Indispensable NCAA Players: Gardner

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Nope, nobody at all.

Hawks fans are the biggest fairweather fans in the world. My first two years at Marquette, no one from Chicago gave a crap about hockey. Couldn't name any players and would openly trash them at any opportunity. Last two years all of the sudden they are the greatest and those some fans have been "following the Hawks since they were little"

Sorry, can't stand Blackhawk fans...alright I'll confess. I'm a Wings fan.

[WarriorFan]

Since we're way off the thread...
NHL is indeed America's game... for the "americans" above that line on top of Minnesota. 
Both of 'em.

Oh, and by the way, McDermott will prove far more indispensable than Gardner.  Nice to see Gardner on this type of list, though, because I believe that when he plays well, MU will win.  any game where he has 12/8 or better, we win. 

[Galway Eagle]

Hawks fans are the biggest fairweather fans in the world. My first two years at Marquette, no one from Chicago gave a crap about hockey. Couldn't name any players and would openly trash them at any opportunity. Last two years all of the sudden they are the greatest and those some fans have been "following the Hawks since they were little"

Sorry, can't stand Blackhawk fans...alright I'll confess. I'm a Wings fan.

People support winners... And the cubs but mainly winners and with that being said the Blackhawks starts winning a couple years to build back a following then won the 2010 cup.  Before that the last time anyone gave a crap about hockey in Chicago was when we lost the 1992 cup to Pittsburgh.  But the statement in question wasnt whether they were bandwagoners or not, it was whether people give a crap about hockey and bandwagon or not it's still giving a crap.  (Personally I'm an early bandwagoner got on the year before the 2010 cup)

[Pakuni]

Hawks fans are the biggest fairweather fans in the world. My first two years at Marquette, no one from Chicago gave a crap about hockey. Couldn't name any players and would openly trash them at any opportunity. Last two years all of the sudden they are the greatest and those some fans have been "following the Hawks since they were little"

Sorry, can't stand Blackhawk fans...alright I'll confess. I'm a Wings fan.

I guess it wouldn't be fair to expect a Wings fan to know the history at play, but suffice to say the reason for waning support of the Blackhawks in the late 90s and 00s is a lot more complex than "durr, they're a bunch of fairweather fans."
The reality is that through much of the 60s, 70s and 80s, the toughest ticket in town to get was for the Hawks. Not the Bears, not the Cubs, certainly not the Bulls (pre MJ) or Sox. That ended when  Dollar Bill Wirtz began doing everything he could to alienate the fan base - trying to put the team on pay TV (Sportsvision, Hawksvision), refusing to broadcast home games, cutting loose popular team personalities like Pat Foley and trading away its best and most popular players (Roenick, Chelios, Belfour) for little in return because the team didn't want to pay market value for them.
The losing, of course, didn't help, but that was just another symptom of the team's mismanagement, not the sole cause of the fan apathy.
The resurgence in Hawks popularity didn't begin in 2010, but in 2007 when Bill Wirtz died and his son, Rocky, began reversing decades of disastrous team policies.The Hawks led the league in attendance in 2008-09 - with more than a 1,000 more fans per game than the runner up.

Speaking of fairweather fans, though, how are things at the Joe these days? Seems to be a lot of Wings fans dressing as empty seats. Except, of course, when the Hawks are in town.

[The Equalizer]

I think the people at NHL headquarters would have a thing or two to say about ESPN's treatment of leagues to which it doesn't hold the rights.

When ESPN held the league's rights, not only did hockey get substantial coverage on Sportscenter, the network had a nightly show (NHL2Night) dedicated to the league. That show, coincidentally, was dropped when the NHL sold its rights to NBC.

Nowadays, the NHL goes virtually unnoticed by ESPN.
According to the Deadspin story linked below, Sportscenter gave the entire NHL got a total of 459 minutes of coverage on Sportscenter in 2012. That's less than half what just the Miami Heat got.

http://deadspin.com/what-i-learned-from-a-year-of-watching-sportscenter-5979510

A cynic might suggest ESPN's lack of hockey coverage could have something to do with the fact that the sport is now carried by a competitor.

