Taro T

If either or both lines are improved 9-7 isn't unreasonable.

Kelly, you have some interesting thoughts. We do appear to disagree though. You are correct that the low number of goals scored relative to basketball is used as a justification for going to a shootout. However, if football only played a 5 minute OT there would still be games that end in a tie. As stated, I would much prefer to see the league go to one full OT session in the regular season rather than go to an abreviated OT followed by a shootout. This would only add ~1 hour to the length of a hockey game. The average hockey game used to run ~2:40. I'm not positive but it seems like they are running closer to 2:20 with the new rules, but I may be mistaken on that. Either way that would put a full 80 minute game in the 3:20-3:40 time frame in a worst case. Football and baseball games both run over 3 hours very often. Having an occasional hockey game run over 3 hours would not be a horrendous burden on the players or fans. The entity that it would be a burden on is the TV station broadcasting the game. Currently, the TV station does not sell advertising for OT nor can it easily modify its post game schedule. If the game runs an hour over, then some other show that advertising was sold for does not get shown. If the TV stations sold contigent advertising for OT it would allieviate some of the TV problems but it would not eliminate the preemption of the next show. I expect that if teams had to play up to 80 minutes during the regular season there would be far fewer ties than there currently are, especially with the tighter enforcement of obstruction type penalties. I actually would expect most teams to have 4 or fewer ties over the course of a full season which is less than 5% of all games. I personally can live with that. As to your point about the NHL being the only sport using points instead of winning percentage, I do not agree with it because they are both the exact same thing. They are just expressed differently. A hockey team that has a 5-5 record has 10 points and a 0.500 winning percentage. A team with a 5-4-1 record has 11 points and a 0.550 winning percentage. If an NFL team played a full 5th quarter and still was tied, if their record were 5-4-1 their winning percentage would be the exact same as the NHL team with the 5-4-1 record (0.550) and they would be 1/2 game ahead of a team with a 5-5 record and 1/2 game behind a team with a 6-4 record. Finally, I don't consider going to 5-4 a change of the rules. It is simply a way to penalize infractions of the rules. I see it as being extremely similar to basketball's free throw. It gives the infringed team an advantage to make up for the penalized action. There are special rules for a free throw but they are consistant between the regular season and the post season. The NHL uses 2 completely separate and distinct set of rules to settle a tie in regular season vs. post season. I absolutely love playoff OT. I see going to the shootout a precursor to eliminating the 2 OT game, which will stink. (Also, technically on a technical foul isn't the only person on the court during the technical free throw the player taking the shot?)

many good points in your post,but one could argue that NFL overtimes haven't become "de-facto" field goal contests, except you juts have to make one to win. Its really just a coin flipping contest for the most part. Better idea would be a college style OT. 545559[/snapback] One thing the NFL could do to keep the current OT format and leave its rules essentially unchanged is move the kickoff in OT to the 35 yard line. Before they moved the kickoff to the 30, IIRC the kicking team won in OT slightly more than 50% of the time. Since, its more like the receiving team winning ~75% of the time.

