There were two suspesions - Islander Sean Hill was suspended 20 games for a perfromance enhancing drug (unspecified which one):
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl…pe=lgns
And Calgary’s backup goaltender slashed Red Wing Franzen, and got 5 games for it:
http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl…pe=lgns
I saw that Flames Game and that slash… That’s a bad player decision to do something like that… It was totally uncalled for… If your team is loosing a game the coach and players should sit down and try to to figure out what they’re doing wrong and fix their game plan for the next game…
If a player has to take a performance enhancing drug to keep up, maybe he is playing in the wrong league.
I wasn’t sure who won that west coast series. Good for the Canucks… This will be a “Key” series for Vancouver… The west coast is so far away from where I live… 
I’m gettin up… they’re just goin to bed…
Bill…
Yep, I generally record the west coast games and watch 'em the next morning. 
Hi TomS:
Well, Hockey (game #4) is on tonight, in Ottawa… I can’t say I’m a supporter of any one team. But I’d like to see some good/solid competition… There’s a lot of character on that Sabre’s Bench. I hope they come out skating and make a Game out of it…
Bill…
…and they did!
I still say Buffalo in 7… (well, I was saying Buffalo in 6, but, well…)
Hi TomS:
I’m surprised that the Sabre’s aren’t selling out their arena, or is it the Detriot Rink? It’s hard to find fault with their semi-final play. but it’s hard to find better play-making than the the Ottawa/New Jersey series. The End-to-End play in that series was hard to beat… I see in this series an effort by both benches to stay outta the penalty box. However, it looks to me that both benches would rather give up a penalty than give the other team a goal… Penalties are part of Hockey… and I see both benches sitting out players if they don’t perform…
I’d like to see more of the West Coast series, but when they play out on the coast I just can’t stay up…
Day is breaking now before 5am. That’s no consultation though… We had 2" snow out on Cape Breton Island… It’s cool over here yet… below freezing as the sun breaks over the horizon… Frost on the car windows. COLD… My furnace comes on in the mornings… Is that Global Warming? Or What?
But if you’re predictions are right, that would be the Sabre’s legacy… to come from behind where they are and go-on and win the Stanley Cup…
If that would happen… you’d get no argument from Grapes…
Bill…
[EDIT]
O.K. predictions on tonight’s game…
I predict that the ducks will take an early lead, detroit will fight back, the ducks will go up again in teh 3rd and the last goal will be an empty net goal…
Oops, i guess that was “post-diction” - since I watched the game…
saturday, the Sabres will win, 3-2, forcing a game six. game six they will win in overtime, and game seven they will will easily.
or not!
If there’s any Hockey tonight I’m not able to see it… Or… the CBC ain’t carrying any.
I have a ku Band dish on the way… But I wouldn’t have it before the Stanley Cup is all over.
I stand corrected, but I believe the dish will have three LNB’s on it… It’ll be able to “SEE” three satellites… between the three out front (the focal Points) of the dish… Anyway, that’s what I’m hearing… I’m hoping to be able to see some European Soccer with this thing. We’ll see…
Anyway… I predict that after two teams loose the series that is being played now there will be two teams left to play for the Stanley Cup… AND… one of them should win the Cup… I’m sure I got a loonie to put on it… 
I’m listening at the news report right now… It seems as though the loonie is peaking at record highs compared to other currencies… I’m not so sure that this is a good idea for us… up here… ?
Bill…
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I don’t know TomS… The Ducks looked pretty good last night. Or… Ottawa didn’t want the first game… or something.
If that game is gonna set the tone of the series, then it’s gonna be tough for the Sens to win the Cup.
Bill…
That was weird:
I forgot to log on… Just checking…
Bill…
So far your predictions have been spot on, there are two teams left, Bill!
Anyway, the best four teams were in the conference finals, and I am not at all unhappy with the prospect of the ducks winning the cup - I really like the fact that one Neidermayer was willing to take a pay cut to play with his brother…was it rob or the other one?
edit: OK it was scott.
