sure it's just a few games and the Bulls & the rest of the league don't start until tomorrow...but

Heat/Celtics
Suns/Blazers
Rockets/Lakers

not a bad way to start off

only a few hours away!!!!

Nobody better bother me tonight (not that anybody would anyway ).

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

So I shouldn't come by with a bag of weed and a pack of papers?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Well, on the other hand....

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

Weed and NBA go together like pancakes and sizzurp

Damn I really miss the sticky icky

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"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."

Your job must do drug testing, right?

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

yessir i'm also on the firefighter list so i cant take that chance

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"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."

did you guys get in last week at .24 cents per share?

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Oh how sweet it would be to have a commissioner who wasnt boo'd everywhere he went...

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

Serious question:

Do NHL fans hate Gary Bettman solely because of the lockout or are there other reasons as well?

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

No a lot of it has to do with the rapid expansion in the late 90s when he tried to introduce hockey to the south, which hasn't really done too well; and at the same time it deluded the league with subpar teams. But it wasn't just expansion teams, he took popular existing teams in Canada(and Minnesota) and decided to move those to warm weather climates as well, displacing many smaller loyal fan-bases in favor of larger markets.

And then you have the tv situation. Imagine having to watch a basketball game on the outdoor life network, now try to imagine trying to get exposure from new prospective fans on the outdoor life network. Now try to imagine trying to get new fans to watch the outdoor life network after your league hasn't played a damn game in more than a year. Bad, bad foresight.

This league did absolutely nothing in the late 90's and early 2000's in terms of marketing, there was basically no plan other than hoping that all these new markets would catch on. So once there was a lockout, you had already lost a good portion of fans, with no new ones coming in.

The only thing that saved this league is the rule changes and the absolutely remarkable talent that came out of some of those drafts between 2003-2007. But even still despite this 'resurgence' (term being used loosely) there are still fears of upcoming labor disputes (3rd times the charm for ol Gary) and a possible lockout... Again. I'm too young to speak of a fall from grace, but I've heard accounts of how popular hockey used to be, and to think of how far it has fallen because of the decisions of one guy really hurts.

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

There was an SI cover story circa 1993 or 94 talking about how the ratings on ESPN for hockey were on par with the NBA's for basketball. This was right around the time that Montreal beat LA for the Stanley Cup. I think the title was actually "Will the NHL overtake the NBA in popularity?" or something along those lines. Then there was the first lockout, followed by the movement crosscheck mentioned (Winnipeg to Phoenix being the biggest pisser; I don't necessarily mind the Quebec to Colorado move), but the aggressive expansion to non-cold weather locations really hurt. The rules changes of the 90's that made it such a defensive league (pad expansion for goalies being a big one) made the game fairly boring for the layman to watch. The rules changes to make the league more o-ffensive, coupled with young players that have become the faces of the league (Crosby, Ovechkin, Kaner, etc), along with the exposure the sport has gotten with the Olympics, there is a bit of a comeback happening. Getting the contract moved from VS will be big, but as much as I love the game, there has been what may be irreparable damage done by the former NBA legal consultant.

Did I mention that David Stern dispatched Gary Bettman to destroy the NHL?

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Oh yeah, he is a complete fucking pushover as well. How he could let any market, let alone one as big as Chicago, not air its home games is so fucking ridiculous...


The owners fucking play toy...

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team Mully & Hanley
team Meatpants

What I love is if you look at the NHL Commissioner Wikipedia page, one of the reasons he was chosen for the job is that it was though he would be able to modernize the thinking of the "old guard" owners, which as we all know is a complete fucking joke.

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Thanks for the insight guys.

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Kid Cairo's Boers & Bernstein YouTube Channel

Kid Cairo: 2013 March Madness Tournament Winner!

"Cowabunga? Cowa fucking piece of dog shit! This game is diarrhea coming out of my dick!"

yeah, thanks for starting a hockey discussion in my jubilant NBA OPENING NIGHT THREAD, jackass

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Did I mention that David Stern dispatched Gary Bettman to destroy the NHL?[/quote]
Could he maybe send him to the Middle East next to work on that whole Palestine/ Israel thing then?

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.