Being a hockey "purist", I am morally opposed to the shootout. I'm not thrilled with going to 4-on-4 for OT either. There are several reasons for my opposition. 1. A shootout takes a team game and reduces it to an individual skills competition. I understand the reason they went to a shootout, TV doesn't sell advertising for OT. I would prefer the advertising model were changed - sell contingent advertising for OT rather than shorten the time OT takes to reach a winner. No other major professional team sport in NA changes the rules to settle a tie game. The NFL doesn't resort to a field goal contest, MLB doesn't resort to a home run contest, and the NBA doesn't resort to a 3 point shot contest, why should the NHL be the only one to decide ties by a skills contest? 2. With the current system where a team is guaranteed a single point for making it to OT, there is an incentive for a team to lay back and not try for the win in regulation. Now that the league is calling obstruction penalties more frequently, this is a more dangerous strategy than in the past, but it still occurs on occasion. 3. It is foolish, IMHO, to have some games worth 3 points and others worth only 2. None of the other major team sports allows this and they are correct in not giving partial points for getting to OT. 4. The biggest reason I am opposed to the shootout. It is stupid to have one set of rules for the regular season and another for the post season. There is NOTHING as exciting in ALL of sports as playoff OT hockey. Eventually, I see the NHL abandoning unlimited playoff OT and going to a shootout (probably after 1 - 20 minute OT period) due to pressure from advertisers and TV networks. I would much rather see the NHL go to a system where all games are worth 3 points. If you win in regulation, you get 3 points. You then play a 10 or 20 minute OT (length of OT depends on whether you scrape the ice before OT or do a full resurfacing). If someone wins in OT, they get 2 points and the loser gets 1. If at the end of 80 minutes no one has scored, then each team gets 1.5 points. The NFL allows for ties after a 5th quarter, I don't see where you would have an abundance of ties at the end of 80 minutes of hockey (especially with the new obstruction penalty enforcement). If you have to keep the ridiculous OT/shootout format, at least make the games worth 3 points across the board. A regulation win or an OT win is worth 3 points to the victor and 0 to the loser. If you go to a shootout, the winner gets 2 and the loser gets 1.

No suspension. Apparently Collie Campbell thought that Darcy grabbed the guy's helmet and started hitting him with it accidentally. Since he clearly has never intentionally injured an opponent (yeah right), Bettman's lap collie gave Darcy the benefit of the doubt. He was fined $2,500.

Their website is www.bobandtom.com Darin is right, they are typically very funny and are constantly bringing standup comics on the show as guests.

Last time I saw him in anything was a Jenga commercial about 10 years back.

Uh, perhaps to get them out of the temple?

No data on the radio broadcast, but you can't pick and choose games out of the CI package. I have always found the CI package to be worth the money but know money can definitely get tight. Typically they offer a reduced price package starting in late January / February for CI. If you do get CI you won't get the Sabres postgame show (the Shootout) except on rare occasions when the CI feed continues past the end of the game even if you have the regional sports package because it isn't on any regular regional networks (it's only on the backfeed of MSG available in WNY).

Close. The peak had to be the greatest (spoof of a) game show ever made - Remote Control. The greatest episode had to be the one where the 3 contestants had 1 correctly answered question at the 1st commercial break. Ken punted all 3 and finished the show with 3 people from the audience as contestants.

I haven't heard the CD yet, so this is just speculation, but my guess is they don't do a DVD because according to Roby some yahoo from the Sabres pitched / taped over most of the 70's game videos.

Bertuzzi and Doan I understand people being unhappy about. Who in their right (or left) mind thinks that Heatley doesn't belong on the team?

Nothing is set in stone, there is an outside possibility that the Pens might stay, but I'd say it's less than 10% they stay. Kansas City and Houston are 2 of the cities that are rumored destinations.

As I had babbled about in my original post, they were originally scheduled to open for the Pretenders until that show got cancelled. Whisper to a Scream was the only song of theirs that I ever heard on the radio.

Right on both counts. Incredible show.

Mickey, might it be possible that they didn't want to put those allegations in a civil court indictment to keep Padilla's "friends" from being able to get their hands on information about how information about Padilla was determined in the 1st place?

Did you check the Sabres' website? The reason I ask is I've seen a gray hat with the old logo sold at the rink.

I'd put the odds at slim and none, but hope for your sake I'm wrong. Saw Gilmour in '84 on the About Face tour. Show was very stripped down from a Floyd show, focus was on the music. Excellent show. He played pretty much everything off About Face and the 2 instrumentals off his 1st album. He also played Comfortably Numb and Run Like Hell. I had hoped he'd play There's No Way Out of Here but he didn't, probably because he didn't write that one. Like I said, it was an excellent show. There was one strange thing about the show. Gilmour and the Pretenders were scheduled to play in Buffalo about the same time. Pretenders had their biannual death in the family and cancelled the show. Pretenders had an opening act scheduled, Gilmour didn't. They had the Pretenders opening band Icicle Works open for Gilmour. Bad choice. The band was decent, but totally wrong as an opening act for him.

