Any ice hockey fans out there?

Just wondering if there is anyone out there who follows the NHL (I don't follow British hockey...) - the 2013 Draft was yesterday and it was quite an action-packed one!

Me, Blackhawks fan, Happy to have won the cup! best team of the season deserved it

As much as it pains me to say it, that is true. The Blackhawks had an incredible start to the season, and had a brilliant playoff run. That spine of Keith-Seabrook-Kane-Toews-Sharp is first class.

Glad you beat Boston btw, I hate them more than anyone

indeed man, who are you a fan of?

I'm a Vancouver Canucks fan, so have a grudging admiration for the Hawks. We had an interesting draft yesterday, the fallout of which will continue to hit the fan for the next four days. I love Roberto Luongo, my favourite all-time Canuck, but the management treated him very badly, and now they've traded Schneider, he's expected to be happy?

I'd love Bobby Lou to be our #1 goalie until his contract ends in 9 years' time, but something has to give. I think we'll trade him still, and sign a new goalie for Tortorella.

Oh bit of a hate between us

Kane and Toews where quality in the cup final as well as the season, still remember Kane scoring the winner v Pitts, i was afraid that Boston would win after they beat us 2-0.

but all ways good in the end haha, at least now with Crawford being awesome again we can say good bye to the stupid Luongo rumors

Yes, that would have been awkward. I doubt the Nucks would ever have seriously contemplated dealing him to a rival team like the Hawks, but stranger things have happened...

LOVE the Nucks' drafting yesterday. Bo Horvat = Kesler reborn. Cassels = son of a former Canuck, Burrows reborn. Subban = Salo reborn. Those top three picks are probably in my top 5 of Canucks draft picks since the 2004-05 lockout.

yeah good picks there, i think the Nucks are a good team par the hatred lol but i have a feeling next season the wings will be one of the ones to watch.

The re-alignment will do funny things to the league, as teams will have been built for their current divisional matchups and suddenly find themselves up against different styles of opponent. I fully expect the Sedins to have a down year, but Kesler and Burrows to have an up year. I also think injuries in general will be up next year. It's going to be carnage!

It will be carnage, i dont get why most people hate the NHL its probs the best action sport there is; high scoring games, crowds, passion and everything.

It will be good next year to see if the Blackhawks drop off or if the other teams close the gap.

The other X-Factor in next season's quest for the Stanley Cup is the full 82-game season. Players may struggle with the demands of a full season having lost half of this one. It's going to be interesting to see teams like Boston that play a rough and ready style trying to stick at it for 82 games.

Yeah the long season i expect a lot of rotation with the players which will allow the drafted ones playing time

I doubt any of the Canucks' picks play this season, but kids like Frank Corrado and Joe Cannata have a great chance to get a few games this season. Kids that have the energy and passion that takes them above their skillset. God, it's still three months til the new season!

Yeah will exciting stuff, sadly the rest of the Hockey fans all moved to another forum   

Indeed, and now there are about four of them left there, as their inbreeding got the better of them

Wish there was a way to attract NHL fans to this site, it'd save me having to look them up on Canucks.com and Nucks Misconduct!

Yeah know what you mean man, sucks its a good sport and would help improve everyone's knowledge etc of the sport as well as some awesome discussion

I was a big hockey fan back in the day, when I was a kid in Canada - mid-1970s. When we came back to the UK, it was never on TV (pre-cable/satellite) and even now the problem is that ESPN have dropped it, so there's no chance of getting new UK fans to follow the NHL. Fantastic sport though.

I follow the scores (I'm a Canadiens fan), but I'm not one for watching sport on the internet, so I'm way out of touch.

I only watch the playoffs, but watch the highlights for almost every game on NHL.com. That's the best sports site in the world imo.

Hello all,

I must admit, I've been watching the NHL scene for a few years now, and have started to slowly get more involved in it. I'm not all clued up on the trading system etc etc, but I know the basic rules and enjoy the pace of the game.

