had been part of, but that was a decade ago now. At least there's still "Canucks", a Canadian-themed sports bar in the Seoul neighborhood of Itaewon. When i took the 3-hour bus ride to the big city in early May on a shopping trip, i went there and watched a Blues-Stars playoff game with American guys stationed in Hong Kong, in town on business, one of them from St. Louis and a Blues fan. It was a refreshing moment to chat about hockey.