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Around the League 2019-2024 Edition

Wayward DP said:
I don't have the time anymore. Went from a four-sport fan to basically NBA/NHL. And even still only watch full games like once or twice each week. And I don't even have any damn kids yet...
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Same. Except I do see almost every Leafs game, but very few Raps and Jays games.
 
hockeylover said:
I'm pretty with you here. I usually just need some sort of hook. Fantasy did it for football but I find it's usually extraordinary performances that get me into a sport -- someone setting records, some sort of dynasty, an interesting storyline, rooting against "villain" team.

I guess that's why I'm always wishing the NHL would embrace its star power more over pushing a plugger, defensive style. Gimme the skill.
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Ya greatness always gets me watching. Tiger got me watching golf, but now it's boring as shit without him. I'll turn on tennis to watch Serena. Brady gets me watching football.

Other than that it's just home team stuff carried over from my youth. The NHL needs to figure it out. It'll always be a team sport but they need to take the handcuffs off the stars by calling the fucking rule book.
 
Habsy said:
Legit surprised you couldn't get into NFL. Once you get passed the BS it's a great sport to watch with many last minute lead changes.

I love football. For me it's baseball I couldn't give a darn about but that's because of the Expos fiasco.

I grew up in one of the great Habs ages so I also don't know if i would be as interested in hockey today as a youngster. They really should be putting out movies for kids and fans alike.
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Tried multiple times to care, can't care. I've been a fan of various players over the year but can never bring myself to care about the laundry. Couldn't get into the Bills because my earliest memory of them were being losing fucking losers every year in the Superbowl (attempt #1 to get into football in middle school). Tried to care about the Bills a bunch of years later and having been the Buffalo multiple times, I can honestly say that place is an epic shithole and I can't support anything about the place.

Have given various levels of fucks about individual players at various times (Barry Sanders, Adrian Peterson, Ray Lewis, Mike Vick, etc) but most of them ended up beating their wife or kicking babies around at the park or some other form of ridiculously dumb shit so I just kind of gave up after a while.

The other thing that gets me (on top of being lukewarm about the game itself) is the short season shit. I don't like giving a day of the week to fandom. If I'm busy with something else I want to be able to miss that particular game and not have it be a big deal. If I miss a Leaf or Raptors game, meh, there's 81 more where that came from.
 
Too choppy for me. North American sports are designed for anticipation/drama and don't much care for the free flowing nature of a basketball, for example. I get it. It's like watching chess I guess. I personally don't like watching chess so I have a more European viewpoint when it comes to enjoy sports which is why I gravitate to soccer, basketball and hockey. I can't do a sport that is spent standing around more often than in action... but I think that's solely an American thing and pretty foreign to Europeans. Which is why they're always mocking Americans for their love of American football.. They just don't get it. I do.. I just look for something a little different out of my sports.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Same. Except I do see almost every Leafs game, but very few Raps and Jays games.
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I would say I watch about 50% of regular season Leafs games. Fewer than that for Raps. And then basically every minute of playoffs.

No more MLB or NFL though.

Haven't had a cable subscription since Raps won the chip.

I am starting a new position soon which will hopefully free up more leisure time but obviously that remains tbd...
 
Yeah, I find actually watching footy is growing on me now that MLS skill level is going up pretty steadily and our national team is pretty decent/entertaining to watch. It definitely has a consistent flow to it that I enjoy more than watching baseball or NA football.
 
Wayward DP said:
I would say I watch about 50% of regular season Leafs games. Fewer than that for Raps. And then basically every minute of playoffs.

No more MLB or NFL though.

Haven't had a cable subscription since Raps won the chip.

I am starting a new position soon which will hopefully free up more leisure time but obviously that remains tbd...
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ooof, I'm probably like ~75 of 82 regular season Leaf games or more. It's the one thing I'll schedule a day around. NHL66 helps a lot with that though, I'm one of those "fuck cable" level cord cutters. If I had a better streaming option for the Raptors I would probably watch more than the 30-40 games a year I watch since the chip year. (I watched like maybe 5 games of the bubble disaster...willl probably do 50-60 this year though if they're as good as they should be).

I'm done being a die hard for anything though. Be good and/or entertaining or fuck off. I have other shit to do.
 
MindzEye said:
ooof, I'm probably like ~75 of 82 regular season Leaf games or more. It's the one thing I'll schedule a day around. NHL66 helps a lot with that though, I'm one of those "fuck cable" level cord cutters. If I had a better streaming option for the Raptors I would probably watch more than the 30-40 games a year I watch since the chip year. (I watched like maybe 5 games of the bubble disaster...willl probably do 50-60 this year though if they're as good as they should be).

I'm done being a die hard for anything though. Be good and/or entertaining or fuck off. I have other shit to do.
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I am an NHL66 purist too. It's fucking great.

However, I used to watch more Leafs and Raps when I had PVR. Allowed me to get more bang for my buck for my time. I do miss that. Haven't found an internet equivalent yet.