I am a Pittsburgh Penguins fan, and was gutted to see them put out the Playoffs by the Bruins. However the Blackhawks served me well and beat them to the Cup

I'm really looking forward to the new season, and glad I have found somewhere to share my interest in Ice Hockey with Bring on October 3rd...New Jersey Devils, we're coming for you!!!

Hey! Activity on the hockey board!!! Welcome. Glad somebody has posted here. Might bring some life to the place. This place is very quiet compared to other forums with hockey fans. The booming period was during the 2011 playoffs and since then posts have been few and far between. I've started a podcast with a friend on twitter. Submitted the first episode tonight and it's available on itunes now. https://t.co/Ise49N3oob

It'll be interesting to see how the new Divisions shake up. The Canucks have won the NW Division 4/5 years now, so I think our chances of winning have fallen somewhat with the re-alignment.

Glad to see that the league has re-introduced the schedule to play at all 30 arenas each season. It seemed rather pointless that a team like the Pens would only play in Vancouver once every two years.

The one downside to the realignment is that after they've changed to divisional playoffs they've given the west less divisional games than eastern teams. Only four less but it means the eastern standing rely more on games vs the west than the other way.

Well clearly I'm fine with that

I am just looking forward to an 82 game season. The one thing I want to happen this season is Jay Bouwmeester to miss a game, so that Hank Sedin takes over as NHL Iron Man.

I don't know why but I like Bouwmeester. Probably because he's in my sim team.

I liked him at Florida, obviously hated him in Calgary (what a terrible contract they gave him), now don't mind him in St Louis. I don't want him winning anything though.

Hows your sim team going? Which team did you take over?

I took over the Flaming Ducks now the Bedford Brewers. Jiggy left me with 10 million draft picks after flogging the decent players. Finished 42-42-0 in my debut and my farm team got to the conference final, then came down big time last season. This year I'm 3-7-0 so far but my farm are leading the entire league 8-1-1.

Think I could challenge for the pro playoffs next season and definitely in the one after.

Got a decent team through a lot of trading and the draft picks I've signed from last seasons draft and this year are doing great.

I went down the route of stockpiling draft picks, and my farm team won the league. Then I quit so have no idea how they progressed

Building through the farm team was far more interesting than the main league, as I think the sim is somewhat flawed in its mathematics (ie, the same players win the awards season after season). There's no 'breakout' seasons anywhere.

Four guys have quit in the offseason so Beef, Jiggy, Driz and Paddy are running two teams each.

Wow. Bare bones then.

Am hoping to see a resurgent Ryan Kesler stay fit for 82 games and pick up another Selke. This has to be a big season for him.

The sim league contracted from 20 to 16 teams after season 5 and now started season 7 looking for new GMs to stop losing another 4 teams.

I'd be happy to settle for a wildcard spot for the Devils. It's all on the shoulders of the forwards as the D and goalies are so strong.

I read somewhere Jagr, Ryder and Clowe were more efficient and had better goals per shot averages on the PP than Clarkson & Kovalchuk the last two seasons.

I thought that the stat of the 2013 playoff Round 3 was pretty good -

"The four teams left in the playoffs are the last four winners of the Stanley Cup".

I'm hoping the Penguins can repeat their success this year and go for the final, however I'm worried that the thought of Olympic glory might distract a few players towards the end of the season :P

(As I said, not all clued up on the ins and outs of the NHL backrooms :P )

You couldn't have picked a better season to get into it more closely. The Olympics are fantastic to watch. It was the 2010 Winter Olympics that made me want to watch hockey.

It was the 2010 Olympics that really peaked my interest to be honest. Especially as a Penguins fan, watching Crosby scoring that winner for Canada, and seeing the crowd go absolutely nuts. You just don't see that passion here in England.

