ok..
bleedgreen said:
point 1. the whalers played in the hartford civic center. its still there... its where the wolf pack plays, holds about 16,000. CT has built a football stadium for uconn, and a convention center downtown, and they kicked outthe govenor who let the whale leave. they would build a new one.
as for vegas, do you really think a casino wouldnt step up to build one, or someone else? they would have it done in six months.
point 2. they are trying to market these guys. you know, to people who dont already know who they are. most people couldnt tell an iginla from an iguana. put a face to the name for the average joe. not too hard a concept to grasp.
For point 1, Neither city has an arena in place right now that the NHL would allow a team to go to. The Civic center in Hartford is what, at least 25 years old, so they would need a new arena to get a NHL team back. Vegas, no arena right now. So, my point is that ESPN is dealing with ifs. My point is that it would be more realistic for them to list a team like Portland, who play out of the Rose Garden, cause it's a new building, about 8 or 9 years old than it is to list a team without an arena or a team with too old an arena to play in.
For point 2, I watch a lot of the NFL and when I recognize a player, it's about half and half between seeing that guy's PHOTO plastered on the TV after he makes a play and the other half when they zoom in on the guy when he's on the bench without his helmut. I don't have an issue with taking the helmut off during a shootout, no issue there, just the excuse of not recognizing a player with a helmut. A helmut covers up just as much as a cap in baseball doesn't it? Only thing more you can see on a baseball player is about an extra inch on the back of his head. Wow, big deal. It's just that you get more up close shots of the players in that sport.
So, what can the NHL do to follow the NFL. Well, start to plaster the player's PHOTO on the screen whenever they make a save, big hit, nice pass, or get a scoring chance. As for the bench, it's too dangerous to sit there without a helmut.