Quebecois
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Posts
2008 -
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Posts posted by Quebecois
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I'm biased but let's take a look at the stats. Should be interesting.
I'll start the numbers in 2002 when both pitchers started to come into their own. Obviously Doc is a little older so that will benefit him.
Santana:
110-50, 2.79 ERA, 9 CG, 6 SHO, 1459.1 IP, 159 ERA+, 1.044 WHIP, 7.1 H/9, 0.9 HR/9, 2.3 BB/9, 9.6 K/9, 4.2 K:BB
247 games, 207 starts
Halladay:
120-50, 3.18 ERA, 38CG, 9 SHO, 1532.1 IP, 143 ERA+, 1.128 WHIP, 8.5 H/9IP, 0.7 HR/9, 1.6 BB/9, 6.5 K/9, 3.95 K:BB
215 games, 214 starts.
Most of the numbers point towards Santana. The thing that makes Halladay as good as him, in my humble opinion, is the competition. I read something near the end of last year that Doc had to face the opponents with the highest OPS out of any pitcher in baseball.
Just look at the 9 game stretch he had to finish the season last year.
Boston X3
NYY X3
TB X2
CHW X 1
Ended up 7-2, 2.95 ERA, opponents OPS of .615, 51Ks, 8BB in 64.0 IP
Boston scored the 3rd most runs in the league, CHW was 6th, NYY was 10th, TBR was 14.
I guess my point is that Santana might still have the slight edge, but no one faces stiffer competition than Halladay, and if the playing field were equal, I would not be able to give Santana the nod with any semblance of confidence.
It will be interesting to see how CC Sabathia does this year. Another lefty who made his living in the greener pastures of the AL Central.
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Ive only watched a few seasons of survivor, but Coach has to be the greatest one yet.
Loved when he won immunity a few episodes back and yelled dragon slayer. Then as soon as they get back to camp, he asks JT if he heard him yell it haha.
Ive been rooting for JT from the beginning though, i wonder if one of him or Stephen will try and backstab each other, should be interesting. Stephen is a very smart player and he won't like his chances in the final two with JT by his side...
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All due respect to Zack Greinke/Johan Santana/Tim Lincecum etc.
but Roy Halladay is the best pitcher in baseball.
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FORWARDS
-Andrei Kostitsyn*
-Sergei Kostitsyn*
The asterisks (*) indicate players whose track records in the playoffs have to be considered a question mark. In other words, although they have the talent to succeed in the playoffs, there's ground for very serious doubt about whether they can be counted on to deliver. Komisarek gets a (**) because he likely will be gone this summer.
Three things to note here:
Not sure how the Kostitsyn's get a bad playoff track record. I think you can almost throw away this 4 game series because everyone sucked. Looking at last years numbers, the Kostitsyns were rather good considering it was their first time in the playoffs.
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Colin, I can see the point you are trying to make but I think it is missing slightly. Sure it is expensive to play a high level of competitive soccer, but to simply participate and grow a love for the game, it is extremely cheap. Shin pads and a $60 dollar fee will get your kid into the U5 house league in my town. The prices "escalate" up to $110 dollars once you get up to the U20 category.
Minor Hockey for U5 is $295, for the early bird fee, $395 after August 1st. Of course this doesn't include equipment. Tyke and Bantam league fees are $525.
Hell, even getting a game of road or floor hockey going can be expensive, especially when you compare it to a pickup game of soccer.
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The Southern States *will* eventually not only accept hockey, but come to love it, but it can't be done overnight. If it weren't a financial nightmare, keeping Phoenix there would be great for the league - in 40-50 years.
Do you really believe that? LA came into this league in 1967 and finished T17 in American TV Ratings (save to assume the 6 canadian clubs finished ahead of it as well) and finished 23rd in Attendance. For 42 years, kids in LA have grown up with the game of hockey, as you put it, and the results have been mediocre to poor. They even had the opportunity to watch the biggest star in NHL history and they still only drew around 15,000 fans a game during his time there.
