Lister110

No one to blame but ourselves on this one. What a disappointment.

Living overseas isn't that bad by comparison to living in Toronto. I lived in both and while you will get homesick and miss hockey night in Canada overseas, you eventually get use to it. By sticking to internet forums you can stay up to date and avoid the bad news when you want. I'll admit though that for the first two months in Japan I missed even Don Cherry's stupidity a little bit. Now take this and put it next to living in Toronto where everything in the city lives on the the Maple Leafs. Where people are so utterly convinced that Toronto is Canada's team that you wonder if they can even name the other Canadian teams. Where the Habs can only make news through embarrassment or humiliation suffered. Nothing that they do well is ever shown to the point that you begin to think they have camera specialists better than David Copperfield the magician capable of creating false illusions on plays that the Habs did well turning them bad somehow. It's enough to make you lose your mind. And you can't get away, it's there staring you in the face begging to buy a sawed shotgun and go on a killing spree through CBC headquarters. Spend enough time in Toronto and you'll learn to hate hockey and dream to be on a rock overseas far away from any hockey rink Burn Maple Leafs Burn

The worst separatists in this country are English and yet no one ever says anything. When i was living in Toronto, the comments I heard about the French and Quebec made me sick. So many biggots that know how to hide their prejudice, but get a few drinks in them and they spill it all. These types will say how much they hate Quebec and wish they would be thrown out of Canada. After you spend a couple of nights around these kinds of assholes you find yourself sympathizing with the PQ. These aren't jaded people. They are people that firmly believe in the superiority of Anglophones. Real Nazis. The federal government should take the bull by the horns and severely punish anyone that even hints a derogatory remark against French people. It's the only way things will ever change. Those refs called the game the exact same way every other game with American or English Canadian refs called it against us. I'd say even less so. Now they can see how it feels like if they're smart enough to make the connection. [Edited on 2005/12/15 by Lister110]

So do we all forgive Bob for trading Hossa now? It's still early but easy come easy go

Man I'm liking the Murray line.

Alright Ryder

What a shot!

Yeah baby

Looks like another night of watching the Bulldogs. Hope they're up to the challenge

Komi should get a star for having to put with this on his come back from his mother's funeral

Good plan, I expect more frustration in the third but I can't look away.

I'll bet we start the third with a penalty

Ribeiro has played a solid game or at least better than usual. But you're right without Koivu there's a big hole.

Oh here comes the guilty balancing act. Thanks for nothing ref

Oh I didn't see the stick to the face

Another 5-3 un ######ing believable. How does this make me want to watch hockey?

We might be playing badly but these refs are not helping

Thank you, Jesus Christ

Yeah baby

Alright we play again. Who would have ever thought we would be looking so forward to playing the Mighty Ducks? Week long lay overs can do funny things. Go Habs Go

Hear, hear buddy, looks like we share the same views. And yeah it doesn't have to be Ivanans, his face might no be fixed yet, but there has to be someone. I think Gainey understands this too, which leads me to believe he's waiting on Ivanans. At least that's what I hope.

Oh and one more thing. Ivanans doesn't take the stupid penalties a lot of your typical knuckle heads do making him a real asset. The efficiency you get from your top players at the cost of one extra body on the bench is well worth it. It bothers me to no end how hard it is for the Habs too see this. I haven't seen Murray fight, but at best he's probably about as good as Rivet. I'm sure he doesn't intimidate teams like Ivanans can. When he's on the bench no one is going to run Theodore or cross-check Koivu. The reduction in injuries to top players is an added benefit.

You can't measure the need for goon in a quantitative way. You just have to make the connection that all of our other players do better with one there. The only time we beat Ottawa this year was with Ivanans on the bench. I had the pleasure of seeing that game in person. I learned two very important lessons that day. Sundstrum is awesome and Ivanans is necessary. He went two solid rounds against McGratton. Both fighters were throwing bombs and it was a draw. If anything I'd say Ivanans got more shots in. He also fought the Chara the toughest fighter in the league and if the refs hadn't held him for Chara, all he would have had is a bloody lip and a sore jaw. There's a reason why every top team has a disposable goon that can win fights (unlike Vandermeer aka Gordie Dwyer). That's because every other top team has one and when the chips are down they get thrown in to motivate the team and fans. When you don't have a goon you wind up with a bunch players pussy footing around, not finishing their hits or backing anything up because no one wants to get mashed by the goon. You want our little team to play with intensity, back them up! Remember how great Langdon was for our team and how bad Dwyer was. We need a real fighter and Ivanans is it. Anyone that saw the Sens Kings game can also see what happens when your team has no real goon. Cowan a second rate goon didn't have the balls to fight McGratton or Chara so he went for a fight he could win. The result being that some small defenseman for the Kings got beat up by Chara. Momentum goes right back to Ottawa. You can say you don't like fighting in the NHL, but saying you don't need a fighter on your NHL team isn't realistic.

I've been raving about his return for a long time. Now I'm just worried that if we call him back up he'll have to clear wavers and get picked up by another team. Imagine the Leafs got him.

Lets not drag this out any longer. It was probably spoken out of context or Ribeiro put his foot in his mouth. I can definitely relate to wanting to say something totally innoffensive and completely putting foot in my mouth. Its not like he has a history like Roenick of talking smack. We're just taking out the teams frustrations on him because he's not looking too competitive these days.