The Deer

I think this is the first, or at the very least the best, drunk post so far on nhl94online.com. Don't tempt me, I guarantee I can top it! I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about when you say that you've fixed an error and are now better than ever, but I'm for sure up for a couple of exhibition games to see what you mean. Gonna be around this evening?

Agree, there have been many hints thrown around but nothing seems to change. Frustrating for sure. And I second the94kid's complaint about Boston not logging the games. I for one played the guy over a week ago and they're still not up there. It takes like a minute, tops.

Hmmmmmmm so this guy's pretty good and trying to make a name for himself with MY team eh................ maybe I'll have to issue a challenge someday soon.

Another brother from a different Cape Breton mother! Very happy to say WELCOME ABOARD Brent!! Hit me up annnnnnnytime for some exhibition games to get ready to kick some B League ass kiddo! The beautiful island of CB is now represented by five in SNES online league play! Myself, the94kid, and Rudy in the A League, and Matthew Boyd and now B-Dub in the B League.

What doesn't make sense about it? Both GENS leagues have been more successful than their corresponding SNES leagues so far. I for one am disappointed that the SNES league I play in isn't running as smooth as the GENS leagues are.

Nice post, a lot of very good observations. I appreciate your comments on my play with Quebec, thanks man! As much as I make good use of all three of my forward in most games (some games I try to do too much with Sundin though), I don't know if I'm as lethal with any of my forwards as you can be with Selanne. I remember one exhibition game we played where you beat me 8-5 and Teemu scored all eight goals........ and had a perfect chance at nine with a penalty shot, but Stephane Fiset came up with the save (Hextall was on the bench in tears from what Selanne had done to him haha). I totally hear ya on how tough Detroit is to play against.......... last year I lost my game to Detroit 9-3, this year I lost it 7-2. Thank God I only play them once per year. HOWEVER, in our "championships" my friends and I have, we've all tried using Detroit, and I can't recall anyone ever winning the title with them. People make the finals with them, but never win- it's like they're missing something. However, Rudy could prove us wrong this season, as he's certainly looking like a league title contender. He's much improved over his season last year with the Canucks. I agree that Mike so far has had the best defense in the league. I've been playing a fair bit of exhibitions against him lately, and I totally agree that you have to really work to score a goal against him. You can't just dipsy-doodle or try to go end-to-end like you can against some weaker opponents; he nails you on the first try every time, and his positioning of his dmen is excellent. You have to come up with something creative and surprise him in order to score. Agree totally on the balance in this league. Just look at my last game. Heading into the game, I think I had the league's best winning %, and I think Lethal had the league's worst, but he beat me, and it wasn't a fluke by any means- he flat-out outplayed me, and it felt like he could beat me again if we played another one. Pretty much anyone in this league can beat pretty much anyone else on any given night. And there are a few coaches who are off to slow starts that I know are far, far better than their records, and I don't think we've heard the last from them.

Glad to have gotten in my games with Boston and Calgary yesterday. Now all I have left in the Month 1 schedule (aside from the need for Boston to log yesterday's games) is two games with the Canucks and their coach who I've never ever played before, Blazer. I'd love to have my Month 1 schedule nice and completed and not have any silly forfeits on the go. Mr. Blazer- what time is good for you?

4-3 Quebec was the score of the game in Boston. I've already logged the game in Quebec and just need you to confirm. Thanks!

Just before the deadline, Quebec finally found Boston and Calgary online to play the month 1 games. The first game at the Boston Garden was extremely tight, with Quebec lucky to eke out a 4-3 victory. Great game by Boston, especially since he uses a keyboard. Second game was a bit easier for the Nordiques, a 5-0 win, their second shutout of the season. Third game saw Calgary (Lethal) score a very well-earned 6-4 upset victory over the high-flying Nordiques. Quebec led 4-2 after two periods but two of their goals were really cheap/total flukes. Calgary then played a fantastic third period, scoring four beauty goals and shutting the door on Quebec. Calgary seemed to be a team that was losing a lot of close games and was having some hard luck, so congrats to them on coming through with a big win. Might be a real valuable one when the final playoff race is taking place. . GG!

f**k! Was busy with other stuff this evening and when I check the scores I see that Calgary and Vancouver were on for quite a bit tonight. Either of you guys going to be around tomorrow afternoon maybe?

Next time you're on the site, any chance you can confirm our game from a few nights ago? After losing to your ass twice in a row earlier in the season, I want to finally get credit for having beaten you! Tks man.

OK so Montreal's down, Boston Vancouver Calgary left. It looks like I just missed Calgary on AIM last night, as he played a # of games just after I logged off. Lethal- you gonna be around anytime this evening? Fatty/Blazer- what about you guys?

