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Post by MikeC on Sept 28, 2018 20:59:23 GMT -4
But the guy with the elbows up was the guy who didn't get the penalty. Poirier had his down...Khovanov was at arm height. Sylvestre raised his arms to make the hit bigger. That's not what I saw. |
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Post by j3e4 on Sept 28, 2018 22:09:21 GMT -4
I was only listening on the radio so I can't comment on either hit but generally speaking those are often the toughest calls for the refs to get right despite being among the most important. I wouldn't be opposed to allowing refs to use video replay on those at their discretion.
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Post by cautious on Sept 28, 2018 22:47:49 GMT -4
Doiron put on quite a show on the lines tonite,and Marvelous Mario did his job. Beautiful venue,great for watching any event. Concessions easy to access. Have a great year
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Post by chootoi on Sept 28, 2018 23:10:57 GMT -4
-WOW was Desnoyers fun to watch tonight. I want to see what he can do with top line minutes and PP time ASAP
-Spence is a smart player. Reminds me a bit of Gormley.
-seemed like S. Stewart got burned every time he was on the ice. Decision making was slow and he looked outmatched.
-McKenna goal was huge. Cats were sound asleep by the end of the 2nd and the Dogs were taking over with minimal effort. After that the game completely flipped.
-Cats worked hard in both ends but in the middle of the ice they were horrid. I don’t know if this is a coaching thing or not but nobody can make a play in the neutral zone cause they are all floating around with one hand on the stick.
-Leclerc wasn’t tested a whole lot but he was solid when he needed to be. That’s all you can ask for
-Building looks great. Still plenty of hiccups to sort out but they’ll get there. The Mikmaq thing was cool but the rest of the exhausting ceremony should have been done in the plaza or on another night dedicated to a grand opening show IMO. A hockey game is not the place to jack up a crowd with 200 years of History from an opera singer.
All in all an exciting and entertaining night. looking forward to Sunday.
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Post by catzfans on Sept 28, 2018 23:44:06 GMT -4
-WOW was Desnoyers fun to watch tonight. I want to see what he can do with top line minutes and PP time ASAP -Spence is a smart player. Reminds me a bit of Gormley. -seemed like S. Stewart got burned every time he was on the ice. Decision making was slow and he looked outmatched. -McKenna goal was huge. Cats were sound asleep by the end of the 2nd and the Dogs were taking over with minimal effort. After that the game completely flipped. -Cats worked hard in both ends but in the middle of the ice they were horrid. I don’t know if this is a coaching thing or not but nobody can make a play in the neutral zone cause they are all floating around with one hand on the stick. -Leclerc wasn’t tested a whole lot but he was solid when he needed to be. That’s all you can ask for -Building looks great. Still plenty of hiccups to sort out but they’ll get there. The Mikmaq thing was cool but the rest of the exhausting ceremony should have been done in the plaza or on another night dedicated to a grand opening show IMO. A hockey game is not the place to jack up a crowd with 200 years of History from an opera singer. All in all an exciting and entertaining night. looking forward to Sunday. Desnoyers similar to Pelletier last year is going to force his way into a top 6 role quickly. Spence looks great moving the puck for his age. Great to see Khovanov make an impact. Seems the only issue will be keeping him focused every game. |
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Post by npsh on Sept 29, 2018 0:51:17 GMT -4
-WOW was Desnoyers fun to watch tonight. I want to see what he can do with top line minutes and PP time ASAP -Spence is a smart player. Reminds me a bit of Gormley. -seemed like S. Stewart got burned every time he was on the ice. Decision making was slow and he looked outmatched. -McKenna goal was huge. Cats were sound asleep by the end of the 2nd and the Dogs were taking over with minimal effort. After that the game completely flipped. -Cats worked hard in both ends but in the middle of the ice they were horrid. I don’t know if this is a coaching thing or not but nobody can make a play in the neutral zone cause they are all floating around with one hand on the stick. -Leclerc wasn’t tested a whole lot but he was solid when he needed to be. That’s all you can ask for -Building looks great. Still plenty of hiccups to sort out