I don't either, but if they still had Begin on the roster, they COULD move one and still have a veteran to fill the Mair role. Watching Habs games this year, it actually seems that Begin is better at being Mair than Mair is.

Jacobs also had a lot to do with keeping the Sabres in Buffalo as his concessions contract is basically worthless without an NHL team in that rink. That said, for whatever reason Bettman did work to keep the team in town. I'm not as concerned about his reasons for finding religion, I'm just happy he did. As for the CBA, you had essentially the same group of fractious owners in 2004-'05 that you had in 1994 and in the prior labor negotiation. The difference between the 3 negotiations is that Bettman had been in office for more than a few months this last time and put together a set of goals for the negotiation and a plan to achieve those goals. He managed to have ALL the owners publicly support him, even though the big market owners had to hate the fact that the lockout began. In '95 he caved to Goodenow because the owners weren't united in what they wanted. (Also, conventional wisdom at the time was that the owners won the negotiations, it wasn't until about a year later that everyone knew how badly Goodenow had screwed them.) I give Bettman kudos for coming out of the negotiations with essentially everything he said he was going to try to get. Right now it looks like a good agreement for the owners and I believe, long term, it will end up good for the players as well.

VA, little of the information in the articles you cite are applicable to the current discussion. The "warrant" you refer to is a standard search warrant which must be issued PRIOR to initiating the surveillance of a subject (start reading on page 14, the case in question was prior to FISA's enactment). We are discussing the FISA warrant not a standard criminal search warrant. FISA is very specific with regards to the circumstances that the 72 hour warrant is not required. The AG stated in his press conference that the Administration believes these requirements were met when Congress authorized the President to use force against Afghanistan and Al Queda. Several members of Congress have stated they don't agree with that assessment and my reading of FISA (not my reading of someone else's interpretation of FISA) lead me to believe that the Congress critters are correct on this one. Are the wire taps w/out the 72 hour warrants legal due to some other gray area of the law? I honestly don't know that. I do know that the adminsitration has stated that all calls in question involved persons physically outside the US and those inside the US. As others have stated, depending upon where and how the calls were intercepted, the intercepts MAY have been legal. Also, as Mickey has stated, there may be an expediancy aspect to this issue which would make this legal and which the AG did allude to in his press conference. I don't know if one or more of these other issues will provide justification that the taps were legal. I do not see how the "we are at war" justification causes them to be legal. Personally, I hope that they are legal because I don't want to lose what appears to be an effective tool against Al Queda.

European claims that there is no need for a death penalty because of the ability to lock someone away for life would be stronger if not for cases such as this.

KRC, please let me take a stab at it if you will. VA, you are correct that Congress did authorize the use of force. Do you agree though that they did not "declare war"? This is the key concept on whether paragraph 1811 of FISA is applicable. If war was declared, then 1811 is applicable. 1811 is the only part of FISA that allows wire taps without the "72 hour" warrant. If war was not declared, then 1811 is not invoked. The applicable portions of FISA are from 1802 and 1803 which DO require the AG to request a warrant from the FISA court justice pool w/in 72 hours of approving the wire tap. This all still may go to one of the gray areas brought up by other posters on the board. But Gonzales appears to have been saying the taps were legal under FISA because the US is at war (perhaps his justification will change as time goes on). That does not appear to be correct because technically the US is not at war because Congress never issued a Declaration of War.

Not exactly. KRC found a more legitimate hole in the 1811 reasoning.

Interesting point. The bad guys declared war on the US and the US responded back by declaring authorization to use military force. So although we are at war and everyone knows we are at war, we technically aren't at war because although Congress said we'd fight a war they never actually said we are at war. It appears you are correct KRC that 1811 is not applicable, but it also appears that 1811 is what Gonzales is using as justification.