Off Wing Opinion

A couple of weeks back I downloaded a copy of Sports Interactive's NHL Eastside Hockey Manager. After playing with the demo for a few days, I was happy to lay down the cash in order to keep playing.

Looks like my sale was one of the few:

Football Manager developer Sports Interactive have given up on their Eastside Hockey Management series, blaming piracy for the series' failure. The manager title was supposed to offer hockey fans what the Football Manager games give soccer fans, but that now looks unlikely.

In the wake of a final update for the game, SI boss Miles Jacobson made a forum post revealing the difficulties hindering the game. SI state that while the game has been reviewing well, sales simply haven't justified further iterations, even in the Nordic countries where the title was predicted to succeed.

"The sales in Scandinavia, that had pretty much kept the game going, dropped heavily, from our analysis of the situation, mainly due to the game getting hacked before release, and pirated," the MD lamented.

"We had more licences than any other hockey game in history, it was the best Hockey management game in the history of gaming ever, and Riz and his team had done an amazing job. So, despite Hockey being a bit less popular post the hiatus of the sport in the US in 2004, we still couldn't fail, right?"

"Wrong."

More details here. Though I own a PS2, I've never been much of an arcade game fanatic. I've always been more partial to strategy games, which is what made Eastside Hockey Manager so attractive. Here I could manage contracts against the cap, scout players, negotiate contracts and even manage on-ice strategy without having to worry about my lack of fast twitch muscle mass in my hands.

Guess I'll just have to learn to enjoy what I've got.

Lyle Richardson remembers.

My old podcasting pal, Rob Visconti, has decided to step away from the keyboard. And while he hedges a little bit in an update to his farewell, he should walk away without any regrets.

His tribute to his father belongs in the sports blogging Hall of Fame. Good luck, buddy. And feel free to come back anytime.

Thanks to Sharkspage and On The Forecheck to remind us all that when it comes to Hockey blogging, there is nothing new under the sun.

The Real Deal is defending those "rowdy" traveling Sabres fans:

In the end hockey is intense and hockey fans can also be intense and away game hockey fans

Had to love this entry from Mark Cuban over at Blog Maverick:

The NHL Beats College Basketball in the Ratings The NHL on NBC beat College Basketball on CBS, 1.1 to .70 Is College Basketball doomed ? Does no one care anymore about college basketball ? Is the NHL on a resurgent climb ? (This just in, NHL was up again to 1.3 on NBC) Is NBC just really good ? Are both great sports in a crowded market ? Stay tuned

Something to think about. Thanks to Paul Kukla for the pointer.

Thanks to Jes Gőlbez for calling this to my attention.

If I Were a Hockey Player:

Team: Washington Capitals
Uniform Number: 17 (Clarkie would just have to give it up)
Position: Right Wing
Nickname: Big Mac
Dream Linemates: Bryan Trottier at center, Alex Ovechkin at left wing.
Rounding out the PP: Bobby Orr and Scott Stevens.
Job: King of the garbage goal. Penalty killer.
Signature Move: My lethal backhand.
Strengths: Clearing the puck out of the defensive zone on the penalty kill without shooting it into the crowd
Weaknessess: Too many to list.
Injury Problems? Back, groin.
Equipment: Jofa helmet, half-shield, Ulf Samuelsson-style. Easton aluminum stick.
Nemesis: Eklund.
Scandal Involvement: I am so on board with Chelios and the NHLPA rebels.

Who I'd face in the Stanley Cup Finals: The Chicago Blackhawks. They were the best fans in the Western Conference once and they will be again.

What I'd do with the Stanley Cup after our victory: Parade it down the main drag of my hometown on Long Island. It would probably be the only chance they'll ever have to see the Cup again.

Would the media love me or hate me? The local bloggers would have me on the bus to Hershey every weekend.

No worries on the tagging -- everybody is welcome to climb on board.

UPDATE: Do you have answers of your own? Send them to me by email and I'll include them after the jump. I see Earl Sleek has already jumped into the fray. Also, check out Murph at Islanders Army.

