And now Women's Hockey...

[MajGenl.Meade]

Would you pay the same to watch women's hockey that you would pay for tickets to the Bruins? Be honest.

Yes - absolutely nothing. Ice Hockey (the name of the game; hockey is played on a grass field) is as big a flim-flam as DTramp. They pretend there's a thing called a "puck". Owing to mob delusion, crazed persons attending the games believe they see the "puck". In fact, it is a green screen addition to certain slow-motion replays on TV. Other than that, the second most boring game on earth... er, ice. (I leave room for everyone to pick their own MOST boring game on earth).

[Guinevere]

Would you pay the same to watch women's hockey that you would pay for tickets to the Bruins? Be honest.

Yes - absolutely nothing. Ice Hockey (the name of the game; hockey is played on a grass field) is as big a flim-flam as DTramp. They pretend there's a thing called a "puck". Owing to mob delusion, crazed persons attending the games believe they see the "puck". In fact, it is a green screen addition to certain slow-motion replays on TV. Other than that, the second most boring game on earth... er, ice. (I leave room for everyone to pick their own MOST boring game on earth).

I wonder, Meade, if you have any insight into how relentlessly negative, judgmental, and faux-superior your posting has become, since being in South Africa.

As for the Bruins, I never have and never will pay for tickets to see professional hockey. I would however pay plenty to see the women's national team. I paid just this weekend to see Cornell hockey in the NCAA tournament (and drove to Manchester, NH, and went out after the game). Too bad the women don't get the same exposure, because I would go see them first.

[Guinevere]

Men's national team supporting the women

http://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2017/3/26/1 ... usa-hockey

USA Hockey might have another problem on its hands. Reports circulated on Sunday that the U.S. men’s national team could boycott the World Championships to show support for the women’s team.

Octagon Hockey agent, Allan Walsh, first tweeted the news just two days after the NHL Players Association released a statement supporting the women.

Over the last few weeks, the U.S. women’s national hockey team has been battling with USA Hockey over the right to fair wages and equitable support. The women announced in mid-March that they would be boycotting the 2017 IIHF World Championship in Plymouth, Mich. — slated to start next week — in hopes that USA Hockey will listen to their requests for equal treatment.

Since then, USA Hockey has gone from women’s hockey well to women’s hockey well looking for replacements for the U.S. women’s team. The latest attempts have apparently come to Under-16 teams — yes, they’ve reached out to kids — to play against professional hockey players in just a few days time.[Are you effing kidding me, teenagers, to play against pros? NUTS

However, the solidarity across women hockey players has been staunch. The NWHL, one of two professional women’s hockey leagues in North America, said they stand by the players. In an incredible showing of support, professional and amateur hockey players alike have stood together against USA Hockey.

The U.S. men’s team would be the latest in that group, which also includes the NBPA and the NFLPA.

The 2017 IIHF World Championship for the men doesn’t take place until May 5 in France and Germany. Though it is usually drowned out by the Stanley Cup playoffs, the announcement of USA boycott of the event only draws more attention to an increasingly growing fire for USA Hockey.

The organization has been radio silent on the issue outside of a few statements made the week of the announced women’s boycott.

With the ever growing support for the women’s team both inside and outside the sport, USA Hockey looks worse for ignoring the issues placed in front of them.

[Jarlaxle]

So...you are one of the minuscule number of people tbat would actually pay to see women's hockey. Convince a few miliion others and you might have something.

[Bicycle Bill]

Since then, USA Hockey has gone from women’s hockey well to women’s hockey well looking for replacements for the U.S. women’s team. The latest attempts have apparently come to Under-16 teams — yes, they’ve reached out to kids — to play against professional hockey players in just a few days time.[Are you effing kidding me, teenagers, to play against pros? NUTS

Nuts?  Maybe so, given the state of sports in today's reality and the way they have so blurred the definition of an 'amateur' athlete versus a 'professional'; I mean, seriously ... when a kid who can't even pronounce 'futbol' or 'goal' is signed by a professional soccer team in Europe, that's a bit much.
(as an aside, since he has a contract will he even be allowed, as a signed professional, to play school-level soccer with his classmates?)