Now hockey will survive in LA for the long term because of its sheer size. Will two teams survive? Well Anaheim is two years removed from a Stanley Cup and they didn't sell out a first round game. It's hard to say.
Phoenix's Metro area, however, is one quarter the size of LA. Nashville's is one tenth.
Theoretically, and this might be a bit of a stretch, you could divide LAs fanbase by 10, and in 40 years, that might be how many hockey fans youll find in Nashville.
A final thing that works against these teams when compared to LA is tourism. Tampa and Florida benefit from this, and I'm sure Phoenix and Nashville have their fair share of tourists, but can those numbers really compare to LA?
It's certainly a possibility that hockey will one day thrive in these southern markets, but based on the success of the LA Kings, I wouldn't hold my breath.
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I'm insanely excited about the Vikings first two picks. Harvin will give us a "pick your poison" offense. Load up on Peterson and we can burn you with Harvin and Berrian. Just gotta hope Rosenfels can get them the ball.
I really love what we did in the second round though. Ryan Cook was our worst starter last year at RT and we picked up Phil Loadholt, a massive mauling RT from Oklahoma. It's always great to get a sure-fire starter in the 2nd round IMO, and some mock drafts even had us taking Loadholt in the 1st round at #22.
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Cito Gaston. Should never, ever have been fired. He's one of the best managers in the game and will have Toronto playing over their heads all year.
I don't really understand why he never got another chance to manage during the 10 years between stints...
I have a few issues with how he manages the game to be honest, but it is his intangibles that really impress me. He has done wonders for a lot of players on that team and the gap between him and John Gibbons cannot be understated.
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I think they'll cool off around the end of May, like usual.
If they can keep this up till the All-Star break, thats when I'll take them seriously.
Actually I don't remember the Jays getting off to a great start since 03. Always seem to be about .500 or worse in April, and make up some ground in September when it no longer matters.
But yeah, I'll keep my expectations in check for now.
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Well the Habs are out, time to move on.
This is really just a place for me to ask, does anyone think the Jays might be for real?
Our record is the best in the AL since Cito Gaston took over midway through last season, but I'm still pretty skeptical. The rotation is hanging on by a thread and the bats are bound to cool down eventually.
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Movies
in The Lounge
Awesome news! I was actually a fan of the animation, but live-action is good too.
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I'm sorry Colin. We DO have the worst fans in the world. I apologize for fighting you on this issue in the past.
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Scott Glennie?
Jordan Caron?
I'm looking at centre, above 6' tall, who will likely be available at our drafting position (15-18)
What are you looking at?
Oh boy, these are gonna be the two longest month ... *sigh*
I'm right there with you. I'm interested to see Caron play at the mem cup. Glennie we might have to trade up for.
Anyone know anything about Chris Kreider?
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Probably isn't the right place for this, but I really hope Gainey is brought back next year. Everything that could have gone wrong this year, went wrong. That happens. We weren't as good as our 1st place finish would indicate in 07-08, and we're not as bad as our 8th place finish would indicate in 08-09.
Many of the pieces are in place, we just need to make some major changes this offseason and we certainly have the flexibility to do that.
I'm not sure who I would bring back to be honest. Koivu can still be a second line centre IMO, he just needs someone to really take the pressure off (Vinny?).
Komisarek has looked lost most of the season and if he is offered 5 million on the open market, I think you can kiss him goodbye.
Tanguay, we haven't seen too much of him but I'd probably bring him back.
Kovalev is the big one, Gainey seems to get through to him and I'd be comfortable either way with him.
It'll be a very interesting offseason. Not that we're officially out yet, but for all intents and purposes, we are.
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Goaltender Interference? When Price has his stick and blocker in his hand he usually makes the save. Absolute bullshit.
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According to a post on HFboards, Murray Wilson said that Markov was skating on his own today. A definite positive sign!
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Really desperate to get Markov in there. I'm convinced that if he returns before it's too late, we will win the series.
The PP was the worst part of our game tonight IMO. I didn't mind Laraque on the first line, but not every shift. It really detracted from the Koivu/Kovalev tandem at times and Tanguay needs to get most of the shifts up there still.
