Fillpula is gonna have a breakout year.

Leafs 2-0 for the first time since 1999. Versteeg is quite the addition.

Bullshit. The people who bought 20.9 million tickets last season disagree, too. The NBA's attendance was better by ~187,000.

Yeah, Gary Bettman is f***ing clueless when it comes to marketing the game, knowing the importance of ESPN, etc; but just because it doesn't make headlines over pictures of Brett Favre's cock doesn't mean no one would notice if it went away.

See "Gary Bettman is f***ing clueless"... I agree that it's a good opportunity. As far as being one less thing to compete with, the NFL is obviously the big one. I think the contract with Versus is done after this year, so if the NFL went on strike (and even if it didn't) there's a HUGE opportunity to sign with ESPN and bring back hockey a couple times a week on ESPN and/or ESPN2.

I think it's in the same realm as football (well, unless you're comparing it to the Missouri Mavericks, because that's bad hockey ;) ). It's just not as exciting to Joe Fan because of the lack of scoring, even though there can easily be 60+ chances per game.

The UNO Mavericks beat RIT (who was in the Frozen Four last year) tonight.... UNO was down 2-0 after 1, and scored 3 in the 3rd to win 5-3. They also killed a 5 minute major that included 1:51 of 5 on 3.

When I started going to games a few years ago, I could tell right away they were the perennial scrappy/.500 team that was nothing more or less than a pain in the as to their conference. They hired Dean Blais last year, who won NCs at North Dakota, and coaching matters. It's crazy how much they've changed in one season plus 2 games.... aggressive 2-line passing, great in-game adjustments, a lot of energy.

They've come close to selling out the Qwest Center a couple of times since I've been going to games, but this weekend there were probably ~5-6000 people at each game.... it'll catch on though.

Avalanche & Red Wings on Versus at 6:30ct.

Jesus, I wish KC had a hockey team.

however, i'm happy with the Topeka Roadrunners for now. :)

http://www.topekaroadrunners.com

Yes! Yes! Let's go Red Wings!!!!!!! Beat the Avholes!

Its on Versus, which if NBC and Comcast could work its way up to being a threat to ESPN.

It is weird.... new uniform, same hatred. :)

Pretty good first period. I thought the Detroit goal was mostly on Budai - he seems to let in at least one soft goal about every game. The Avs really controlled the puck for most of the period, but they're pretty bad about letting quick rushes go the other direction. And that's not a good way to play against the Wings.

Nice to see David Jones get a goal, too.

Yeah, they make it interesting on both ends of the ice.... 3-2 after 2.

It's good to see how many different guys are scoring for the Avs. So far, Stasny's the only one who has more than one goal. Other than that, it's been a lot of spreading the love around.

That said, they need to toughen up on defense. They have too many shifts where they just let guys walk through the middle.

It's time for the Wings to smack them around.

Well, they did (literally).

Yea I didn't exactly mean like that.