The Deer

Come on boys, make tonight the night!!!! I've been patiently waiting to start the next round but I don't know how much longer I can wait- I wanna know who my opponent's gonna be!!

I agree Cam, unless we're talking about the select few awful teams (Ottawa, Florida, Tampa, Anaheim), I don't really find the team has all that much bearing at all on things........... I find it's pretty much all about the player. Look at the GENS league, Dallas is only a mediocre-at-best team in terms of ranking and star power, but kgman plowed through the competition en route to winning the Stanley Cup. And in both leagues, San Jose made the playoffs (well San Jose made them in the SNES league but then disappeared and LA played in his stead). The powerhouse Penguins missed the playoffs in the SNES league (despite a pretty good player coaching them no less). It's like 95% about the player, with the exceptions of those awful teams I mentioned, and with 20-team leagues we won't have to worry about people being stuck with those anyway.

I also like better the original idea of just first-come, first-serve, as it makes it more likely that the "regulars" will have their "regular" teams. I'm all about tradition.............. I don't mind seeing a few changes here and there, especially if guys WANT to switch teams (ex: I know that the94kid is dying to get his hands on Pittsburgh), but if all of a sudden all of the familiar veteran faces had "weird" teams then the league would feel like some kind of weird parallel universe or something! Unless they want to change their teams, I for one wanna see Schwartz as Hartford, Shakazuzu as Montreal, Cajanek as St. Louis, etc etc, for tradition's sake!

I might be more of a SNES guy, but I'm still following the GENS playoffs with interest, and here's to a great Cup Final!! I don't really have a preference as to who wins, but here's hoping Tickenest can come back and get back into this series.......... I wanna see seven games, many OTs, the whole works!

Not that I'm cheap, but I also don't like the idea of money, not because I mind parting with it (trust me I part with it far too easily lol), but because I can't see anything good coming of it in terms of the actual play in the league. Some guys would start getting too competitive and serious and stuff, and I think that the level of fun and competition is fine the way it is. I agree with pretty much everything Roccopan said- this game is best enjoyed when it's played just for pride......... and maybe a replica Stanley Cup. All of that said, nothing at all wrong with pokrchamp's enthusiasm, looks like you'll be a solid addition to the league next season man!

NYR is having trouble logging onto the site, so he asked me to try to schedule games with Boston for him. Boston, what's a good day/time for you?

Hoo boy, this thread heated up in a hurry................. Rudy I might take you up on that............. always wondered if the carpet matched the drapes ya know .................... bow chicka wow wow.

Some cool ideas Schwartz! Personally I find that the thrill of the competition and the fun times involved, just playing for pride basically, is enough of a rush for me............. if I was to win some sort of tangible prize, I guess that's cool too, but for me I'm really fine the way things are. The only prize that's totally NECESSARY in my opinion is the customized Stanley Cups for the champions of each league.......... which I think is the absolute coolest idea ever.............. even cooler than the idea of girls taking their clothes off for money.

Montreal-Quebec: Nate's been having problems with his internet lately, which is why we've been having trouble getting games in. But the other day he said that he might be able to go over to his brother's house on Thursday (today) and play some games. Hopefully this ends up working out!

Just in case you didn't notice Slimeball, Blazer made a post in the "Schedule A Game" forum, stating that he'd be ready to play starting Monday night (tonight).

Holy s**t what a series between Jota and Rudy! Congrats boys on what looks like a barnburner- might have been just as good as the Rudy-McMarkis series that I thought couldn't be topped. Seven games, three OTs, none decided by more than two goals- talk about tight games! Couldn't ask for better in the playoffs, and it's amazing that a bunch of guys randomly got together and made a league and ended up being so close in ability- you'd think there'd be huge dropoffs here and there in the talent pool (there are FOR SURE everywhere I play in person, there's a few very good guys then the rest of the pack) but look at these playoff results so far, the parity is very very impressive. My sympathies to Rudy on what must have been a heartbreaker, winning three OTs and having a 3-1 series lead yet still losing the series. I think Rudy was 5-1 overall in OTs in these playoffs, impressive stat for sure. Congrats to Jota on the series win and the comeback! Great to see a series finally getting done, and even better to see it be so down to the wire. Shaka and I should be up and running very soon, if not today then sometime this weekend.

Add me to AIM (thedeer1982) and/or MSN (ryan_the_deer@hotmail.com), I'm usually up for some games.

Looks as though the Kings have taken a 1-0 series lead with a 5-4 win!!! That one could end up being a nice series, just like it usually was when the Oilers and Kings met in the playoffs in real life back in the early 90s. Bobeto is capable of the upset, in which case the second round would totally change- we'd have Slimeball vs Bobeto42 and Blazer vs Rudy. Not sure which pair of Western series is more intriguing, the ones listed above or the "default" (before Bobeto magically reappeared) ones of Jota-Rudy and Slimeball-Blazer!