but they’ll get there. The Mikmaq thing was cool but the rest of the exhausting ceremony should have been done in the plaza or on another night dedicated to a grand opening show IMO. A hockey game is not the place to jack up a crowd with 200 years of History from an opera singer. All in all an exciting and entertaining night. looking forward to Sunday. Agree with everything you say, I thought with score at 3-2 here we go, shades of last year. I was impressed with Khovanov tonight even though with his couple of minors, with some fine tuning this team is gonna make some noise this season. Very impressed with the facility, we were in lineup less that 5 min at main entrance, lots of venues for snacks, beer/ wine and plenty of bathrooms- much different taking a piss there than at Coliseum if you know what I mean. I was hoping for a Tim’s but guess that’s in the future. Opening ceremonies on a new first game facility, well it is what it is and to be expected for the first night. Having said that I detected a bit of political statement made tonight zeroing in on one of the official face off puck drop dignitaries but I shall leave it at that. All in all a very fine enjoyable night, glad we went and looking forward to Sunday afternoon. |
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Post by Captain Obvious on Sept 29, 2018 7:05:46 GMT -4
The building itself is very pro style. Made for bigger crowds and lots of concessions. No comparison to the Coliseum with the one side balcony and all concessions on one side. My only concern is parking once the "newness" wears off and bad weather hits...how will that impact attendance.
I wonder if they will bring in the banners at some point...thought they would do that last night...
In terms of the game, Khovanov looked more explosive, needs to stop taking penalties though. The 3 young guys(Spence Fournier and Desnoyers) looked pretty good. Games vs SJ should be among the most entertaining, SJ has a lot of skill but are very young...lots of goals...
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Post by SteveUL on Sept 29, 2018 9:10:34 GMT -4
-WOW was Desnoyers fun to watch tonight. I want to see what he can do with top line minutes and PP time ASAP -Spence is a smart player. Reminds me a bit of Gormley. -seemed like S. Stewart got burned every time he was on the ice. Decision making was slow and he looked outmatched. -McKenna goal was huge. Cats were sound asleep by the end of the 2nd and the Dogs were taking over with minimal effort. After that the game completely flipped. -Cats worked hard in both ends but in the middle of the ice they were horrid. I don’t know if this is a coaching thing or not but nobody can make a play in the neutral zone cause they are all floating around with one hand on the stick. -Leclerc wasn’t tested a whole lot but he was solid when he needed to be. That’s all you can ask for -Building looks great. Still plenty of hiccups to sort out but they’ll get there. The Mikmaq thing was cool but the rest of the exhausting ceremony should have been done in the plaza or on another night dedicated to a grand opening show IMO. A hockey game is not the place to jack up a crowd with 200 years of History from an opera singer. All in all an exciting and entertaining night. looking forward to Sunday. That opening ceremony was embarassing. The First Nation piece was good but it seemed to go on forever ... but I liked it ... tapping along to the drum beat. The Acadian tribute was lame and I think we were all waiting to see if the old girl would fall ... I was terrified for her when they turned out the lights. Then I waited for the unilingual English tribute and it never came ... oh well. Then they brought out some guy that didn't know the words to the "Hockey Song" ... his sound was brutal ... and they tell us that this will be our new goal song. How imaginative !! But then ... we scored five goals and not once did we hear that as the goal song ... thank god. But the worst part was them trying to be funny by somebody writing a silly song about our history ... and having an opera singer sing it ... it failed miserably. How out of touch with their audience can they be ? Yes there were instances of lights dimming during the play (maybe I was having a stroke ?). On the mezzanine, they allowed lineups at concessions and other areas to go straight across the corridor, blocking the flow of people walking by. Please, get the people to line up parallel to the corridor ... not perpendicular. You'd think a company that actually runs world class facilities all over the world would know to do this. We also need a game clock in the mezzanine area. My biggest beef was at the end where we all shuffled along to exit out the same door at the front. Open some side doors to empty the place out faster ! But the building was fantastic ... seats were comfortable ... lots of beer stations ... sound system was good ... scoreboard clock is great ... Cats won. I parked up on St. George Street (on street) near to Highfield and had a five minute walk to the front door. It took me about three min in line before I was past security, so that all worked well. It took far longer getting out of the building than it did getting into the building. I know ... they'll work out the kinks with more repetition. What ... no RKI screaming speech  |