But we didn't always have to have 'professionals' playing sports at the highest levels in order to keep us interested.  Look at what we (the US) put up against the world in the 1980 Olympics — a bunch of kids, college students all of them.  Same thing with the US Olympic basketball teams (with the exception of the debacle that was the gold-medal game in Munich).  They took on the best the world could throw at them and when it was all over they were the ones wearing the gold medals.

-"BB"-

[MGMcAnick]

Do you s'pose if I went to fight, a women's hockey game would ever break out? I doubt it.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I wonder, Meade, if you have any insight into how relentlessly negative, judgmental, and faux-superior your posting has become, since being in South Africa.

Oh, please - all that was long before going to South Africa....

Anyway, are you incapable of recognizing a joke that is SUPPOSED to sound faux-superior, feeble or otherwise? I've made that stupid invisible puck joke before (LJ probably has it catalogued and someone, probably Big RR or rubato, pointed out that "ice hockey" has been called "hockey" for longer than field hockey has - or something boring like that).

Was my post supporting women's sports as valid entertainment "negative, judgemental and faux-superior"? It was supposed to be positive

[Burning Petard]

Update from "The Guardian" solidarity worked this time.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/ ... mpionships

"Players and federation announce agreement on pay and conditions"

snailgate

[Guinevere]

Solidarity!


And never underestimate the value of peaceful protest.

[Long Run]

"Players and federation announce agreement on pay and conditions"

Nice to hear. Like the players on USA Basketball, most/all of the men on USA Hockey make huge money playing in their pro league (the NHL). As a result, it is pretty easy for them to provide support to the women -- even if the men give up a minor portion of their national team allotment it is a very sizeable improvement for the women, without impacting the men in any serious way.

[Gob]

Let's stop all the sexism, "men" and "women" teams FFS.

Lets just have one team and the best players, regardless of gender, get picked.

[Bicycle Bill]

From the article Burning Petard/snailgate linked to:

USA Hockey and the women’s national team reached a wage agreement Tuesday night to avoid a boycott of the world championships.

So, "amateur" players get wages.   I guess the only thing that now defines the difference between "amateur" and "professional" is the AMOUNT of the wages.

-"BB"-

[Big RR]

I think for a long time amateur players have been supported financially during their training; some of it is in kind (like the college scholarships covering room and board for athletes) and some has been more direct financial support so they can afford to train rather (and attend games, meets, etc.) than work; they're hardly getting rich (and most sports offer no promise or even a chance of a lucrative professional career afterwards). Face it, banning any such payment was the only way to assure that only the elites with means would be able to compete; allowing it permitted some of the unwashed masses access to the same competition. IMHO it makes better teams and better policy.

eta: I also think each sport is free to decide what will be the compensation limit is to maintain the ability to compete as an amateur; I recall when my daughter was competing as a gymnast that USA Gymnastics had a number of rules defining what sort of support, prizes, and payments for endorsements a particular gymnast could accept and maintain his/her amateur status. some sports, like basketball, hockey, and soccer allow even high paid professionals to compete (at least in the Olympics), others do not and have more stringent rules.

[Long Run]

So, "amateur" players get wages.  

Welcome to this millenium. The "amateur" rules for most Olympic/international sports were eliminated many moons ago.

[Lord Jim]

The "amateur" rules for most Olympic/international sports were eliminated many moons ago.

And rightly so...

Well I remember when I was growing up the ridiculous situation where Western countries were placed in the automatic disadvantage of having to send genuine amateurs (people who had never been compensated for competing in their sport) to Olympic competitions while the Soviet Bloc countries sent "amateurs" who were fully compensated and never had to do anything but train and compete...

I remember the Russians had a champion weight lifter back in the 70's named Vasily Alekseyev:



His "profession" was listed as "coal miner"....

Somehow I think it had been quite sometime since he had seen the inside of a coal mine...(if ever)

[Long Run]

His "profession" was listed as "coal miner"....

