I'm at the point now where I'm just as happy, if not more happy to stay home and watch the game as opposed to going to the dome. 16 year old me wouldn't be able to fathom that. Idk if that makes me a fair weather fan though, as I still watch every game and spend far too much time on this website...
Yeah, but I think you (and we) would love hockey even more if it had at least 50% more rough and tumble. A tilt between Gio and Iggy last night would have been awesome.
Remember how excited we all were watching Ferly hit everything that moved? Obviously goals and rushes are the pinnacle of hockey entertainment, but physicality and intimidation lead to a much more entertaining game between goals and rushes.
I am still pissed that the Gio/Iggy fight was intervened with.
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I think it's a function of the time of year and the season. The holdiays are over and everyone is back at work. The season isn't fresh but the end isn't in sight. So these are just games. Warrener was speaking of this, and so was GG.
I agree, the middle part of the season is a tough slog. Lots of games, but not a lot of stabilization in the standings.
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If you thought this season would have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.
Being a Flames fan in Ontario isn't easy. I don't have the NHL CI so I don't have access to watch every game and even when there are games on TV that I can watch, they're late and I don't always watch them. I still follow the team and check scores and listen to games as often as possible but I'm not going out of my way to spend as much time or money on the Flames as I was before. Some of it has to do with the team's position in their rebuild, some of it has to do with the way the league is (bs calls and suspensions as well as so many non calls) and some of it just has to do with life getting in the way. I wouldn't say I'm a fair weather fan but I'm not nearly as passionate as I was in the past.
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See, I'm quite a bit younger than most of you guys. As a student, my life outside of hockey is generally pretty boring, and so hockey games are a highlight of my day -- but mostly since I have very little else to worry about.
Once I get out of school and get a job which I really love to do, I feel like the Flames won't be at the centre of my day. Unless, of course, I get a job in hockey, in which case...
Ha! Good luck with that.
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See, I'm quite a bit younger than most of you guys. As a student, my life outside of hockey is generally pretty boring, and so hockey games are a highlight of my day -- but mostly since I have very little else to worry about.
Once I get out of school and get a job which I really love to do, I feel like the Flames won't be at the centre of my day. Unless, of course, I get a job in hockey, in which case...
According to my experience:
2025: Once I get out of this job so that I can do what I really love to do ...
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I think what is missing is the high emotions that I remember. Maybe it is just 'life' as we age, where everything changes and a focus goes elsewhere.
However, I echo Cro's comments. Maybe it isn't exactly the 'rough and tumble' stuff, but just the raw emotion. Ok, so you guys hate the Oilers? Why? Because they are from Edmonton and we just simply have a rivalry because of that?
I hate the Oilers because I remember them POUNDING on Calgary. When Calgary became good enough to compete with them on the scoreboard, they then POUNDED Calgary into a bloody pulp. There was so much 'nastiness'. So much hate. So much emotion. When you won, it was the 'good guys beating the evil stinky team' and their dirty elbows and kicks.
I am not saying that is the model that the NHL should revert to, but take in most games now, and it is just... emotionless. Like everyone growing through the motions. Definitely not every game, but too many, even between 'rivals'. I think that is the piece missing.
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The regular season would be a lot more entertaining if the NHL schedule could, like the MLB's, consist of series'. It's real tough to get excited about a Tuesday night game in ARZ in January. Imagine if the schedule consisted of weeks, and you played a 3-game set each week, all 3 games hosted in the same city. Imagine how pissed off Mike Smith would be by game #3. Imagine how much we'd hate Max Domi by game #3. Suddenly these emotionless games in the middle of winter would have a lot of meaning, passion, and fantastic storylines.
I realize this would be extremely difficult to schedule due to NHL teams sharing arenas with other teams, but I'm not sure that it's impossible.
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To me it's goal scoring and rule changes. I like fighting even though I'm all about player safety if they choose it. Last night I would have loved to see the Iginla/Giordano fight because that's good story. That's good drama. Hockey has become so much of the same old post-game interview and not enough Sean Avery "sloppy seconds". Because I was legitimately excited to see Phaneuf and Avery on the ice against each other. I wanted to see those two throw down like men.
I get its a family event, but fans and society in general is too sensitive about stuff. Yeah, Kariya is a sad story, but so are car accidents and nobody is going to stop driving. There can be a middle ground. You can allow Iginla and Giordano to fight without having staged goon fights. You can punish head shots without having to punish simple accidents or hard hits.
And defensive systems bore me, especially in today's day and age when I can play of my phone or turn on my Xbox while the game is on. Maybe back when there was only cables and flip phones did I have the attention span to sit through dump and chases, but hockey needs to keep up with the times. It has way more competition for my attention than years past
The regular season would be a lot more entertaining if the NHL schedule could, like the MLB's, consist of series'. It's real tough to get excited about a Tuesday night game in ARZ in January. Imagine if the schedule consisted of weeks, and you played a 3-game set each week, all 3 games hosted in the same city. Imagine how pissed off Mike Smith would be by game #3. Imagine how much we'd hate Max Domi by game #3. Suddenly these emotionless games in the middle of winter would have a lot of meaning, passion, and fantastic storylines.
I realize this would be extremely difficult to schedule due to NHL teams sharing arenas with other teams, but I'm not sure that it's impossible.
I think the problem there is money and player happiness. Right now the league is about logistics. When the Capitals are on the road to play Vancouver for example, they also play Calgary and Edmonton right away, rather than say, heading back East to play Pittsburgh.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but In Baseball, you don't play every team in the regular season (I don't really follow baseball). You have you National League that plays NL teams, and the American league play AL teams? In hockey, they recently moved to have every player in every barn. So Flames fans can see Crosby and Ovechkin and such every year.