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gdg25
Blue-Chip Prospect
Posts: 349
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Post by gdg25 on Sept 29, 2018 9:55:20 GMT -4
Overall your building is fantastic it’ has an NHL feel to it. We parked at the rodd and walked up it’s only a kilometre not ideal . Opening ceremony was atrocious I figured the wildcats were going to put a show on. I also was a little disappointed in the crowd atmosphere at the colliseum some nights it was a mad house be real loud and last night the atmosphere wasn’t one of opening a state of the art facility . The concourse was really congested especially trying to leave was crazy. And what’s Wong drawing the 50/50 with 4 minutes left
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yorb
Draft Pick
Posts: 71
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Post by yorb on Sept 29, 2018 11:52:06 GMT -4
The good (I won't rehash the seating & scoreboard type stuff many of us saw at the open house):
- Getting in / getting out. They've improved things dramatically since the building opened. Getting in took 3 minutes, getting out was faster than a lot of times at the Coliseum. No traffic at all on side streets & St George after the game. Nice seeing some full city buses for a change. Restaurants within a few blocks were quite busy before & after the game which certainly wasn't the case until recently.
- Ice quality. It was a bit hot in there, 8500 people certainly didn't help, but if that's as bad as the ice gets, what an improvement from the Coliseum in September.
- The sound system is excellent. Yeah there could have been maybe a notch less bass at times but the music sounded great.
- Song selection was much better. Didn't have that kids' birthday party vibe for a change. Big improvement on that front, keep it up.
- Concessions. So many options. Craft beer (they were busy all night apparently). Super impressed with the overall selection.
The bad:
- We could barely hear the end-of-period horn, tough to see the penalty time. A few little things like that I'm sure will be adjusted. Lots of potential there.
- Concourse was annoyingly congested during intermissions. But that's to be expected with double the normal attendance.
- The fact that they threw in a Stompin Tom cover as "the sport portion" of the opening ceremonies was really lazy, felt like "okay, let's throw this in for the dumb hockey people". Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the cultural and historical elements they presented, but there really should also have been a "passing the torch from the Coliseum to the Avenir Centre" part to the ceremony, maybe raising Presidents Cup banners, something of the sort. Just my opinion.
- Not a "building" problem at all, but man that crowd was awful. At the open house I was talking to a front office guy about the lack of atmosphere, and he gave the "season ticket holders sitting together will improve it" line... predictable fail; as a whole the existing STHs aren't any more vocal than the rest. I realize probably a third the overall crowd was just there to say they were there and probably won't go to another game this year, but still...
Overall: Enjoyable first game. The building itself is really something. Looking forward to seeing what it's like with a normal crowd of 4,000-5,000 who are there mainly there for the Wildcats, without the white noise from the thundersticks.
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yorb
Draft Pick
Posts: 71
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Post by yorb on Sept 29, 2018 12:02:22 GMT -4
On the hockey side... wasn't a great 60-minute effort by any stretch but a really strong 3rd period. I'm thinking we're gonna see a lot of 6-5 or 7-6 type games this year, tons of skill and depth up front.
Speaking of which, Desnoyers reminds me so much of Pelletier at the beginning of last season. Works insanely hard, great hockey sense and already looks like he belongs on the top 2 lines. Really impressive.
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