Terrible analogy.  Brew didn't merely say the Big East would get less coverage--he said ESPN was marginalizing the NBE and painting it as a mid-major league.

Sorry, but that's just not happening.  MU and the NBE is getting plenty of positive coverage from ESPN.  Recent articles treat teams (and players) as the high-majors they are, as evidenced by the two articles in threads discussed here, or the six articles I mentioned in my prior post.

I'm sorry, but I just haven't seen all theses articles and stories that Brew refers to that equate the NBE with the Horizon, CUSA or A10.

[Golden Avalanche]

Hawks fans are the biggest fairweather fans in the world. My first two years at Marquette, no one from Chicago gave a crap about hockey. Couldn't name any players and would openly trash them at any opportunity. Last two years all of the sudden they are the greatest and those some fans have been "following the Hawks since they were little"

Sorry, can't stand Blackhawk fans...alright I'll confess. I'm a Wings fan.

Having lived in Chicago for better part of a decade, excepting Bears fans in my experience, most everyone is a bandwagon sports fan. But I'm sure it's not much different than most cities these days where people are less interested in anything other then themselves, even superfluous crap like sport.

[Lennys Tap]

Having lived in Chicago for better part of a decade, excepting Bears fans in my experience, most everyone is a bandwagon sports fan. But I'm sure it's not much different than most cities these days where people are less interested in anything other then themselves, even superfluous crap like sport.

Almost everyone in Chicago is a bandwagon fan? The Cubs won 66 games in 2006 and drew 3.123 million. They won 97 in 2008 and drew 3.3 million. Nearly a 50% increase in wins equaling a 6% attendance increase hardly suggests that almost all Cub fans are of the bandwagon variety. Same goes for the Sox. In the 24 years since 1989 (excluding the strike year and the year after) the Sox attendance has been in a very tight range (2.13-2.57 million) despite teams that range from futility to World Series champions. Finally, the Bulls, who continued to sell out through years of being the laughing stock of the league in the post Jordan era.

Maybe you're hangin' out with the wrong people.

[Pakuni]

Terrible analogy.  Brew didn't merely say the Big East would get less coverage--he said ESPN was marginalizing the NBE and painting it as a mid-major league.

Sorry, but that's just not happening.  MU and the NBE is getting plenty of positive coverage from ESPN.  Recent articles treat teams (and players) as the high-majors they are, as evidenced by the two articles in threads discussed here, or the six articles I mentioned in my prior post.

I'm sorry, but I just haven't seen all theses articles and stories that Brew refers to that equate the NBE with the Horizon, CUSA or A10.

Well, you've got a pretty odd definition of "marginalizing" if you don't think that's what ESPN has done with the NHL since losing its rights.

Back when ESPN held the rights, it had a daily (five days/week) 30-minute show dedicated to the NHL. Over an eight month season, excluding commercials, that's something in the neighborhood of 3,600 minutes of coverage, in addition to Sportscenter highlights. Today, ESPN is giving the league 459 minutes. Even assuming that's all the league got on SC back in 2003 (it's not) the league is barely getting a 1/10th the coverage it did a decade ago.
And those wishing to make the argument that "it's because hockey's not popular," please note that the NHL set ratings records this year, both during the regular season and playoffs. When matched up with prime time baseball in the spring, the NHL drew more viewers, and by a solid margin among the 18-49 demo that is ESPN's wheelhouse. Viewership numbers are telling ESPN to give the NHL more coverage, not less.

One doesn't have to actively deride or mock a league to marginalize it. ESPN.com still has hockey writers who write positively about the sport, and employs anchors/analysts (Buccigross and Levy in particular) who aren't shy about their fandom. But they've clearly chosen to give the game significantly less coverage, a move that doesn't match viewership trends for the NHL (which are heading the other direction) and didn't just coincidentally begin when NBC bought the league's rights.
The logical conclusion is that because ESPN doesn't broadcast the NHL, it doesn't cover the NHL.

mar·gin·al·ize
transitive verb \ˈmärj-nə-ˌlīz, ˈmär-jə-nəl-ˌīz\
Definition of MARGINALIZE
: to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group

Fair to say ESPN has relegated the NHL to an unimportant position within the group of sports?