Somehow I think it had been quite sometime since he had seen the inside of a coal mine...(if ever)

Which is why his daughter Lorettava Lynnova never made it big in countroski muschuk.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I thought they were all in the Russian Army?!?

[Bicycle Bill]

So, "amateur" players get wages.  

Welcome to this millenium. The "amateur" rules for most Olympic/international sports were eliminated many moons ago.

No, I thought they were still tap-dancing around the "play for pay" aspect by allowing them to have sponsorships, make endorsements, accept 'donations', and receive expenses and other assistance (either in cash or in kind) so they could still claim to be unpaid — as in receiving a set amount as a salary or accepting prize monies — and therefore not deriving their chief source of income from actually competing in their sport.

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

I'm sorry Bill, but you're mistaken....it hasn't been that way for quite a while now...

NBA players earning millions a year to play basketball play in the Olympics; they have since the original 1992 "Dream Team":

Record 46 NBA players competing in Rio Olympics

A record 46 current NBA players will be featured on national team rosters during the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, the league announced Friday.

The previous record was 41, set at the 2012 Olympics in London.

Twenty-three NBA teams have player representatives, starting with the San Antonio Spurs (five), followed by the Utah Jazz (four), then the Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks and Toronto Raptors, each with three.

The United States leads all national teams with 12 NBA players on its roster. Spain has the second-most (seven), followed by Australia, Brazil and France (five).

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nb ... /88292140/

Western pros have been allowed to compete since 1988:

The IOC officially began allowing professional athletes to compete in the Olypmic Games in 1988, basically leaving it up to the individual sporting federations to decide if they would permit it.

The only sports which continue to claim they are "amateur only" are boxing and wrestling, but even that's a bit of a misnomer: certain national boxing or wrestling Olympics committees pay out cash rewards, but since the fighters are not paid to fight, they are not considered professional.


A number of high profile "scandals" occurred due to the strict application of the definition of a professional. One notable example was Jim Thorpe, who won multiple medals in 1912. He had previously played semi-pro baseball, so even though his medals were not in baseball (he was a track & field athlete), his medals were stripped. In addition, many athletes were excluded from competing because they earned money as trainers or tutors, and not as competitors.

The whole idea of pure-amateur competition was rooted heavily in the aristocratic English public school. The original intent was that amateur athletes not only didn't play professionally, they didn't train professionally -- any sort of training was considered cheating. Clearly, by the 1970s, that idea was long since abandoned, and was considered an artifact of the English "class system".

Most importantly, IMO, was the fact that so many countries just flat out cheated. Eastern-bloc countries were notorious for skirting the edge of the rules by having state-sponsored "full time amateurs". Their Olympic athletes were given everything they needed to live and train, but were not technically paid to do it, and all the money came from the government. This put the Soviet countries at a distinct advantage over the privately-funded Western athletes for a long, long time.

Ultimately, the IOC just decided that excluding pro athletes made the games less interesting, less competitive, and less fair. It also helped that the Olympics were big business by that point, with television rights fees, sponsorship money and similar sources of income. Having huge, marquee-level celebrity athletes brought in lots more money.

http://sports.stackexchange.com/questio ... mpic-games

[Bicycle Bill]

I was aware the "pure" pros were being allowed in the Olympics; I was referred to the "quasi-pros" — those elite athletes who were still considered 'amateurs' although pretty much everybody knew that they were being funded by someone or something.  Think about the arcane and pettifogging rules that the NCAA still operates by when it comes to alumni and other supporters giving 'gifts' to athletes (like a sweetheart deal on a new car, or brand new basketball shoes being given to them for 'testing', or paying all expenses when they come on a recruiting visit to the campus).

I suppose I should just resign myself to the fact that you ain't a true athlete if you ain't getting paid, and the next time I roll up to the starting line of the Chequamegon 40 or the Firehouse 50 I could just as easily be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Greg LeMond or Lance Armstrong as with another unpaid/unsponsored/self-supporting week-end warrior like myself.

-"BB"-