I never thought of this. From Dan Wetzel at yahoo sports,

"Of course, already fans who are carrying even a few extra pounds report that they look ridiculous in the new form fitting jerseys, which has led to predictions of plummeting apparel sales and jokes about how Bettman hatched the idea after watching George Costanza comically change the New York Yankees' uniforms to cotton."

Thanks to the dogged Robert Lefebvfe for translating another classic from the Montreal Journal.

It's always a good day to watch the final few minutes of Game Eight of the 1972 Summit Series between the USSR and Canada:

Gotta love how the clip comes complete with 1970s-style interference.

From KRISTV.com:

No matter how their rosters change, the Rayz and the Laredo Bucks never have gotten along. After Sunday night's game, they may never be civil again.

Their longtime rivalry got ugly at the American Bank Center. With the top two teams in the CHL's southern conference meeting up, you knew the tensions would be high, but nobody expected a night like this.

Laredo's Kris Mallette touched off a brawl for the record books. He goes after Rayz forward Jason Baird, setting off a chain reaction all around the rink. Both benches get involved in this one and more than a 100 penalty minutes are assessed. Keep in mind this all comes on Rayz Family Day.

They've got video at that link too. If you'd like to watch a complete highlight reel, click here for some YouTube action. Thanks to Mike Anderson for the links.

Greg Logan, the Islanders beat writer for Newsday, gave an interview to Sports Media Guide recently. There's plenty of interesting insight, including this part of the Q&A that caught my eye:

Q. Advice to youngsters trying to break into the business?

A. Any technological expertise you can bring to the business and incorporate into your blogging undoubtedly will help with your exposure. And speaking Spanish would be an excellent tool to have if you want to be a baseball writer. But don't expect the kind of long careers that my generation has enjoyed because the field is changing at an accelerating pace into something unrecognizable from when I began.

I've talked about this with Tarik el-Bashir of the Post from time to time. The media business is going through a very rough patch right now where reporters are expected to produce more with less in order to keep their jobs. But what may be most distressing is the fact that profit margins have become so squeezed that the career endgame for a lot of reporters is becoming pretty murky.

I take a look at the league's decision to stick with the unbalanced schedule for one more season as well as some All-Star Game fallout and some other odds and ends.

Are Buffalo Sabres fans boorish or just misunderstood? That's a topic we first picked up on Saturday night and then re-examined on Sunday with the help of readers Josh Crockett and Michael Turner. Today, long-time Off Wing reader Christopher Klejdys, a Buffalo native now living in the Washington area, offers up his explanation for what's going on with the fan base in Buffalo:

[I]t's great to see our fanbase has become excited about the Sabres. This can best be exemplified by our 7.1 share rating during the boring NHL All-Star game - by FAR the highest in the league. Dallas, for example, had .5 rating. It's true - normal Buffaloians are hooked on hockey and they LOVE their Sabres. As a DC resident with immediate family still up in the Buffalo area (who are seasonticket holders, mind you), I can speak with some authority on both the E. Conference Finals last year (games 1 and 7 in CAR) and the Caps/Sabres game this year in DC (as I attended all three). Our fans can be boorish, no doubt - there are bad apples in every barrel - and for good or bad, we are like Pittsburgh's little brother in some respects (except for the glaring lack of titles). I think this probably makes our fanbase a bit more defensive than most. That being said, the passion is being felt this year. The playoffs last year were a wake up call to the community of Buffalo that we really had something special going on (recall last year we only sold out our last 15 games or so) - so it took some time for the city to get reacquainted with the new ownership group. With the commitment and hard work shown by Golisano and Regier - the city has fallen in love again - more so than even in the late 90s with Hasek (if only because everyone knew the guy was batsh*t crazy).

This team has come to represent this town - especially after the 5+ years of digging out from the Donahoe rubble with the Bills - who haven't sniffed the playoff since the halcyon Wade Phillips days of '99-00.