[GGGG]

It really is silly to have this argument about ESPN and the NBE now when only the hardest of hard-core fans really care about college basketball.  Let's see what happens when the season starts.

And I'm not sure why it should surprise anyone that they will tout the properties they own more.  I expect the NBE to get more coverage on FS1.  I mean, they devote time to UFC on whatever their nightly show is called...primarily because they show it.  Why would we expect otherwise????

[Galway Eagle]

Almost everyone in Chicago is a bandwagon fan? The Cubs won 66 games in 2006 and drew 3.123 million. They won 97 in 2008 and drew 3.3 million. Nearly a 50% increase in wins equaling a 6% attendance increase hardly suggests that almost all Cub fans are of the bandwagon variety. Same goes for the Sox. In the 24 years since 1989 (excluding the strike year and the year after) the Sox attendance has been in a very tight range (2.13-2.57 million) despite teams that range from futility to World Series champions. Finally, the Bulls, who continued to sell out through years of being the laughing stock of the league in the post Jordan era.

Maybe you're hangin' out with the wrong people.

The bulls are not the laughing stock of the league! That's Charlotte.  They had some rough years sure but they certainly aren't anymore. 

[Lennys Tap]

The bulls are not the laughing stock of the league! That's Charlotte.  They had some rough years sure but they certainly aren't anymore. 

Didn't say they still were. Said they still sold out the joint when they were.

[The Equalizer]

Well, you've got a pretty odd definition of "marginalizing" if you don't think that's what ESPN has done with the NHL since losing its rights.

Back when ESPN held the rights, it had a daily (five days/week) 30-minute show dedicated to the NHL. Over an eight month season, excluding commercials, that's something in the neighborhood of 3,600 minutes of coverage, in addition to Sportscenter highlights. Today, ESPN is giving the league 459 minutes. Even assuming that's all the league got on SC back in 2003 (it's not) the league is barely getting a 1/10th the coverage it did a decade ago.
And those wishing to make the argument that "it's because hockey's not popular," please note that the NHL set ratings records this year, both during the regular season and playoffs. When matched up with prime time baseball in the spring, the NHL drew more viewers, and by a solid margin among the 18-49 demo that is ESPN's wheelhouse. Viewership numbers are telling ESPN to give the NHL more coverage, not less.

One doesn't have to actively deride or mock a league to marginalize it. ESPN.com still has hockey writers who write positively about the sport, and employs anchors/analysts (Buccigross and Levy in particular) who aren't shy about their fandom. But they've clearly chosen to give the game significantly less coverage, a move that doesn't match viewership trends for the NHL (which are heading the other direction) and didn't just coincidentally begin when NBC bought the league's rights.
The logical conclusion is that because ESPN doesn't broadcast the NHL, it doesn't cover the NHL.

mar·gin·al·ize
transitive verb \ˈmärj-nə-ˌlīz, ˈmär-jə-nəl-ˌīz\
Definition of MARGINALIZE
: to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group

Fair to say ESPN has relegated the NHL to an unimportant position within the group of sports?

If we applied Brew's thinking to the NHL situation, ESPN would not only cover the NHL less, but that coverage would consistently trash the NHL on account of them being on a competitive network.

But, as you readily admit, ESPN still gives the NHL positive coverage--just not as much as they used to.  That probably gives us more evidence that Brew is off base when he claims that ESPN is going to start trashing the NBE. 

As I've said, ESPN appears to be treating the league and its teams fairly. They haven't taken to trashing us as mid-majors in every article--as evidenced by those six recent articles.

Perhaps you should take this debate up with Brew, and point out to him that ESPN didn't take to trashing the NHL when the rights went from ESPN to NBC.  And they probably won't do the same with the NBE either.

