Okay, so the season may only have 50+ games, but it doesn't matter...hockey WON'T be on hiatus this year.

Go Blue Jackets! (I STILL think their season just ended before the official opening game which is next week).

As a true Canadian, I am SOOOOOO happy like you wouldn't believe!

:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

May all lockout related news and talk be gone for good and hopefully Gary Bettman can go too and soon!

So now I'd like to ask the hockey fans out there a couple of things. The first would be a little more activity from you on this board now that we finally have something real to talk about. The second is what is everyone looking forward to seeing and happening this season? For me it's obvious. Opening night with a couple of beauty games to see right away: Penguins vs Flyers at 3 pm on NBC and Leafs vs Montreal on CBC at 7:00 pm (including Don Cherry and Coach's Corner at around 7:45, and you know he'll have a lot to say tonight!)

I'd like to offer you my fearless predictions but I usually suck at them (even worse than the Habs do on a good night :lol: ) so don't hold me to them. Right now, I see Pittsburgh taking the big prize this year but as LA proved last summer anything can happen. Or I can do what the smart football fans on this site do when they don't know who to bet on, read Solomon's opinions and then pick the other team. Which reminds me: I hear the Flyers could use another goalie. He'd be perfect!

I haven't followed hockey since the 70's, so the league could stay on lockdown forever as far as I'm concerned. But I was a big hockey fan during the 70's, 1974-75 and 1975-76 were my favorite seasons. I was a Seals fan in those days, they were not a winning team but were improving, in 75-76 they had the 3M line, Maruk, MacAdam, and Murdoch. Also young defenseman Rick Hampton, goalies Meloche and Simmons, and several other skilled young players. The owner of the Seals wanted a new stadium built in the bay area, the politicans voted it down and the Seals relocated to Cleveland for the 76-77 season. It was never the same after that, and I lost interest in hockey. When the NHL realigned the divisions in 1974, California, Los Angeles, and Vancouver were all placed in separate divisions. Geographically it made no sense, and the Seals were placed in a beast of a divison with Boston, Buffalo, and Toronto. I have a computer hockey game with the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons, so I can simulate the seasons and re-live those glory days.

I'm too angry at the NHL right now to rush back.

Fans are fools to rush back like nothing has happened. It's because of that is a big part of why the NHL takes the fans for granted and we have all these work stoppages.

Proof that hockey fans have a sense of humour, courtesy of the Dallas Stars website:

http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/wuA5r31Vj5MVptScmFHdMg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en/blogs/sptusncaafexperts/dallas-stars-teo-girlfriend.jpg


Dallas wasn't the only NHL city that was ready to welcome its team back from lockout exile. Across the league, every team sold out their home openers and the fans, even those who may still have remained bitter about the lockout (and for the record I don't blame them--three months without hockey for me is pure torture!!!) came back in full force and saw some good action. Even NBC was happy about the results, receiving its highest regular season ratings ever for hockey telecasts that don't involve the Winter Classic. Needless to say, in Canada, the opening weekend was treated like a national holiday, a trend that continues tonight on its biggest stage, Toronto's Air Canada Centre, as the Leafs, fresh off their 2-1 win over the hated Habs, face their hope opener against another unsavoury rival, the Buffalo Sabres.


Note To RetroTVFan: I remember the Seals too. I used to watch them in the 70s and they weren't very good. During the lockout, Leafs TV in Toronto showed a game between Toronto and Oakland from October of 1967, the Seals' first season, and there were players on both sides that I remember very fondly. If you want to see some good NHL hockey in your area, you should watch the San Jose Sharks, which would be the closest NHL team to the Bay Area. They're a good team and the fans are arguably the loudest in the league. You might like them!

^And sadly...the Barons who were once the Seals merged with the North Stars since both teams were in jeopardy at the time.

That Cleveland Curse is what I like to call "The Merge" which also preventing Cleveland to have hockey for over a decade until a farm team called the Lumberjacks came to Cleveland in the 90's, now we have the Lake Erie Monsters. And Ohio didn't have an NHL team for 20+ years until the Columbus Blue Jackets and is probably the worst NHL team next to The Seals/Barons. I still hope the NHL would consider Cleveland as a hockey market.