re div and conf names in apr hubcap clemson edu jwodzia dlite uucp john wodziak writes sorry roger but mr basketbal should what he really means here ie he should have said that he hopes fans in the american southeast can follow the names of the divisions the odds that these people other than those who are displaced notherners who are probably already fans is on the order of the proverbial snowball s in hell i am not at all clear about what you are trying to say here if you asked somone who had never heard of hockey before if la played in the smythe division what do you think that the response would be what if you asked this person if la played in the west division the naming of divisions after long dead entrepreneurs is unnecessary obfuscation i am glad that the names are being changed for another reason the names patrick smythe norris adams and campbell are all the names of so called builders of the game this is the same type of thinking that put stein in the hall of fame this is absolute nonsense the real builders of the game are richard morenz howe conacher orr etc if you are going to name the divisions after people at least name the divisions after people who deserve it yes these people deserve recognigtion as hockey greats but the old division names took into account messers patrick norris smythe and the prince who had alot more to do with the origins of the league than people who came into an already established situation it is much easier to be an element of change hardly the established situation existed prior to smythe et al the stanley cup was a challenge trophy up for grabs to whatever team could successfully mount the challenge what our dear founders did was formalize the challenge they created a closed league an oligop olistic professional system in the interests of making money wheth er or not that system has contributed to better hockey is certainly debatable we are however stuck with their invention and that de bate is academic the point to be made however is that people played hockey and people enjoyed watching hockey long before smythe and his pals showed up or a standout in an existing situation than it is to be someone who creates a new situation if you want to honor players like bobby orr than i m sure you can find a reason to name a torphy after him such as best offensive defenseman what s wrong with best defenceman period was there ever a better defenceman was there ever a better player and if you think that bruce norris contribution was somehow more significant than bobby orr s then in the interests of education why don t you take a poll and find out how many people know who norris was but you don t have to do you no i can t for the reasons i gave above i m in the same boat as jason and i grew up with the current divisonal names and learned them when i was about years old and who played in what division if a year old american can learn this why would it be hard for an occasional fan to pick up on who plays in what division so you don t feel that you should have to make the effort to remember that vancouver plays in the west division or pacific or whatever other intuitively understandable moniker is chosen oh now i see your point your intention has been to alert us to the erosion of purity i ll bet you like hockey because it s for the most part played by whites of european extraction probably not in my case i m sure of this what you said would be like me saying that all maple leafs fans are as biased closed minded ignorant and of course you neatly deleted jason s jingoistic rant about the game losing its canadianization quoting me out of context does more to erode your credibility than it does mine my position is clearly progressive and is anything but biased closed minded ig norant arrogant i will grant you arrogant and moronic as you just because someone a doesn t like what mr basketball is doing b voices their opinion and c likes the senerio of you going to antartica does not mean that you have the right to insult them nice try john but for a flame to be truly effective you have to display at least enough intelligence to earn your target s respect cordially as always rm roger maynard maynard ramsey cs laurentian ca