Well the first round of the SNES playoffs is finally in the books, I just wanna look back a bit first at Rd 1 before going on to look ahead to Rd 2. Too bad to see two of the west series have to be forfeits, but hopefully that's it for those for these playoffs. In the series that were played, we saw Slimeball beat Cajanek in six games in what I still predict is Slimeball's march to the final, he's been my pick to come out of the West since the playoffs started. Kudos to Cajanek on a great season in which he made huge strides after a rough start. We also saw the best series of the first round, bar none, and likely the best series of EITHER playoffs (SNES and GENS) between Rudy and McMarkis. Seven games, three OTs, including Game 7 going to OT- how can that series possibly be topped? I seriously wish I coulda watched that one! In the East we saw the top four seeds advance, as many expected, as these four were pretty powerful for most of the regular season. Montreal survived a slight scare (losing Game One to the brother) and came back and convincingly took the next four. Rumour has it that the trip to Cuba did the Sabres in. The Rangers survived a VERY tough test from Hartford, both players told me afterwards that the series was so intense and close at times that their hands were literally shaking as they played. Love it! Boston beat Washington in six, too bad Washington was a bit rusty in the first two games, otherwise this one might have been even closer- it's said that their last four games were awesome. And Quebec swept New Jersey after the two almost couldn't play their series due to various problems, very relieved that we got it in. I'd like to point out how well I did in the predictions department prior to rd 1!!! I nailed NYR-HFD and BOS-WAS bang-on. I also might have gotten DET-STL bang on, just can't remember if I picked five or six for Det but I might have nailed it with the six. And I called CHI-VAN going seven games, just picked the wrong winner. For rd 2: - Obviously not going to be making any predictions on the Montreal-Quebec series (Battle of Quebec holy s**t that's cool!!!), but here's to it being a good one. - NYR-Boston should be freaking TIGHT!!!!!! These are two just AWESOME players, and I'm sorry I call this one going seven games. Absolutely crazy that either of these guys is going to be out in rd 2, both are guys that are good enough to win the entire league, but that's how good the Wales Conference is, and that's how good this league is. Still can't believe how many great players I've met in this, I really thought me and my buddies back home were the only ones who were this hardcore! Anyway back on topic, we have the insane offence and underrated defence of NYR going up against the oh-so-well-rounded game of Boston. Can totally go either way and it's so close that the only thing I'm gonna base my decision on is a total homer (homo? ) pick- gonna go with my boy Biff in seven tight ones (tight ones? ). Just because I love the guy. Prediction: NYR IN 7 - Edmonton/Vancouver is gonna be AWESOME!! These are two serious players with serious skills, and both have been getting better and better as the league has gone on. Jota ripped it up great as a replacement coach, and Rudy only had an OK start but finished strong and looked great in rd 1 of the playoffs. And at the risk of saying this so often that it sounds like a cliche, these guys are VERY evenly matched, should be tight games all the way, a lot of goals too. Despite Jota's greatness, I get the feeling that Rudy is on fire, and that he's the man of the current hour in these playoffs. The kid is peaking at the right time. That and I owe him one after putting my money on McMarkis last round. Prediction: VAN IN 6 - Detroit/Dallas is another battle of two solid coaches, although I still have yet to play Blazer and therefore don't fully understand the extent of his greatness. Kinda hard to say much else about this series for that reason, but I'm gonna go with Slimeball in a six-pack of good games. Prediction: DET IN 6 The final eight look pretty good to me, let's get this s**t on the go!!!!!!! Anyone else have any thoughts?

Well in the 11th hour, the NHL 94 Gods smiled upon us, as we were able to connect and play our series, albeit with a fair bit of lag, but oh well we got er done. Good series Pat, and a great sport as always.

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!! I just connected to Fenty!!!!!!!!! Does that mean I can connect to Pat Brady? I'll IMMEDIATELY fire him off an e-mail, hopefully he gets it by tonight, cuz ACK I am going away for the entire long weekend (Canada Day weekend in case you American fools don't know what I mean with the long weekend! ), and by the time I get home my ass would likely have been FORFEITED!

