Tennis Baseball and some hockey (Penguins)

Penguins

Tennis Baseball and some hockey

By Ryan Wilson

Sep 6, 2017 • 12:35 pm

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Hey, no Penguins news so here's yet another mailbag

I think the deal will end up in the neighborhood of 8 years at ten million per season. The Sabres committed an entire season to tank for Connor McDavid. A huge reason for their commitment to losing was the fact they were guaranteed Jack Eichel if they finished in last. Eichel is not McDavid, but he is really good and if you are going to waste an entire season for a specific player you might as well make him happy and pay him. His best years are in front of him and he is going to continue to get better each of the next few seasons.

I certainly enjoyed NHL 94. When I was at our local rink I liked playing Hit the Ice at the arcade and then when it came out on SNES. Ice Hockey was my favorite NES game. Blades of Steel is fine, but I hated that you couldn't aim your shot on your own because of the arrow thing.

In college NHL 2004 was the go to game. Me and my friend would be the Rangers and work people over online to the point nobody would play us because of our record so we had to come up with offensive usernames that made people mad so they would play us out of spite. The Rangers were a crappy team in real life, but video game Jaromir Jagr, Pavel Bure, Eric Lindros, Alex Kovalev, Anson Carter, Brian Leetch, Bobby Holik, Mark Messier,Petr Nedved, Tom Poti, Matt Barnaby, and Darius Kasparaitis were fun to play with.

I enjoy the tennis majors and I'm a big Roger Federer fan. It's really amazing to see the kind of year he has had at his advanced tennis age. We may finally get that Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer match that has eluded the US Open for all these years, but del Potro has ruined a Roger Federer US Open before. Should be a good match tonight

Venus Williams making one last run in a great season has also been fun to watch. I really thought she was cooked last night when she got down 3-1 in the third set. She found a way to break and keep chugging along. It's been a great story.

Americans have been doing well on the women's side.

I'm only a casual fan of tennis so I can't speak to it being the best ever, but I'm really enjoying it.

The Buffalo Bills are my local team and they were really good when I was younger. It isn't much more complicated than that.

As for the Penguins that isn't all that complicated either. I was four or five years old when I remember watching hockey on television and I liked Penguins. We got Sports Channel at my house so when the Penguins played any of the tri-state teams they were always on. When I started to understand the sport better it sure didn't hurt having Mario Lemieux on the team.

Unless he has an outrageously good training camp where you just cannot send him down I would like to see him get huge minutes down in the AHL to start. His development track was artificially ruined because of the transfer agreement. It isn't his fault and I am not concerned for the long term. I just think it would be good for him to find some success professionally before they throw him into the fire again. Especially since I doubt he would crack the top six and Pittsburgh has no great option on the third or fourth line at center.

Oh you know, that whole money thing. I think the players are getting tired of how long and drawn out the RFA process is. I also don't think they are too thrilled with the Olympics being used as a bargaining chip. I think the players should get more freedom in their ability to control their destinies with a salary cap.

The problem with a lockout is the same as it always was. The owners have all the leverage. Players have a finite time to make money playing hockey. The players missing a year of money is a hell of a lot more damning than the owners. These owners don't own hockey teams as their prime source of income, it's more or less an expensive (sometimes profitable) hobby. They'll be fine and can afford to wait things out until they get a deal they want.

Sucks for the fans, but this is always going to be the case with a Gary Bettman run NHL.

Eric Fehr dropped off pretty quick. Honestly, Carter Rowney has more upside at this point in time. I don't see Pittsburgh revisiting the Daniel Winnik experiment. He's not a center.

I think the wild card was a great thing that Bud Selig introduced. I hate the two wild card setup they have now where it is a one game play-in situation. This has nothing to do with the Pittsburgh Pirates finding themselves on the wrong end of those (I'm an Orioles fan). I just think it is moronic to play a 162 game season where you have three and four game series against the same team throughout and then have a one game playoff. I'd rather they return to the one wild card setup or even better add a third wild card and have a three or five game first round series. It isn't realistic but I'd shave the season back down to 154 games to accommodate this. Nobody is going to challenge Bonds or McGwire's homerun numbers in the post steroid era anyways. Who cares about six less regular season games if it means having a more proper playoff.

I'd also love to get rid of divisions and play a balanced schedule. Baseball isn't like the other sports. They stay in a city for an extended period of time. We have airplanes now. Divisions aren't necessary.

And it wouldn't be a summer mailbag without a Phish question

Let's be honest. Nobody who likes this band is listening to the albums. The live recordings are where its at. For that reason A Live One is probably the best choice here. However, as a newbie it was Hoist and Lawn Boy that got me into the band. So I guess those are my three.

Thanks for reading!

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