You can't eat your cake and have it too. Also have to consider players want to be home sometimes to see their family's, so you can't have them on the eastern seaboard for half the season. Plus you try to reduce flight times and frequencys to avoid jet lag, sleeping issues, and cost.
Also have to consider players want to be home sometimes to see their family's, so you can't have them on the eastern seaboard for half the season. Plus you try to reduce flight times and frequencys to avoid jet lag, sleeping issues, and cost.
The players would spend every 2nd week at home. This would drastically reduce flight frequencies and costs, because a team would only fly once a week, as opposed to 2+ times a week like they are now.
Though, you are right about the issue of not seeing every team every year.
To me it's goal scoring and rule changes. I like fighting even though I'm all about player safety if they choose it. Last night I would have loved to see the Iginla/Giordano fight because that's good story. That's good drama. Hockey has become so much of the same old post-game interview and not enough Sean Avery "sloppy seconds". Because I was legitimately excited to see Phaneuf and Avery on the ice against each other. I wanted to see those two throw down like men.
I get its a family event, but fans and society in general is too sensitive about stuff. Yeah, Kariya is a sad story, but so are car accidents and nobody is going to stop driving. There can be a middle ground. You can allow Iginla and Giordano to fight without having staged goon fights. You can punish head shots without having to punish simple accidents or hard hits.
And defensive systems bore me, especially in today's day and age when I can play of my phone or turn on my Xbox while the game is on. Maybe back when there was only cables and flip phones did I have the attention span to sit through dump and chases, but hockey needs to keep up with the times. It has way more competition for my attention than years past
Goal scoring is fine. I don't love a lot of recent rule changes in the NHL, and if I had it my way, teams would not be rewarded for any type of loss.
However, I can live with all of the NHLs gimmicky rules (trapezoid, 3 on 3 OT, SO) if there was some more nitty gritty and emotion in the games. The Iggy/Gio thing is really a microcosm of what the NHL has become. Two willing old school guys who got under each others skin wanted to dance. Why in Gods name did they have to break it up before it started? Let the boys play.
In the playoff year vs Anaheim, Kevin Westgarth of all people was chirping Getzlaf in warmups. Westgarth doesn't even belong on the same ice surface as Getzlaf. But lo and behold, emotion was borne out of it and it added an element of entertainment. And at the end of the day, this is sports ENTERTAINMENT. Completely benign and useless.
This season is a bit of a down year for many because of a few factors;
-the team missed the playoffs last season and started miserably again
-most of the team's star players are having down seasons so not a lot of highlight reel games
-the team is kind of caught in that vortex of mediocrity common to rebuilding teams where there is a jump of progress/promise that exceeds expectations only to fall back down into a cycle of being good but not good enough
-seasons are more exciting when you are in the thick of the playoff race and every night you move up or down a position and this team has been playing catch up since the first month, hanging around but not taking a firm grasp on a spot
This season is a bit of a down year for many because of a few factors;
-the team missed the playoffs last season and started miserably again
-most of the team's star players are having down seasons so not a lot of highlight reel games
-the team is kind of caught in that vortex of mediocrity common to rebuilding teams where there is a jump of progress/promise that exceeds expectations only to fall back down into a cycle of being good but not good enough
-seasons are more exciting when you are in the thick of the playoff race and every night you move up or down a position and this team has been playing catch up since the first month, hanging around but not taking a firm grasp on a spot
I don't understand your last bullet. Isn't that exactly what this team has been doing for the better part of a month? Or do you mean you enjoy it most when the playoffs aren't in question, but positioning up and down are?
I appear to be in the minority, but I still love the game of hockey even without the physical play. I would certainly love more physicality and even more authentic fighting, but I still love the game because of the athleticism and strategy.
I will never get sick of watching these big bulky dudes move around on ice using tiny blades all while having amazing speed and agility. I will never get sick of watching multiple players coordinate an attack in the zone where they all have to execute a plan that has a hundred moving pieces to it.
What I love about hockey is the speed of the game. For all the love football gets here in the states, I find it amazingly boring. I still watch, but find myself less and less interested every year. The pace of the game is terrible. With hockey, even though there are boring times (Dman waiting behind his own net for line change to finish) they pass much more quickly than other sports.
All those reasons are why I still turn on center ice at night to watch anything that is on including some random Panthers/Senators tilt that most people would find mind numbing.
Taking this a bit back on topic for a second in terms of fair weather fandom, I find that for me that actually ties in a lot with what people have been talking about in terms of getting older and having less time. When I was younger I had much more time to learn players from all the teams, to learn prospects, etc. While I still watch as many games as I can, I am much less informed and much less vested in the outcome due to those factors.
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I don't understand your last bullet. Isn't that exactly what this team has been doing for the better part of a month? Or do you mean you enjoy it most when the playoffs aren't in question, but positioning up and down are?
For the better part of the last month they have moved up the standings into a group of teams that are competing for the last two playoff spots for sure but when you look at the threads before the season started where many of us believed that we were a goaltender away from being a sure fire playoff team expectations have changed as we are just happy now they are in the mix.
I am happy they have improved over the first month of the season but I haven't fully bought into this team and I'm sure I'm not the only person. They have been rolled most of the time they face a team above them in the standings and there's still something off with the team offensively this season. They just have the look and feel of one of those perennial non-top five draft pick and not quite good enough to make the playoffs teams right now and that's probably the least exciting place an organization can be.