[jesmu84]

If we applied Brew's thinking to the NHL situation, ESPN would not only cover the NHL less, but that coverage would consistently trash the NHL on account of them being on a competitive network.

But, as you readily admit, ESPN still gives the NHL positive coverage--just not as much as they used to.  That probably gives us more evidence that Brew is off base when he claims that ESPN is going to start trashing the NBE. 

As I've said, ESPN appears to be treating the league and its teams fairly. They haven't taken to trashing us as mid-majors in every article--as evidenced by those six recent articles.

Perhaps you should take this debate up with Brew, and point out to him that ESPN didn't take to trashing the NHL when the rights went from ESPN to NBC.  And they probably won't do the same with the NBE either.

Oh. You went from "marginalize" to "trash". Nice

[Galway Eagle]

Didn't say they still were. Said they still sold out the joint when they were.

I see post Jordan era and to me it still means now since there is no player named Jordan on our roster

[The Equalizer]

Oh. You went from "marginalize" to "trash". Nice

No, I really didn't. 

Brew was arguing that ESPN was not only marginalzing the NBE (per Pakuni's definition), but also actively trying to hurt the new league by treating them as a mid-major and talk them down.  "Trashing" is simply a shorter way of saying that latter part.

[Lennys Tap]

I see post Jordan era and to me it still means now since there is no player named Jordan on our roster

Sorry. Should have said the Jerry Krause, post Jordan era. The point, though, was that fans still showed up when the team sucked. Thought that was obvious in the context of my post.

[Galway Eagle]

Sorry. Should have said the Jerry Krause, post Jordan era. The point, though, was that fans still showed up when the team sucked. Thought that was obvious in the context of my post.

Got it now.

[Golden Avalanche]

Almost everyone in Chicago is a bandwagon fan? The Cubs won 66 games in 2006 and drew 3.123 million. They won 97 in 2008 and drew 3.3 million. Nearly a 50% increase in wins equaling a 6% attendance increase hardly suggests that almost all Cub fans are of the bandwagon variety. Same goes for the Sox. In the 24 years since 1989 (excluding the strike year and the year after) the Sox attendance has been in a very tight range (2.13-2.57 million) despite teams that range from futility to World Series champions. Finally, the Bulls, who continued to sell out through years of being the laughing stock of the league in the post Jordan era.

Maybe you're hangin' out with the wrong people.

Nah, the people were fine.

Cubs fans are in love with the idea of being a Cubs fan. Anyone who has attended a game at Wrigley knows that 3/4 of the crowd is there to drink and tell their friends they're at Wrigley. I attended plenty, with the Bartman debacle being a highlight, and the story never strayed.

As for the Sox, during a six week run in 2005 they were the toast of the town. During nearly every other week of my seven year life in Chicago they were laughed at as the second class citizens of an already second city. Never did they have the attention other then their pocket of South Side but, as I said, most everyone will jump on a bandwagon when it's hip to be square.

Regarding the Bulls, you're dead wrong. I had season tickets for the four seasons of the vaunted "Baby Bulls" of Chandler/Curry and rarely would a sellout occur. In fact, I had more trouble giving away tickets to a Bulls game then I did getting tickets for the Bartman game at Wrigley.

It's the same story with the Hawks which is a proud franchise. When I had my season tickets from 2002-2007, the team was awful and suddenly all those great fans that made Madison rock during the 90s were nowhere to be found. Crickets chirping. Course, it was nice for me in the tenth row since I could hear all the barking on the ice thanks to the roomy atmosphere.

I know Chicagoland produces an inordinate number of defiantly proud people and will be defended to the hilt but those were my experiences as someone who wasn't raised in the area and was able to see things without the tinted shades.

[Galway Eagle]

Nah, the people were fine.

Cubs fans are in love with the idea of being a Cubs fan. Anyone who has attended a game at Wrigley knows that 3/4 of the crowd is there to drink and tell their friends they're at Wrigley. I attended plenty, with the Bartman debacle being a highlight, and the story never strayed.

