It's offseason, no more hockey stuff going on... except

[olivermoss]

* As a new hockey fan, CBC losing the NHL broadcast contract feels big? Is this as big as I feel it is?

* Torts fired

* I ship Oilers with misery, but not like this, damn. The Babcock stuff is bad, and not the fun kind of bad.

* Pdub draft is being dramatic, but things looking good for Seattle getting Laila Edwards

I'm probably forgetting like 5 things

Comments

[rekishi]

CBC still had the NHL in their programming? It sort of is a big deal, because CBC is public broadcasting. But ultimately, to my understanding they were only leasing Hockey Night in Canada anyway?

Torts just doesn't get a new contract, which is not quite the same. But yes. But I don't think Torts and Vegas are a good long term mix. Plenty of teams could need a Torts. The Oil would probably use a Torts. I do wonder what Vegas is going to do, though.

Speaking of:
I feel not bad at all for the Oil. They know, the players know, that Babcock is bad news. They could have saved themselves all this controversy. This whole thing since they asked Vegas to talk to Cassidy has been badly mismanaged.

[olivermoss]

NHL losing that reach in Canada of all places is going to be interesting. No more public access to Hockey Night in Canada

I don't feel bad for the star players, sounds like they asked for Babcock. But I don't think they should be able to inflict him on the rookies and non-star-players. We don't even know what he was fired for, turns out it wasn't the phone thing like people assumed. The NHL is having to re-open an old investigation over this. Babcock seriously fucked up some players who weren't big names.

Oilers management created their own mess, and made it worse and worse. I just don't want to see rookies get fucked over by it

[rekishi]

And Sportsnet is expensive, I looked up the price a while ago. Rogers could make another deal with some public broadcaster, idk. Guess we'll see.

Babs fucked up big names as well. He healthy scratched Mike Modano with 4 games left in his last NHL career year making him end his career at 1499 regular season games played. That was just Babs' power move, because he's that kind of asshole.

The investigation never happened, because he resigned, which is part of the whole problem. I'm pretty glad the union stepped in here.

[olivermoss]

I'm also glad the union is stepping in. But, the Oilers currently seem confident they'll get him.

I don't give a crap about the Oilers as an organization. I find out grimdark everything about them is. They're divisional rivals to my team. I want to see them fuck up, but not like this.

I only care about them as a team if they call up Prokop, and fuck I don't want him to have to deal with Babcock

[muccamukk]

CBC losing the contract is catastrophic for the CBC. I kind of wish it on NHL fans, but not on the network I rather like.

*looks up what's the matter with Babcock* Ah, yes, the shoot shovel and shut up approach to news about abusive men in sports. That one always works.

[olivermoss]

There's many things wrong with Babcock, and we don't even know what he was most recently fired for. It was a 'leave and the matter will be dropped' sort of a deal and he did leave for years. Now he's back and the NHL needs to proceed with the previously dropped investigation. We just assumed it was the whole 'airplaying player's private photos from their phones to a tv in the name of team bonding' thing. Turns out, that wasn't it at all.

[muccamukk]

Some shadowy thing that we're promised is worse than violating the privacy of and humiliating young men in his charge sure isn't making me feel better about Oilers' choices. It's such a small industry that I can't imagine they hadn't heard rumours at least.

[olivermoss]

I'm new, but it not being the phone thing seemed to come as a surprise to a lot of people. That being enough to boot him checked out with a lot of people. If there are rumors, I have no idea about them.

Yeah, don't want him near any team again. Really don't like that the Oiler's AHL farm team has the only openly gay man signed to an NHL contract. Don't want him near any player, but oh god, really don't want him near Prokop

[muccamukk]

Yeah, I hadn't heard anything either. I think news inside the league travels differently though, so I'd be 0% surprised if this wasn't the first the Oilers management had heard of whatever horrifying BS this is.

Anyway, he needs to go. I don't care how well past teams have done.

[olivermoss]

100% Agreed. I want him gone.