Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Welcome Back Scotter?


Sorry, kids, but this picture/title is a bit of an older reference, before my time, even.

At any rate, word on the web is that Scotty is considering coming back for another season, though for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to go to England. Severe anglophobia aside, this would be a tremendous development for the Ducks’ hopes of repeating.

The team went a whopping 54-13-12 last year when Niedermayer, Pronger, and Beauchemin all played, and that was before the addition of Schneidermayer. Plenty more to say about this, but I'll wait until speculation becomes fact.

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

i read that too...why not england?...sure they the most annoying accents....although not as bad as new yorkers...but... who cares...skip the first 10 or 20 if u want..just come back!!!

love the cartoon!!!

parrosnation!!!

Anonymous said...

You know, if the "Come back and (don't) think of England" rumor is real, that's really lame of Neidermayer. I'm getting kind of tired of older players (Clemens, Forsberg, Bonds) who make these kind of conditions for their comebacks. It's a team sport. If you don't want to deal with the hassles, don't come back. Go start a senior league or something, with a third of the games, and Lear Jets w/ jacuzzi's for all.

Earl Sleek said...

Well, he hasn't ruled out England completely yet, but even if he does, I'm willing to give him a pass on that.

2 seasons ago he did skip out on the Olympics for a knee issue and even though it was supposed to keep him out for 2 weeks of the season or so, he didn't miss a game--and wins were very critical then.

And last playoffs, didn't he play through a foot issue?

Scott's shown plenty of devotion to the team, I think. I won't hold it against him if he thinks he's not ready for two relatively unimportant games played on the other side of the Atlantic.

Anonymous said...

I just hate the precedent of cherry picking your season. I'm sure nobody wants to go on a 12 day road-trip through the upper mid west and Canada in February, but them's the breaks. When will it end, Earl? When will it end? And won't someone think of the children?

Earl Sleek said...

Yeah, it's a valid beef. But it's Scott, and at this point he could piss in my beer and I'd still beg him to come back.

C'mon, Scott. All you have to say is you're not going to England because of a nagging injury and nobody will think to question it.

Laura Lee said...

Yeah, well I AM paying big bucks to go see the 2 games in England (they are regular season games, within their own division, and do count, so why exactly are they unimportant?) and Scotty's getting PAID to play regular season games, which shouldn't be elective at the whim of the player so I've heard. I can understand him disliking this promo the NHL orchestrated, but the dude needs to buck up and behave like the team captain he is (was?) least his attitude becomes contagious. This is the NHL, NOT the NBA. You might be a little ticked off too if you'd ponied up 3K per person to see the Ducks v. Kings in England only to watch elite players bail.

Earl Sleek said...

Perfectly valid. You're not the only one I know who's going and who's pissed at this possible development. And certainly my view is affected by the fact that I'm not going.

But still, when you bought the tickets, it was done with the likelihood of only one Niedermayer (Rob) playing--so does this change things that much?

I'm certainly allowing for outrage, but it won't be coming from my lips.

dbushik said...

Well, like you guys point out though, it's about the fans desire to see him as opposed to team that is objectionable in terms of him cherry picking his season.

If you ask the team, I think to a man they will say they will take, and do so happily, whatever Nieds wants to give.

England is stupid. There, I said it. You take two West Coast team that already have the roughest schedules in terms of travel and you make them fly across the Atlantic and back to start the season? They each lose two games that are very short travel (against each other) in exchange for ridiculous amounts of travel.

Why not do this with two East teams who don't have to leave their own time zone but once in a blue moon?

Nothing at all personal, and I hope you have a blast going to England, but given the reality of the travel, complaining that players won't make it is not something I'm sympathetic with you over. Actually, it's probably in the teams best interest for guys, especially those longer in the tooth, not to go, so if you really have the teams best interest at heart, you should be encouraging them to cherry pick this one out.

Earl Sleek said...

England is stupid. There, I said it.

You probably missed the stupidest part, in my mind, which is to take two natural, easy-sell-out, fans-get-pumped games out of the U.S. schedule. What's the point in that?

