c-carp
Registered User
I think sadly a lot of the personality has gone out of the game lately and this hurts the atmosphere at games.
I started watching the game as a hardcore fan during the old Norris division days and every team that came into STL. You would usually kill to get these guys on your team but when they played against your team you hated them.
Chicago-Al Secord, Dirk Graham, Steve Larmer, Denis Savard, Doug Wilson, Behn Wilson, Terry Ruskowski, Jeremy Roenick, Chris Chelios, Any Hawk enforcer especially Stu Grimson, Any Goalie Especially Ed Belfour.
You could go through the rosters of any team in the division back then and come up with a list. It didnt matter what the records of the two teams were either when it was a division game the players were going to be getting after it.
I think this begs a much larger question, Where have all the rivalries gone and what do we do to get them back.
I think a few things you could do would be
1. Get rid of the Instigator rule so these guys can get after each other more
2. Schedule more games within divisions also as part of this have more back to back games within the division.
3. Go back to the way the playoff foremat was in the Norris division days, the first two playoff rounds were inter division. I know there are drawbacks to this when you are in a strong division like Division with Calgary and Edmonton was back then sometimes the secons best team in the league is going to get knocked out early and a weaker team from the Norris was guaranteed a trip to the conference finals. But I will take the playoff system back then because it built rivalries.
This may be a moot point because there were less teams then and I dont know if it is possible to do this as they are now. If it isnt could we get it done with modifications?
Thoughts
I started watching the game as a hardcore fan during the old Norris division days and every team that came into STL. You would usually kill to get these guys on your team but when they played against your team you hated them.
Chicago-Al Secord, Dirk Graham, Steve Larmer, Denis Savard, Doug Wilson, Behn Wilson, Terry Ruskowski, Jeremy Roenick, Chris Chelios, Any Hawk enforcer especially Stu Grimson, Any Goalie Especially Ed Belfour.
You could go through the rosters of any team in the division back then and come up with a list. It didnt matter what the records of the two teams were either when it was a division game the players were going to be getting after it.
I think this begs a much larger question, Where have all the rivalries gone and what do we do to get them back.
I think a few things you could do would be
1. Get rid of the Instigator rule so these guys can get after each other more
2. Schedule more games within divisions also as part of this have more back to back games within the division.
3. Go back to the way the playoff foremat was in the Norris division days, the first two playoff rounds were inter division. I know there are drawbacks to this when you are in a strong division like Division with Calgary and Edmonton was back then sometimes the secons best team in the league is going to get knocked out early and a weaker team from the Norris was guaranteed a trip to the conference finals. But I will take the playoff system back then because it built rivalries.
This may be a moot point because there were less teams then and I dont know if it is possible to do this as they are now. If it isnt could we get it done with modifications?
Thoughts