One of the fiercest rivalries in the NHL was rekindled tonight as the Quebec Nordiques visited the Montreal Forum for their first of four games this season against the Montreal Canadiens. It was an awesome game, very well-played, and Montreal used a late third period comeback to secure a 5-3 win. The first period was played almost to perfection- great passing, awesome hitting, and perfect goaltending. Scoreless after one. Quebec led 2-1 after two periods as Mats Sundin notched a pair, and early in the third period, Joe Sakic was the trailer on a nice passing play and the Nordiques assumed a 3-1 lead to quiet the raucous Forum faithful. It looked as though this would be Quebec's game, but Stephan Lebeau one-timed one home right away to cut it to 3-2. A tight finish seemed on the horizon. Until Stephane Lebeau got a partial breakaway with about 1:40-something left in the game. I really could have waited a second, activated my D, and had him accelerate back to perhaps catch him in time, but for some reason I turned my brain off for a second and just hit him right away from behind. DUMB move, easy penalty shot Montreal, and despite every effort to convince myself that I could stop it, I knew he was scoring. 3-3 game. Quebec never really recovered from that penalty shot screwup. With just over a minute left, Montreal's Denis Savard fought his way past a couple of Nord defenders and goaltender Ron Hextall to beat them all to a loose puck off of an innocent-looking initial shot, and trickled home the rebound tantalizingly slowly. 4-3 Montreal and Quebec was really deflated. They hardly got possession of the puck after that, and with about 30 seconds left, Lebeau scored again to ice it. Awesome game, extremely tight, you had to make almost a perfect play to score............ you had to be one or two moves ahead of the other guy to even get a good chance. Always enjoy playing shakazuzu, the intensity is always there because you know you have to play your best against him if you want to win. In fact, tonight I brought pretty much my best for 13 out of 15 minutes, and still lost. Great game Montreal and I look forward to our three critical matchups next month! They could have a lot of impact on who ends up winning the Adams Division.

Just bumping this back up to the top so that the guys I'm looking to play might have a better chance of noticing this post. You guys even around?

Sigh............... never mind man.

I noticed that too- way to go man! I'd also like to commend Chicago in the SNES A League for his Goals Against so far. If I'm not mistaken, he has the best GAA in the league. Way to go Mike!

Ohhhhhhhhhhh Rudy with the very appropriate BURN.

What's the story behind your AIM nick? Did you create it with the intention of confusing people with the "I" vs "l" thing?

Gettin down to the wire......... Been in touch with Montreal, I'm sure we'll play soon. Haven't seen any of these other three guys online............ any chance fellas that we'll get our games in before the deadline? Thanks

Oh man, couple of great stories there!

Detroit has two 50-year-old goalies........... how is their goaltending a strength? Ottawa may have had the best team last year but you can always count on them to choke. Hate the Sens, almost as much as I hate the Leafs. Anaheim seems to be "the cool pick" to win the Cup right now............. but "the cool pick" usually doesn't end up getting it done. Philadelphia was "the cool pick" so many times in the mid-late 90s................ Having said all of that, I don't have a Cup favourite.

Well said Crossbar, I agree with pretty much all of those opinions- you hit on a lot of things that I also felt but just didn't get around to saying. Although I don't have a problem with the shootout so far, I think it added a pretty sweet element last year. You can't tell me that that Washington-Rangers shootout (longest shootout, Marek Malik's unforgettable goal) wasn't cool. Another potentially legendary moment that occurred in a shootout was that Sidney Crosby goal in Montreal, against the team he grew up cheering for. I also like it at the major junior level so far. But I TOTALLY agree with everything else you said. Bring back either 80s hockey, or EARLY 90S hockey............. bring back the stuff upon which NHL 94 was based!!! It was based on the 92-93 season and in my opinion that was the greatest NHL season played since I started following hockey as a kid.

What about BSDaemon getting on in the B League? No BS, not trying to take a shot at you this time, but it's just that there are quite a few "inactive" guys in the B League. In the A League, the only guy without any games played I think is shakazuzu, and he's one of the real grizzled vets of this league- you'd think he'll start pouring in the games soon. But the B League has a number of guys with no games played.

Ah Godsmack, you may be the one guy in this league who's "happier" than I am.

Those are some good ideas pokrchamp. I kind of did that last season during the playoffs (I know you weren't around last season). For the first couple of rounds anyway, I kind of talked about all playoff series, as I was very interested in all of the happenings. Last year I didn't write about my games, not on a regular basis anyway. But this year I was involved in the very first games of the season, and because of the feeling of "history" what with them having been the first games, both my opponent and I (cajanek) made a post. As I did that, I decided I liked the idea of making this season a little more special than last and documenting all my games in writing to look back on whenever I could, so I decided I'd do it all season. I guess in the process of doing that I forgot to keep on doing what I used to do, write about general league happenings, although as you said it might have had more to do with the fact that for most of this season, games have been being played at a snail's pace. There would have only been five or six teams to really write about so far as up until lately that was the only # of teams that had played a decent # of games. Why do I write about anything? I just like to write about hockey that's all. I'm extremely active on the Maritime QMJHL messageboards, and am considering going to journalism school to maybe become a hockey writer someday. If action picks up, sure that's a good idea, I never have trouble finding things to write about. Near the end of the season, hopefully we'll have guys on the same page in terms of # of games played so that I can write about great divisional races down the stretch. Your Norris Division for one looks like it could be a doozy.