The NHL fining system is also terrible, that's not what I'm saying.

I agree it will probably do something, but I think it's silly for fines to happen after suspensions for players. These are 16-20 year olds fighting not just for their teammates, but for the possibility of a career in hockey. I guess the real cultural change would happen at the NHL level - once the possibility of those jobs began to dry up, things would get more sane at the lower levels, I imagine.

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Just came back from Czech ELH game, Kladno - Slavia 2:3, scoring : Plekanec (Tlusty, Jagr), Tlusty(Plekanec) - Cervenka(Sobotka, Kalla), Sobotka(Cervenka), Kalla(Cervenka, Sobotka)

thank you NHL, feels good

Marek: FU!



i think the point is that it is changing, and that guys can't really fight their way to the show like they could in the past. maybe it's good that the OHL is taking the lead in this potential chicken-egg, supply /demand problem and their rules could also impact the supply in this issue and force the NHL's hard even more. and i'd argue that the league is somewhat serious about reducing fighting as well. not saying they want it gone totally, but they want it reduced.

the days of the 3mpg goon are coming to an end i think...

Wow, I recognize a lot of players in that Czech game

Cervenka with a 3 point night, eh?

Marek, do we actually have a legit pivot on our hands here, or is he going to (excuse the pun) flame out?

I'm not quite as offended by this as I was at the time.

He looked amazing today, they have great chemistry with Sobotka (grew up playing together in Slavia juniors). Made Zidlicky look his age, though thats not very hard, he was definitely the player of the game

He might take some time adjusting to NHL, but he has plenty of technique and speed to get by and hes tougher than he looks

i don't go to more AHL games bc the prices are stupid

like the team out here you can't really get in for less than $20-25 most of the time

no wonder it's 75% empty most night... (gjge)

Bob actually watches the games tho. You only compile IR aggregates.

when I was in Riga a few weeks ago I watched (on tv) some KHL game. I believe it was the Red Army team against someone. there was NO ONE in the stands. what kind of attendance do these KHL teams get?

I think that basically now they have to be able to tell if the puck crosses the line before the first player gets to the dots...while also watching to see if he is ahead the other player. Won't happen often but it could be kind of weird when it does.

Maybe I will like this better than I think. So glad they are only comitting to one month of this to start. Lot of times, if it works in the AHL it will become an NHL rule later. Shootouts are an example.

I mean, yeah, I should've been clearer that I am glad they are doing something - I just don't think those days are coming to an end. It's been being said for 10 years now and while fights have risen and fallen in that time, lots of teams still employ at least 1 of this sort of player at the NHL level, the AHL level is worse, and lower levels even worse than that. It's a tough issue because even though people will tell you it doesn't sell, it does.

If you're going to suspend guys for fighting 10+ times, why not just outlaw it all together?

Meant to comment on this. Iirc, modano was in a way a casualty of the mogilny rule. Yeah, he probably lost 7m because of that, but not necessarily because he missed the season. The union understood and still agreed to that. On the other hand the players enjoyed a $30m rise in salary cap over 7 years. To complain about it now is just Mike being results-oriented.

As mentioned before, they want to get rid of the types who are ONLY there to fight and don't skate or do much of anything else. The guys for whom that is their ENTIRE role.

But there are plenty of players who actually play regularly and score goals and stuff who end up dropping the gloves more in the heat of the moment with somebody else. And those guys tend to get fewer than 11 fighting majors in a year. And apparently most people feel like those situations are still okay.

They just don't like the guys who get 25 fighting majors in 18 games played on the season with almost zero ice-time.

And by making this rule they are pushing out a more definitive guideline about it and really sending a message. They aren't saying something vague like, "we're going to be giving harsher suspensions for high hits that are over-the-line" where a bunch of players and coaches and officials all become confused all at once at where the new line is (and nobody really was quite sure where the old line was).

The fighting stuff is all kind of done by general "understanding" of what is appropriate and what isn't. If they just tell teams/players that they can't fight unless it is appropriate to the game then everyone starts going wonky trying to figure out what that definition is supposed to mean. Here they are directly telling the guys who rack up 10+ fighting majors, "you better have some purpose for being out there other than fighting because you won't last very long if you don't."


Somewhat interestingly, I believe fighting had already been on a little bit of a downward trend in the OHL anyway. Either one or zero players with 200+ PIM's in the OHL for each of the last four seasons. And Zac Rinaldo accounted for two out of three times somebody made that milestone.

2006-07 and 2007-08 there were three guys each season with 200+ PIM's and 2 or 3 other guys at 195 or so. To go from that to actually having a season with ZERO players reaching 200 PIM's is pretty significant imo.

Obviously this move is designed to crank it way down. Two enforcer/tough-guys who don't like each other are going to think twice about getting in their second or third scrap in the same game.

Agree with Triumph that it sells tickets though. Number of fans of the team I'm with that are super-vocal about them getting tougher and get more big-time enforcers pretty much never ends. A lot of them are still kind of living in 1997 though. The game has changed...and is going to continue to do so.

Chelios is a gangster. Hilarious and depressing at the same time. I despise Gary Bettman.

Speaking of Rinaldo, he was busy earlier today retweeting a series of comments by Krys Barch:

-----------------------------------------------

Very disappointed with the #OHL decision on the implementation of restrictions/suspensons/fines in regards to fights, fight totals, etc.

We may be witnessing the loss of tough, physical, skilled power forwards and defensemen alike in our game. Thank god for the #WHL

as they still hopefully can develop players like MilanLucic and ZdenoChara to name a few. Both were heavy weights in junior...

I wonder if those types of players will now go by the wayside. Just hope we aren't changing a man's game into a boy's game!

Played golf with a few guys who play in the AHL today and we were talking about the guys jumping ship to the KHL and this story got passed along I thought you'd all find interesting.

Nik Antropov recently signed a deal for about $300k a month on the KHL team in Kazakhstan - and they paid him for all of September too.

Him and a few of the other guys out there got paid before their first practice in cash in paper bags. Of course, it being Russia, the dressing room got robbed while the guys were out on the ice. So Antropov got robbed for more than $100k USD cash.

The next time they got paid, all the players taped the cash around their stomach/backs before practice.

Pretty sure that's the story from the previous lockout. Would need sources/confirmation.

While the St. Louis market discussion has kind of drifted off, anyone who says it is a garbage market or anything of the sorts is dead wrong. They still sell out pretty much every game, good TV ratings, good fanbase overall around town. There are numerous markets that are far worse. Even huge markets like Dallas are doing far worse right now.


As for the Winter Classic, it'd be a decent place for it. The thing is, even if you don't get a ton of people from St. Louis not going to it, it's a central location that can draw people from many other nearby states. Personally, I hate the Winter Classic, so I don't care if it comes here or not. They'd probably have to put it in Busch Stadium, but I admit, playing it under the Arch would be pretty badass and would make me actually want to watch the game (well, I would anyway if the Blues were in it.)


Also, wrt to the ticket price issue that Triumph brought up. That's just stupid. They have cheap tickets because this is St. Louis and not New York, Boston, or some other big market. There are plenty of promotions, but they could definitely up their prices, and I'd expect them to sell out no problem.

would really need some hockey right now...

OHL fighting rule is so ridiculously half assed it isn't even funny.

On a completly unrelated note, I'd need a shark fan to tell me if Couture is decent on the wing, or pretty much center only