SO, with that pre-history in mind (see Kevin's posts at Bfloblog for further background), you have a football town going all the way with its men on the ice. This results in behavior that may be okay in a football stadium (tailgating, etc.) but is not really at home or welcome in an ice rink. Sabres fans in Carolina numbered about 1500 to 2000 from my estimates in game 1 (there were tickets still available the day before the game) - with a little less by the time game 7 rolled around.

What astonishes most Buffalo fans are that other fanbases aren't as passionate as we are - but that's to be expected. Hockey has been in the weeds of Buffalo since 1971. DC, CAR and CLB have their own reasons why the passion of their fanbases doesn't run as deep.

Furthermore, Sabres fans are well aware of what happens when boorish outsiders arrive at an arena and stir things up. Leafs fans in Southern Ontario aren't the most genial of jokers. Years of owning them at HSBC hasn't detracted from their passion and general douchebaggery. Therefore, you learn from those around you - and we may have learned well.

By Thankgiving of this year, our season ticket base, by my count, only allowed 2500 Leaf fans in for the game. That's astonishing, compared to games last year where it just about 1:1. We're not the only asshats in the league who do this, apparently.

All of this doesn't change the fact that some of our fans, after driving down from Buffalo (or living around the area) acted like Aholes at the game at the C-bus game OR the DC Caps game. That beind said, that's just some of them. After a few beers, I know I was yelling at Ovechkin's hit on Briere like a dang fool.

But I'll be damned if the same fans don't make the experience fun for the whole arena. That Caps game in DC was the most emotional I've seen Caps fans since the 2003 series against TB when the team folded up like cardboard. In Columbus on Friday night, the announcers constantly referred to the "playoff" atmosphere and "how things will be like this come playoff time' in Columbus if they ever make it (and I hope they do - they are a loyal fanbase for all stuff they've gone through).

So, let's not lose site of what's important here - we have a lot of dedicated fans, showing up at road arenas 5-6 hours away, and we are looking for incident reports? Come on. It's a hockey game - you drink, you cheer - you offer the occasional insult, you walk away. If it gets more serious than that (and no doubt it might've), you get security. (I see the Apr. 2nd game's start of 1pm to maybe cut down on this - recall the 8pm start against the Caps here in December). That's my choice.

OR, some bloggers can do nothing - then whine on your blog about it, get some free press for it, look like a wuss and make sweeping generalizations about an entire fanbase. Either or.

Thanks to Chris for a note that provides some interesting background.

Check out all the shots from Saturday night's game against the Hurricanes here.

I got a pair of emails over yesterday's post about the rampage conducted by some visiting Sabres fans in Columbus last week. First, here's our old buddy Josh Crockett -- check out his own photo gallery from last night's Caps-'Canes game -- talking about what the Buffalo fans were like during last year's Eastern Conference Finals:

Sabres fans set all kinds of local records for mayhem at the RBC Center last year -- something like 10 arrests during Games 1 and 2 of the ECF, after there'd never been more than a handful in the nine-year Carolina tenure of the franchise before that series. Maybe it's the bandwagoners, but the past couple of years they've been awful.

Now here's an email from Michael Turner from Army Of The Ohio:

[W]hat GV Media said in his blog is just about dead on. These Sabres fans who made the trip, for the most part, were beyond reproach. Not only that, but when I spoke with my retail manager at Nationwide the following day when I went to work the Minnesota Wild game here, I heard more stories about how cars were found with smashed windows around the Arena District and the arena parking lot, how beer bottles and cans and remnants of six-packs were strewn around the rear end of the Arena. Yeah, the Arena District is a night life type of place, but a lot of the post-game issues were not of the normal variety.

Definitely not a good time. Atmosphere during the periods? Playoffs. Between periods and at the end? Soccer hooligans hopped up on speed.

When Buffalo visited Washington earlier this season, the arena was absolutely revved up by the presence of the Sabres fans. But I was inside the arena all game long and didn't leave until well after the game was over. Did I miss anything while I was inside?

This is the Capital's fifth goal of the game, scored by Beech.

More pics after the jump.

Here's the Caps celebrating their fourth goal of the night

One more pic after the jump.

Here's the Capital's first goal of the night.

More pics after the jump.

