Do You Believe in Miracles ... Ye ... Well, Do You?

• penn didn't do anything to win ufc 112. i hope li'l frankie takes him out this time

• @ thefncrow - genius handle BTW I think what Razor meant was the big break as in halftime. The understanding was that there will be commercial breaks etc. but when he was relaying this to the Musers he was referencing trying to keep his young(?) daughters' attention during a longer break with hockey having 2 of them. Believe me, I'm no fan of the NFL kick commercial tackle commercial injury commercial etc. I can fight through that but to have two 30 or so minute total stopdowns is hard for the average American to deal with IMO

• I'm just posting this so a hockey thread will have more posts (13), than an thread about 3rd tier Maverick has-been centers (12).

• rofm, on those stats saying the NFL only has 20 minutes of downtime, I'd have to see some numbers on that. There was a recent study of NFL games that revealed that the average game had only 11 minutes of action in the entire game. 60% of the airtime, excluding the commercials, was taken up by shots of players milling around or in the huddle, or waiting at the line of scrimmage. There's more time devoted to replays than there is actual game action. In three hours, roughly, of airtime, you get 11 minutes of football, 17 minutes of replays, 60 minutes of commercials, and 67 minutes of players in huddles, players waiting for the ball to be snapped, etc. The rest of the time goes to things like camera shots of coaches, shots of referees, celebrations, recap packages of previous highlights, players on the sideline, highlights of other games, and so on. So this idea that an NFL game only has 20 minutes of downtime sounds really wrong. I might believe it if he said the NFL had 50 minutes of downtime, but not the other way around. Frankly, the only way to get that sort of intensity out of an NHL game is the same way we currently get that sort of intensity out of NHL games. It's not unheard of, it just happens once a year for a month or two. It's playoff overtime hockey. What's the similarity? No TV timeouts. You'd be hard pressed to find any media outlets willing to run hockey games on a regular basis, though, if you mandated they showed each period without commercial interruption.

• Memo to the NHL - screw tradition. Hockey without intensity is like the Cowboys' Ring of Honor without Drew Pearson - not right. Those guys can't bring it 82 times a year then another potential 24+ playoff games. 1) Contract - Columbus Blue Jackets? Nashville Predators? Come on. 16 teams heavy in the NE and Canada 2) 42 game season. 2 games a week. Period. 3) Two 30 minute halves. Same amount of total playing time. You don't lose your historic record keeping. Razor once did the math. NFL game - total down time was about 20 something minutes. NHL game - total down time was in the 50s. It can't work. That last 5 minutes of the US/Canada was as intense as any sporting event I've seen. See above for a way to try to duplicate some of that intensity. I'm going to write a book (RW - any interest) about the 1980 Miracle on Ice arguably being the greatest event (period) that's ever happened to this country - given the context. As with every peak there's a fall on the other side. It also was the beginning of the end of the United States reign over the world (see where we are 30 years later). The downslide commenced with boycotting the '80 games in Moscow.

• If we don't win a medal this game will be for naught, yes we beat Canada but in reality they were not that good buddy... like Rhyner says, the Olympics are so overrated and most will have forgotten this in a year or so... how many people still think that in 80 when we beat the Russians we won the Gold

• Well, actually, strike that on the Russia/Czechs front. I could swear it was MSNBC(because I don't remember switching stations between when that game ended and US/Canada began), but I may be wrong about that.

• cactusflinthead, actually, MSNBC showed Russia/Czechs live. I know, because I watched it. Apparently, I've heard from people that they showed all or part of Russia/Czechs tape delayed on NBC, so that might have been the tape delayed broadcast you saw. NBC's reason for not showing the hockey games live is pretty simple, once you watch a game live and figure out what's going on. The rules appear to not allow for TV timeouts. This is a great thing for hockey fans, because it means that the intensity just builds and builds with the only breaks in the action occurring at stoppages of play, which are brief. Accordingly, it means that from the opening faceoff until the end of the period, there's no time in there at all to break for commercials. That's 20+ minutes without a commercial. NBC seems to be running commercials after 3-4 minutes of actual content. NBC is looking to air sports that let them maximize their commercial time, and hockey is simply not that sport.

• The fact that it was available live is about the best I could ask. I was all ready to have them tell me it was going to be tape delayed. Face the fact that just as RW reminded us a week or so back, hockey barely registers on the sports radar. It does well in Canada, but so does curling. The extremely gay ice dancing gets better ratings. That's all there is to it. HD? Hell I am glad it was on the tube at all. The matinee game was the Russians and Czechs. They had curling on MSNBC at the same time. Ok, well that is a no brainer. Hockey goes to the main stage. But the ladies love the figure skating and dancing and it is the frau that drives the bus on ratings for that. If there were more humans that drove ratings then hockey might make it to the single digit stations, but that ain't too likely to happen. American Idol and ice dancing are damn near on the same level for causing me bodily harm . But, there are millions of ladies out there that thoroughly disagree with me and they outnumber us hockey fans. I was 12 sitting on the couch at my house when the Miracle on Ice happened. Yeah it still gives me chills after all these years.

• Agreed just thinkin', NBC screwed up big time not showing <em>THE PREMIER GAME OF THE NIGHT</em> on their main station. There's no excuse, especially since they've been riding the "20 Year Anniversary of Miracle on Ice" garbage for weeks now. Sadly, if anything, this is just more proof of the giant mountain that the NHL is trying to climb. When you can't get a pumped up matchup with that much attention on national television in prime time, your sport is in trouble. You got beat by figure skating and speed skating; that's sad :(.

• Oh yeah, I remember watching this game on TV. Jim Craig was a wall. He was fantastic. I don't remember much about the game against Finland, though I watched it too, but this game was amazing.

• I think the real question about last night's game is why the hell we had to watch bobsledding instead of this fantastic game. On MSNBC...NOT in hi-def (at least on DirecTV). This helps the NHL grow their game in what way??? We get Russia and whoever the hell they played on NBC but no Canada/US. The last 5 minutes was as exciting and intense hockey as has ever been played. Glad NBC gave us bobsledding and ice dancing instead. Great call, DICK Ebersol.

• Great game last night. I love Olympic hockey. It's like watching an All-Star game that actually counts.

• Yep...couldn't do it. Goosebumps

• The world is coming to an end: The New York Yankees have reportedly agreed to terms with pitcher Chan Ho Park on a one-year contract.

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