Update, least I can do I guess. There are a couple of guys who have offered to help me with my connecting problems but I didn't see either of them online tonight. Whenever I get a hold of them online I'll try to see if they can help walk me through it, and hopefully if that's the case the games can be played, getting in contact with NJ is no problem, he said he's ready whenever my connecting problems are worked out. I'll keep trying this but if I can't get it figured out I might have to forfeit for the good of the league so that you guys can move on to rd 2. I REALLY hope it doesn't come to that, but I don't wanna hold anyone up any longer. Right now I'm not holding anyone up cuz there are three other series still incomplete but I'm just saying that Evan if I can't figure out a way to play this series I'm willing to do that if it means getting the league moving again. Anyway here's hoping.

Yeah it's not so much an IP thing Rudy, it's a port forwarding thing, every time I try to port forward it says "There is an IP address conflict in the network", then it boots me offline and the internet doesn't work again for a few minutes. When I try it again, the IP address has changed to something different. Very frustrating. NJ and I just tried again to connect, with no success.

NJ and I have finally gotten into contact with each other, and I sent him an e-mail telling him that I should be home tonight and am ready to try to play him. Reason I say "try" is because I have been having tons of connecting problems lately......... my computer keeps changing the IP on me. Maybe if Schwartz or one of the other more computer savvy people from the league is online they could help me with that. Anyway I'll try my best to play NJ tonight and/or tomorrow night and get this series finished.

Well finally we have a bit more SNES playoff to talk about, as Rudy and McMarkis completed their series last night. I was totally bang-on when I predicted that it would go 7 games, that it'd go down to the wire, that it might include a couple of OTs, and that it might very well go down as the best of the eight first round series. Look at those results, I was right on all counts!!!!!!!! Except I picked the wrong winner!!! Congrats to Rudy on knocking off one of the better players out there under what musta been pretty stressful circumstances, OT of a wild and wooly 9-8 Game Seven. Leave it to Rudy to find a way to stay "relaxed" in such a tight situation. hahahaha Also huge is coming back from a 3-2 series deficit, not too often that happens. Rudy man you have totally proven me wrong in my predictions and as a token of apology, I pick you to knock off Jota in the next round!!! 6 games man. Anyway one thing I was right about was that that was going to be a deadly series, and wow look at it, seven games, THREE OTs, OT in Game 7, tons of goals, it'll be hard for any playoff series in either league to top that one. Having played against both of them a fair bit I knew they were about as equal as it gets in ability and that it'd be a nailbiter. Great stuff boys!! Now if only I could find New Jersey, we need to have all three of the CB boys in rd 2, and I wanna get in there the real way, not through Forfeit Road, aka "the back door". We all know that the only NHL 94 player from CB who goes "back door" is Biff anyway.

I know it man, I nominated Slimeball for the "best 'better than their record' coach" award, and in fact he might be my pick to come out of the Western/Campbell Conference.

Just logged on and saw the scores and read your short little recap Biff, and WOW did that ever look like an awesome series! Except for Game 2, all super tight games, including a couple of OTs, between two guys who might have more passion for 94 than any other two guys I know. Wish I coulda watched these games, for real!!! Just looking around the playoffs, look at all the close games and OT games, it's weird how even on a video game, the games get tighter come playoff time. Anyways great series boys, looks like it was a classic.

Great post Schwartz, and trust me I'm totally raring to go for my playoff series, just waiting for my controller to return from its trip to Rudy's house to get pimped up!!!! When I get it back I'll msg your ass for a few exhis to get the blood flowing again, and then I'll seek out Pat Brady like Keith Tkachuk sought out Big Macs during the lockout!!!!!!!!!

If it's any consolation, the whole replacement coach thing worked out great in the SNES league. We got four GREAT replacement coaches in JotaC, energymike, Blazer, and McMarkis, and all four took over their teams in time to be able to end up near the top of the standings where they belong.

WOW, what a turnaround this series took. Habs win the first two games in blowout fashion, but then Washington creeps back into it with a couple of close wins, and then takes the series with a couple more close wins. Crazy! And it certainly is in the lead for the playoff series with the most DRAMA (and I don't mean on the ice) so far. In fact I have to wonder if said drama had anything to do with the outcome. Maybe it was some kind of strategy by Carse all along? Did it affect the Habs' game? Just thinking out loud. That's a couple of lower-seed replacement coaches coming out and taking down big favourites who rolled through the whole season............ as a top team, you almost wonder if you should tank games to avoid these very good replacement coaches and instead get a lower-seeded opponent that's actually weak! Like poor Calgary man, it's like he got punished for finishing first, got the toughest playoff matchup possible I think. But the league is supposed to be for fun, it isn't advertised as foolproof or anything, and Evan/Schwartz would be up night and day if they tried to account for EVERY possible little thing. Still thought it was worth mentioning though. I know that if I was Calgary and I saw how fast Dallas was charging, I'd have thrown some games (with all due respect to whoever was seed #7 in the West, and I actually don't even know who it is).