12/21/24
September 27, 2005
NHL Starting Over: As part of their 2005/2006 Season Preview, ESPN is making some "Greatest" lists. Yesterday was Greatest Players, today is Greatest Rivalies. Let the debates begin...
I remember the first time I in trouble for swearing...I was about 4 years old, and my mother heard me telling a friend about a game between the Wings and the Toronto Fucking Maple Leafs. How was I to know my grandfather added that second word? I also remember getting into an agrument with a drunk idiot back in '95, when the Wings/Avs rivalry was in its infancy. The Wings had just lost their first game against the Quebec transplants, and I was commenting on how tough they could be, having finished 1st in the East the season before. This moron at the end of the bar is spitting acid about the Wings losing to an "expansion team." Of course, being the helpful sort, I tried to set him right...which almost ended in a trip outside with the guy, because I guess he couldn't bear being wrong...
posted by MeatSaber at 07:57 PM on September 27, 2005
I truly enjoy the Bruins-Habs rivalry. I was born in '75, so I was too young to actually understand why Bruins fans hate Montreal, but my dad hated them with a passion usually reserved for rapists and war criminals, and I've been carrying on the tradition for years. You absorb a lot of your parents' attitudes towards others. Saku Koivu is my favorite Canadien. He's a totally classy guy, a great leader, and had the heart and guts to beat cancer and return to the NHL. Great guy, right? He might be my favorite Hab, but I still hate Saku Koivu. A lot. Thank God my dad wasn't a huge bigot or anything, or I'd probably be wearing white sheets to weekly meetings. I hope that's not true. I'm lucky enough to have inherited an unnnatural and unreasonable hatred of another class of people that has little or no bearing on anyone's real life, so I guess I got that going for me. Great. Another issue to work out with my counsellor. Thanks, guys.
posted by Samsonov14 at 10:10 PM on September 27, 2005
Is the Toronto/Ottawa rivalry really that big? As a Toronto fan, it just seems that Toronto teaches them a lesson every year in the playoffs, and the Senators just take it like good little boys. I get the feeling it's one of those one-way rivalries, where one city has a hate-on for another. Sort of like Edmonton has for Dallas...
posted by grum@work at 12:29 AM on September 28, 2005
Yes - a rivalry in its infancy at best right now. I still love the classic Montreal/Toronto showdowns. I live in a house with 2 transplanted Montrealers and even the pre-season games are fodder for arguing. That's how I know hockey's back - totally unecessary infighting over meaningless games. Side note: Both these teams don't look like much this year.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 07:37 AM on September 28, 2005
Maybe it is one-way, grum. But when you see your young, entertaining, speedy, skilled, smartly managed, drafted-and-developed roster lose three times to a team which has no administrative commitment to serious winning and consists entirely of aging fan favourites long past their prime—it's not right, dammit, but it sure stirs up rivalry-brand emotions.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 08:28 AM on September 28, 2005
lose three times Four times. The Leafs have knocked the Senators out of the playoffs 4 times in the past 5 years. Just saying... /needle needle poke poke
posted by grum@work at 08:53 AM on September 28, 2005
Rivalries? The NHL has dropped the ball, (puck), when it comes to rivalries. No more true original 6 Home & Home matchups. No more original 6 facing each other at least ONCE during the season. If they can schedule a complete day of Canadian teams facing each other, (which I wholeheartedly support, encourage, and toast numerous times to during the day), why can't they have done it with the Original 6? Have I gone overboard with this Original 6 shtick, possibly, but that is tradition. And rivalries? This Friday may be the last time Stevie Y leads my Wings vs the Laughs, and it's only a preseason game. No Detroit/Toronto in hockey? Might as well have no Yankees/Red Sox?
posted by RedStrike at 08:58 AM on September 28, 2005
Yeah, I know. But I didn't covert to a hockey fan until 2001, the year in which I was first exposed to EA Sports' NHL 2002, so I can't count the first one on my own personal record.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 08:58 AM on September 28, 2005
I didn't covert to a hockey fan until 2001, the year in which I was first exposed to EA Sports' NHL 2002 That steaming pile got you interested in hockey???? Please, don't let that get back to Bettman and Co...or they'll get the idea that crappy video games bring in new fans...