After last night's 6-2 drubbing at the hands of the Hurricanes, the two teams head back to Verizon Center to do it again tonight. I'll be in the box and both Ellen Blanchard and Allen Clark out of town, photo intern Kate McGovern will be at ice level taking pictures.

We're getting an early start today, so previews for tonight's game are a bit threadbare, then again, the Official Game Day Thread by Netsrak tends to encompass far more than just tonight's game. Be sure to check it out.

NHL.com
Mike Vogel
Capital Fanatic
Capitals Corner
Southeast Shootout Open Thread

Bonus Links: Pollin Asks D.C. To Pay For Verizon Center Renovations and Jakub Klepis This Is Your Life.

More later.

UPDATE: Greetings from Verizon Center. The big news on arrival was the demotion of Jakub Klepis to Hershey before the game, with big winger Eric Fehr taking his place on the roster. It's safe to say Glen Hanlon gave Klepis better than a fair chance to claim a role on this team, yet he kept fumbling away his opportunities -- never moreso than last night when he committed consecutive penalties in the second period of last night's loss to Carolina. While Fehr will be available to play tonight, there's no word yet as to whether or not he'll be in the lineup.

More in a bit.

UPDATE: No starting lineups yet, though Fehr has dressed and is on the ice for the pre-game warmup wearing #14. Plenty of scouts are up on the press level tonight: Dale Tallon and Rick Dudley from Chicago; Dave Brown from Philly; and Nick Beverly from Nashville.

STARTING LINEUPS: CAROLINA: G: Ward; D: Seidenberg and Tanabe; W: Williams and Whitney; C: Brind'Amour. CAPS: G: Kolzig; D: Morrisonn and Eminger; W: Sutherby and Pettinger; C: Gordon.

SCRATCHES: CAROLINA: Wallin and Letowki. CAPS: Pothier and Bradley.

Nothing else earth shaking right now. Puck drops in less than seven minutes. I'll see you immediately after the game with the first recap out of Verizon Center, and then after the postgame presser.

Recap is after the jump.

Normally, I think of Buffalo fans as being a pretty sedate and decent lot. But this report out of Columbus runs against form.

Thanks to reader Michael Peel for the pointer.

Back in December, Diane Roberts of Fox 5 here in Washington interviewed me for a feature on how the Washington Capitals are reaching out to fans by working with bloggers. After a couple of false alarms, the feature finally ran yesterday on the 5 O'Clock News. Click here for the video.

Thursday afternoon Dan Gilbert, majority owner of the NBA

Brendan Shanahan says that the league needs to take another look at goalie equipment before enlarging the size of the nets to increase scoring.

George Malik at Kukla's Korner says Shanny is putting the safety of goalies at risk:

When I spoke to TPS Hockey

Even the NHL's leading scorer can't get around the underage drinking laws in the great state of Texas.

Thanks to Robert Lefebvfe for the English translation. As I told Robert, we need more bilingual hockey bloggers.

Craig Custance, the new beat writer for the Atlanta Thrashers over at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, kicked off a debate about blogger access inside the NHL a couple of days back. There's not a whole lot of new territory being explored, but it's still worth checking out.

My old friend Ben Wright, now working for the Thrashers inside their online operation passed along this note:

Interesting timing. We're having a blogger night tomorrow night [That's Firday -- EMc]. A dozen or so bloggers will be coming to the game and watching from the press box and then going to the post-game press conference. It'll all be supervised, and nobody has credentials, but we're hoping it will get more people blogging.

That group is going to include Jennifer Bowman, who I met when the Thrashers visited D.C. a couple of weeks back.

So in a way, this debate is academic. The bloggers are already inside the wire. The question now is what happens next.

One disturbing piece of news: Our old pal Eklund actually participated in an event in conjunction with the Professional Hockey Writers Association (a group with no online presence) in order to present "the view of the bloggers."

A note to hockey writers around the country: Eklund doesn't represent anyone except himself. And while there are plenty of folks who blog anonymously for a whole host of reasons, Eklund is the only one who continually abuses the cloak of anonymity in order to deceive.