Why not take two ho-hum games and ship 'em abroad? Kings-Wild, for example--neither side would particularly miss that home date from their schedule. It's not a huge event, but NHL-starved England would eat it up just as much.

I don't mean to demean Europe or anything, but it just seems like a strange choice of a series to displace.

Anonymous said...

Why not take two ho-hum games and ship 'em abroad?

Excuse me Earl? You did NOT just say that.

RudyKelly said...

Hey, I don't want to miss out on the Kings-Wild grudge match. Damn that Gaborik!

Marie said...

Laura Lee has a very good point. But even if she did buy her tix after hearing about Nieds possibly retiring it would still suck to know that he's on the team but because he doesn't feel like traveling she doesn't get to see him play in England. What if Pronger, Giguere and/or Selanne refused to go to England? I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of guys do not want to make the trip but they will because that's their job. Nieds not playing in the Olympics is different because it wasn't his job to play in the Olympics but it was his job to play in the NHL and I think he made the right decision.

They really should have made the England games between Montreal and Detroit, although I guess that violates the East/West matchup rules. Hmph...oh well.

Anonymous said...

Excellent work on the picture D-dil, especially with sneaky schneider.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, kids, but this picture/title is a bit of an older reference, before my time, even.

damn you Earl... now you are making me feel a lot older than I want to right now.


Anyway, I agree that the shipping of two West Coast teams across, what... six time zones for two games?... is ridiculous.
And as for Scott... I'd love to see him come back for another year but eventually Anaheim is going to have to get used to the fact that they won't have Scott around all the time to support the team. As for him playing or not playing in England... meh... it's only the Kings...

Doogie2K said...

Anyway, I agree that the shipping of two West Coast teams across, what... six time zones for two games?... is ridiculous.

Eight. Pacific time is eight hours behind Greenwich (i.e. England) time.

american oil said...

Ok, so agree with a lot but my issue with big names dropping out of a game such as this is that we are suppose to be promoting the NHL and the sport right? So doesn't the bigger names help to want to draw people in? So why market the games with a bunch of nobodys. Not that I am saying there are nobodys going to this one, because there are plenty of big names, but if we do allow the big names to cherry pick, then aren't we setting up a situation where we could spend all this time and money to try and get new fans with only little name players?

Earl Sleek said...

I don't buy it, A-Oil. If effective European promotion and new fans is really the goal, though, why not send Crosby or Ovechkin or any of the rest of the league's east-coast darlings? They get the majority of coverage that would be seen in Europe, I'd reckon (if it's anything like the U.S.).

Besides, those teams could fly to Europe and still have less air-miles than the Ducks or Kings after 82 games.

Whatever. I'm fine with it, I suppose, but I still think it's an odd choice of teams to send--SoCal and London are both to some degree getting cheated, but this is the NHL. What else is new?

RudyKelly said...

I'd just like to say that it's embarrassing for you, the reader, that the post with the Welcome Back, Kotter reference has the most comments of the summer.

*Shakes head sadly

american oil said...

I agree, I understand the whole, let the Stanley Cup Champions do it, but the Kings with them? Also I figured it would be better suited as exhibition games vs actual real season games. I just think the that thought process as a whole wasn't real thought out on this one.

RudyKelly said...

The way I see it, the Kings were going because AEG owns the new arena that they're playing in. They didn't want the game to look like a joke, so they sent the Kings' rival. It's the Kings' fault, not the Ducks'.

Marie said...

The way I see it, the Kings were going because AEG owns the new arena that they're playing in.

Exactly. Phil Anshutz (or however the hell he spells it) should have known that shipping his team to England for two games is not a good idea. I'm guessing it'll (possibly) make him more money by having the Kings play but it's still ridiculous. Does anyone know who had the final say in the "let's-have-regular-season games-in-England" business?

Bartcal said...

All I can say is it it had to be two West Coast teams, or even division rivals, I'm glad the Sharks aren't going - better the Ducks and the Kings. But that's just my opinion.