posted by MeatSaber at 09:07 AM on September 28, 2005
Yeah, actually. Although once I got past the video game and got into actual hockey, I never was able to go back, especially because the subtleties of the manual deke weren't quite refined enough yet. There were also political reasons. I'd just moved to Toronto, and needed new ways to fight the machine, so becoming a Sens fan seemed reasonable.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 09:22 AM on September 28, 2005
TrapperJohn, you surprise me. Could've sworn you were a Leafs fan.
posted by garfield at 09:39 AM on September 28, 2005
I get the feeling it's one of those one-way rivalries, where one city has a hate-on for another. Sort of like Edmonton has for Dallas... Cheers, grum!
posted by Ufez Jones at 09:46 AM on September 28, 2005
That steaming pile got you interested in hockey???? Please, don't let that get back to Bettman and Co...or they'll get the idea that crappy video games bring in new fans... It works. The good ole' NHL 95' for the sega (genesis?) got me hooked on hockey and the Bruins because I thought their logo was cool...
posted by jmd82 at 11:49 AM on September 28, 2005
NHL '95 wasn't a steaming pile though. It kicked much ass at the time. Mike Gartner was unstoppable!
posted by fabulon7 at 12:30 PM on September 28, 2005
I also played Blades of Steel, although it did not have quite the same effect on me.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 01:05 PM on September 28, 2005
BLADES. OF. STEEL!!! Say it right.
posted by yerfatma at 01:46 PM on September 28, 2005
You can buy the Genesis version of NHL 96 as a stand-alone video game for your TV. It comes with two controllers you plug into the A/V port of your TV and you can start playing. However, they've lost the rights to use the names from that season, so every player is just a number. Otherwise, I'd be ALL over that in a heartbeat. "Make his head bleed!"
posted by grum@work at 06:10 PM on September 28, 2005
I still love the classic Montreal/Toronto showdowns. I live in Montréal, and we couldn't care less about the Maple Leafs. This rivalry may have thrived back in the days, before the Révolution Tranquille and the Parti Québécois, but it died with the 21-team league where Toronto was in a different conference. For the last ten years (since the Nordiques' move, incidentally), the CBC/SRC has been trying to ressurect it, but from where I stand, it is now a total fabrication. The only real rivalry I have lived is the one with the Québec Nordiques, which is correctly mentioned in the linked article. Everyone in Montréal has family in Québec, and vice versa, so it made for very interesting Christmas dinners. Oh, and the Habs also beat the Bruins almost every year in the playoffs, but this is so one-sided you can't call it a rivalry.
posted by qbert72 at 08:05 AM on September 29, 2005
I miss the good old Norris division rivalries. Toronto vs Detroit was a great rivalry in the early 90s, when both teams were on the up and up. Toronto + Chicago was great too. And then they had to get rid of the goddamn division, move the Leafs out to the east, and have seasons go by without the Leafs playing the Wings ONCE (like this fucking year -- a season without Yzerman playing in Toronto is not a season at all!)
posted by mkn at 12:20 AM on September 30, 2005
So qbert, who are the Habs' current big rivalry, then? The Leafs have Ottawa, the Devils, Detroit when they play, and, as far as they care, your Habs. What do they have?
posted by chicobangs at 02:04 AM on September 30, 2005
Boston is the big rivalry. As Senators fans will confirm, rivalries are built by repetitive playoff matchups. The Habs meet the Bruins almost every year, so there. It would just help if the yellow-jerseyed guys could swing a series win once in a while instead of just injuring our guys. As a qualifier to my previous statement, I have no idea how English Montreal feels towards the Maple Leafs. Maybe there is a more vivid rivalry there.
posted by qbert72 at 07:06 AM on September 30, 2005
I grew up being taught to hate Gretzky. He's not a real hockey player. He can't fight or hit. I never was one to be told how to think, but those stinkin' Oilers would always beat my childhood home Calgary Flames. Until that one fortunate break-out pass off the back of Grant Fuhr's left heel. The Battle of Alberta remains one of the best regular season match-ups, and after the Canucks/Flames series of last, last year's playoffs, there is talk of making this a three way struggle. Don't know what you'd call that rivalry, but having three elite teams out west would rock.