Decently played game and I have even more faith in the Habs then I did before the game.
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All of the crap we've been through this regular season is over. Now the games really count.
GO :hlogo: GO
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The only difference between the Habs of last year and the Habs of this year is their record vs. Boston. Last year, we had 16 points out of 104 vs. Boston. That's 88 vs. the rest of the NHL. This year, we had 4 points out of 93 vs. Boston. That's 89 vs. the rest of the NHL. There were two less games vs. Boston this year. 89 in 76 games vs. 88 in 74 games isn't much of a difference.
Boston is simply that much better this year. They improved their record not only against us, but against the rest of the NHL. Does that mean much for the next 7 games? Hard to say. But over 82 games, they definitely were the better team. No question about it.
When you pull out the Montreal-Boston season series, you'll notice that Boston actually had 5 more points than us last year vs. the rest of the NHL than we did (they had 93 points in those 74 games, against I believe the exact same opponents). This year, they increased that number to 105 points in 76 games, and 11 of 12 against us.
The 2007-08 season series disguised a lot of the differences between the two teams last year. And the season series dropoff this year for the Habs is the single biggest reason for the Habs being percieved as "worse" than last year.
Good points.
The one thing I like to look at is, how many of those 6 Bs-Habs games could have gone the other way? The Habs only needed the shootout to win the first matchup because of a lucky bounce off the boards. The second matchup was a blowout in favour of the Bs, but the other 4 games were tight, within a goal in 2 of them I believe, and 2 goal games for the other two (once an empty net and once a late goal with a minute or two left.
I just don't think the gap between the two teams is nearly as big as everyone is saying it is.
And I'm tired of hearing about how the big Bruins are going to run the small Habs out of the rink. We are the bigger team by a narrow margin if you look at the stats. We have small centres? There's are even smaller.
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Keith Jones likes to stir the pot. He talks in absolutes everytime he is on TV.
The thing that drove me nuts running up to the playoffs was how the talking heads over simplified everything.
Who will make it? Montreal, NY Rangers, Florida or Buffalo
The one with the best goaltending. Seeing as that is Vokoun and Lundqvist, then Buffalo/Florida
Laaazy
It seems like every analyst talks in absolutes these days. It's very annoying. Bob Mckenzie seems like one of the few who doesn't.
Mcguire, Jones, Kypreos, Stock, Milbury
ughhh all just arrogant fools.
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You do realize Montreal crawled in via a tie-breaker, right?
You do realize that Gainey has led a 27 win team to the finals before, right?
Anyone who makes it has a chance. Most people have completely written us off, which really makes me wonder if they've ever watched the Stanley Cup Playoffs before, or any sports competition for that matter.
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Just watching some of the playoff preview coverage and I absolutely love it. Everyone saying it's going to be a short series, Habs have no chance, might as well pack it in after 3 games etc. etc.
Feels a lot like 02 and 04!
GO HABS GO
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I thought we played really well in the last 10 minutes. Kept the pressure on and didn't sit back.
PLAYOFFS!!!!!!
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This is it boys. Seize the day.
The Official TV Thread
in The Lounge
Posted
Im still partial to the 1st one for nostalgia's sake, but this has been pretty epic for sure.
I actually forget sometimes that Erinn is even in this game, I figured she was going out in the first two or three.
I don't see a backstab coming from JT, and I don't know if I see one coming from Stephen, but I wouldn't put it past him.
None of the other survivors have really shown up in any of the challenges, except for Stephen's one win. I'm betting JT has a chance to win his way into the final two. Though one of them will probably be fallen comrades and that could be anyone's guess.
On a completely different note, the LOST Finally was great. I Love the contrasting Good/Evil God/Satan thing going on between Jacob and that other guy.
I wonder if the final season starts back at LAX in 2004, or if the O6 are on their was to 2007. Jacob said "They're coming" right before fake Locke kicked him in the fire, could he mean the O6? I wonder where Christian fits into all of this too. I could see him being an Angel or something to Jacob's God.
The religious symbolism might get a little nuts next season.