For Raps, I was able to rely on the nbastreams reddit page and battle the popups to always get a good stream.

Ms. Wayward is also a limiting factor my sports fandom too as she is not a hockey fan.
 
Wayward DP said:
For Raps, I was able to rely on the nbastreams reddit page and battle the popups to always get a good stream.
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Yeah, this is what I do too. I have a 2 monitor set up at my workstation, so I'll put the Raptors game on the one and work on the other pretty regularly.
 
Wayward DP said:
I am an NHL66 purist too. It's fucking great.

However, I used to watch more Leafs and Raps when I had PVR. Allowed me to get more bang for my buck for my time. I do miss that. Haven't found an internet equivalent yet.

For Raps, I was able to rely on the nbastreams reddit page and battle the popups to always get a good stream.

Ms. Wayward is also a limiting factor my sports fandom too as she is not a hockey fan.
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Divorce.
 
MindzEye said:
Yeah, this is what I do too. I have a 2 monitor set up at my workstation, so I'll put the Raptors game on the one and work on the other pretty regularly.
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I don't know how to work with the game going. I watched probably 80% of the games on 66 last year, but one of two things happens. Either I am actually watching it and not working, or I've got it on mute for parts while I do calls or actually work and thus not really paying attention (in which case I'll rewind it sometimes or I'll pause it till I'm ready to watch again).

Huge productivity killer these days. Used to be I'd record it and watch it late at night, but circumstances are such that that isn't really feasible anymore, so I get the instant fix of just watching it in real time from 4:30 pm here. I use other strategies too, like I'll put it on and pause it immediately, and then start watching it after like 1 or 1.5 hours in so that I can skip through the commercials and intermissions.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
I don't know how to work with the game going. I watched probably 80% of the games on 66 last year, but one of two things happens. Either I am actually watching it and not working, or I've got it on mute for parts while I do calls or actually work and thus not really paying attention (in which case I'll rewind it sometimes or I'll pause it till I'm ready to watch again).

Huge productivity killer these days. Used to be I'd record it and watch it late at night, but circumstances are such that that isn't really feasible anymore, so I get the instant fix of just watching it in real time from 4:30 pm here. I use other strategies too, like I'll put it on and pause it immediately, and then start watching it after like 1 or 1.5 hours in so that I can skip through the commercials and intermissions.
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2.5 hours of game minus intermissions and commercials is ~1.5 hours

Easy peasy.
 
leafman101 said:
Hockey is easily the best of the big sports. Its the fastest, most violent, most skilled. Games don't take forever. Its constant action. Its just marketed poorly.

Bettman took an "if you build it they will come approach" but expansion works better in markets that already like the product. He largely just ignored the product, other than in 2005. They've intentionally tried to suppress all of the interesting personalities (Hull, Roenick, Ovie, Kessel etc) and the skill of the game. They never really made an effort in gambling or esports until recently.

They tried to make hockey boring.

The NHL was always in tough because most sports play in the winter. MLB just relies on being the only thing on. But there is lots of competition for eyeballs, and they've never recognized that, or tried to compete for those eyeballs.
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It's pretty shocking how bad he's marketed the NHL and he' s been in charge 30 years. There seems to be no real concern I guess.
 
Wayward DP said:
I am an NHL66 purist too. It's fucking great.

However, I used to watch more Leafs and Raps when I had PVR. Allowed me to get more bang for my buck for my time. I do miss that. Haven't found an internet equivalent yet.

For Raps, I was able to rely on the nbastreams reddit page and battle the popups to always get a good stream.

Ms. Wayward is also a limiting factor my sports fandom too as she is not a hockey fan.
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You can't get on-demand games? ESPN+ let's you watch the game whenever.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
I don't know how to work with the game going. I watched probably 80% of the games on 66 last year, but one of two things happens. Either I am actually watching it and not working, or I've got it on mute for parts while I do calls or actually work and thus not really paying attention (in which case I'll rewind it sometimes or I'll pause it till I'm ready to watch again).

Huge productivity killer these days. Used to be I'd record it and watch it late at night, but circumstances are such that that isn't really feasible anymore, so I get the instant fix of just watching it in real time from 4:30 pm here. I use other strategies too, like I'll put it on and pause it immediately, and then start watching it after like 1 or 1.5 hours in so that I can skip through the commercials and intermissions.
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effective multi-tasking is a myth.

the PVR, pause, go do things, then watch is one of the best tricks around. I did that for most of the Raps title run truth be told.
 
Habsy said:
You can't get on-demand games? ESPN+ let's you watch the game whenever.
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so the answer may actually be no!

I know previously me and my buddy had a great set-up. I had cable, and any game on TV he would come watch at my place. then he had NHL Game Centre, which allowed us to livestream any Leaf game not otherwise broadcast on local TV. I.e. any game I got on cable, we could not stream online.

assuming this is still the system, I'd only get access to the games that are SNO broadcasts.

CBC I can stream live online (but no PVR). Unsure about national sportsnet.

And NHL66 is free, whereas here I would have to pay to only get limited access.
 
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