It was the 98 winter olympics that got me. I was in Prague with 200,000 people celebrating their gold medal

Aye, Flames fan here but sometimes thats just hard to stand up and say haha

I first got into it when my uncle cam home (he lives in Edmonton) and he brought somethings over t-shirts and caps etc. Then I got a game for the mega drive and picked up the basic rules (as well as you could on a 32 bit console)

I didn't actually pick a team though until I watched the Flames run to the Stanlety Cup final before getting beat by the Lightning. I was just obsessed with Kiprusoff when he got two back to back shut outs against the Red wings

Prep done for this weeks Between The Pipes. Just under 8 hours to show time. This week has got to be at least double the size of last weeks show with the research I've put in and we're adding a news segment before we crack on with the team previews. Atlantic Division tonight.

Please listen!!! Last weeks show is available below and tonight's show will be available sometime around 10pm tonight.

We're on the Journal - http://v2journal.com/20/post/2013/08/between-the-pipes-ice-hockey-podcast.html
Podomatic - http://betweenthepipespodcast.podomatic.com/
and of course, iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/between-the-pipes-podcast/id693650599?mt=2

On the subject of Ice hockey has the TV rights gone to BT sport along with the footbal and UFC or do ESPN still have them?

ESPN lost the rights before the lockout, last season we had no hockey on TV. I followed everything on NHL.com and illegal channels

Listened to the first 7 mins of the podcast this morning - you guys are good! Definitely needs some jingles / sound effects thrown in, but that comes with time. If you had a sound / commentary bite between each topic, that makes it easier to follow. But then, I'm not sure how easy that is to do

As I work early mornings (3am onwards) and I know that hockey games are on at like 1am (UK time), is there anywhere I can watch highlights of the games?

Highlights are usually on NHL.com an hour or so after the game.

Some games are much earlier, the east coast 12pm games are only 6pm our time

The ESPN America deal ended after the 11-12 season and the UK company couldn't afford the new extortionate prices set by the sellers of European rights and the mainland Europe ESPNA could afford it carried on as normal. Premier Sports bought the UK TV rights and it runs to 2016. They are only available on Sky for an extra tenner on your bill, have no HD channel and problems aplenty. This is a screen capture from the Stanley Cup Final.



NHL.com is great for highlights. So is the Gamecenter app which you don't need a subscription for highlights. If you can afford Gamecenter Live I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is brilliant.

How muchnis that compared to the tenner for premier sport?

At the current exchange rate it is £12.79 per month for 5 months or one up front payment of £63.96. Premier Sports show "up to 15 games a week" and only about 9-10 are live and around 4-5 will be 3am games in a double header. With Gamecenter Live you can watch every game live other than the ones shown on Premier although there is a way around that which I think might not be allowed to be posted on this forum.


Also, Atlantic Division Preview show is now available - http://betweenthepipespodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2013-09-04T14_27_29-07_00

Think you'll agree it's quite a bit better than last weeks.

Am nearly at the end of episode 1 mate, well done so far! I've come up against a brick wall with the wife though - she 'doesn't like' the idea of me joining the podcast, so if you give me advance warning of what's coming up, I can give you my thoughts beforehand

Thanks mate. No worries if you can't join. We can only plan exactly what we're going to talk about during the offseason really. We have time for three more shows before the regular season starts and I imagine after the Central and Pacific divisions we'll do a standings and trophy predictions show. So any input you'd like to give to learns that would be great.

I started listening to the podcast last night, very impressive work, will look to listen to the rest tonight whilst waiting for the NFL to start

Just ordered NHL 14 for the XBox. Can't wait for that to come out, restore a bit of pride on the ice into the Calgary franchise

Any interest in doing a GM Connected league on NHL 14? I didn't buy NHL 13 so I don't know how it all works. I guess the guys on 606hl are doing one?

I did one with the 606hl guys last season as the Habs. Traded for Nugent-Hopkins and Eberle then got bored and dropped out after about a month. Probably won't do one this year.

Glad you think it's good gazzy. I want to do two per week during the regular season even of it means flying solo for a short Sunday edition just to keep thighs fresh because I looked at the league schedule for the opening week and if we stick to our current schedule there's 44 games between recordings.

I'll listen to number 2 when I get back after the weekend.

What is GM Connected? I'm buying NHL 14 for the PS3 this year, and am pretty new to the NHL games. Also, thanks for the place to watch the highlights