As for the Sox, during a six week run in 2005 they were the toast of the town. During nearly every other week of my seven year life in Chicago they were laughed at as the second class citizens of an already second city. Never did they have the attention other then their pocket of South Side but, as I said, most everyone will jump on a bandwagon when it's hip to be square.

Regarding the Bulls, you're dead wrong. I had season tickets for the four seasons of the vaunted "Baby Bulls" of Chandler/Curry and rarely would a sellout occur. In fact, I had more trouble giving away tickets to a Bulls game then I did getting tickets for the Bartman game at Wrigley.

It's the same story with the Hawks which is a proud franchise. When I had my season tickets from 2002-2007, the team was awful and suddenly all those great fans that made Madison rock during the 90s were nowhere to be found. Crickets chirping. Course, it was nice for me in the tenth row since I could hear all the barking on the ice thanks to the roomy atmosphere.

I know Chicagoland produces an inordinate number of defiantly proud people and will be defended to the hilt but those were my experiences as someone who wasn't raised in the area and was able to see things without the tinted shades.

Your assessment of sox fans sounds like it was done by someone who decided to move to lakeview or Lincoln park from a north or west suburb after college.  "Pocket of the south side"? The south side dwarfs the north side and anywhere from south lawdale to Bridgeport to every south suburb it's all sox side.  Yes nobody goes to the games because the park sucks its like a mall they should've just updated old comisky instead of the crappy park it is now. 

Every other assessment I agree with.   

[Sheriff]

Nah, the people were fine.

Cubs fans are in love with the idea of being a Cubs fan. Anyone who has attended a game at Wrigley knows that 3/4 of the crowd is there to drink and tell their friends they're at Wrigley. I attended plenty, with the Bartman debacle being a highlight, and the story never strayed.

You are correct that many of those attending games at Wrigley are there for the experience.  It sounds like you were probably one of them.  If that is the case then you don't understand that being a Cub fan has more to do with the bittersweet emotional investment made over a lifetime, and not some jerk recording Iphone video of Jim Belushi singing take me out to the ballgame.

[real chili 83]

Geez, I thought this thread was about jigs or spinners, and fatheads, crawlers, or leeches in August.

[AZWarrior]

You are correct that many of those attending games at Wrigley are there for the experience.  It sounds like you were probably one of them.  If that is the case then you don't understand that being a Cub fan has more to do with the bittersweet emotional investment made over a lifetime, and not some jerk recording Iphone video of Jim Belushi singing take me out to the ballgame.

Don't forget that time spent as a Cubs fan is credited to you in Purgatory.

[Pakuni]

Nah, the people were fine.

Cubs fans are in love with the idea of being a Cubs fan. Anyone who has attended a game at Wrigley knows that 3/4 of the crowd is there to drink and tell their friends they're at Wrigley. I attended plenty, with the Bartman debacle being a highlight, and the story never strayed.

As for the Sox, during a six week run in 2005 they were the toast of the town. During nearly every other week of my seven year life in Chicago they were laughed at as the second class citizens of an already second city. Never did they have the attention other then their pocket of South Side but, as I said, most everyone will jump on a bandwagon when it's hip to be square.

Regarding the Bulls, you're dead wrong. I had season tickets for the four seasons of the vaunted "Baby Bulls" of Chandler/Curry and rarely would a sellout occur. In fact, I had more trouble giving away tickets to a Bulls game then I did getting tickets for the Bartman game at Wrigley.

It's the same story with the Hawks which is a proud franchise. When I had my season tickets from 2002-2007, the team was awful and suddenly all those great fans that made Madison rock during the 90s were nowhere to be found. Crickets chirping. Course, it was nice for me in the tenth row since I could hear all the barking on the ice thanks to the roomy atmosphere.

I know Chicagoland produces an inordinate number of defiantly proud people and will be defended to the hilt but those were my experiences as someone who wasn't raised in the area and was able to see things without the tinted shades.

This post brought to you by "Fan Stereotypes 'r  Us."