Of course, a pay cut from 4 to 3 million a year isn’t exactly going to put the family in the poorhouse…
Thank You TomS 
I’d hate to put any amount of money on the out-come of this series… but… If the Ducks win one of the next two games in Ottawa the Sens are DONE… That’s the way I see it…
There isn’t a lot of support for Ottawa around these parts…
Boston… Montreal, Toronto… Now, that’s different… BUT… Ottawa??
Bill…
Most of my Canadian side of the family are not at all fond of the Sens. Seems like Canada is down on them in general. Why is that? Politics or something?
It seems that most average rank-and-file taxpayers across the country preceive Ottawa as the place that legally extracts their hard earned money from their pockets… Here’s a link to a story that everyone in the world should read and update their perceptions of taxation what they’re here on earth for… GOOD READ Certainly… one-end-of-the-spectrum…
Anyway, they’re talking about the Crosby Kid as becoming he Captain of the Pittsburg Bench… I don’t think that should happen… It seems we’ll soon find that out…
Bill…
I dunno, Bill, Bastiat’s views were extreme even in his own day, and certainly overly-simplistic. Governments are good for some things, not so good at others, but I’ve always preferred Plato’s more balanced way of making Bastiant’s point: who will guard the guardians? And the answer to me seems to be: us. Seems to me that what’s messed up is not government, but our relationship to it. If you are interested, the text of Bastiat’s book is on line various places, e.g., here:
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html
Libertarians love Bastiat. 
Really, on the same point, I am enjoying Al Gore’s new book. It’s going to get attacked here as “more lefty liberal tax and spend” stuff, but it is not at all partisan - it’s a very good bit of political philosophy about what makes democracies function, and what messes them up.
Actually, I’ve only read two reviews of the book - one attacked the cover and the photo Gore used (from a left leaning reviewer!), and the other the guy simply did not read it - or if he did, he either intentionally misunderstood it or is just plain stupid - and that was in the NY Times!
A high majority of us over here in this end of the country put too much faith in our elected representatives… hoping that they’ll all do what they say they’ll do during their campaigning for office… knowing only too well they don’t have the clout to enact what they promise…
On another front… when they get to Ottawa they get taken under the wings of the Big Guys and they forget just who elected them and what they went to Ottawa for in the first place…
When we do get some of our money back, it’s decided by some Big Guy in some other part of the country who decides what our money is gonna be spent on… We don’t get it anyway if the money isn’t gonna benefit their pockets directly, anyway…
Ever sense I was a kid and can remember… the talk was we should take the Maritimes and float it down to Florida… The reason of doing that was and is, we all go there in the winter months to live… anyway. That is, if we have a dollar in our pockets… Some of us do that, if we can find a way to hide it from the TAX Company… And do manage to do just that… We all know who goes there in the winter…
Otherwise we watch Sydney on the Tube whenever they decide to carry his Game…
I’m gonna spend some time with that link you posted… Maybe, I’ll get a better understanding of politics as I understand it now… Hindsight, they say is always 20 - 20… But as I see it, Politics is always Hindsight… That’s as I see it…
I can’t say I’m a politically minded person… I rarely talk politics…
Bill…
I was unable to edit the previous post… That link has some king-sized reading there… Here’s one thought provoking ideas…
****************************************************************
The Law Defends Plunder
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder, and it is of this, no doubt, that Mr. de Montalembert speaks.
This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations — and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests.
********************************************************
Is it just me? It appears as though these links are Democratic Ideas written as they apply to the United States…
Bill…
Bastiat was French, died in 1850 of TB; he was a natural law libertarian - he argued that we are all motivated by self-interest, and only self-interest (which is empirically false, I think, and perhaps the single most problematic claim of economic theory in the last 250 years), argued that a minimal state is necessary to direct that self-interest, but that self-interest is also what motivates rulers, and hence we need to be deeply distrustful of government. In the end this meant a very minimal state indeed - he would have been appalled at the degree of economic intervention one finds in the US, much less Canada. The standard criticism is that such intervention is necessary, either because unfettered capitalism, unfettered free markets, destroy many and make a few rich and this is socially destabilizing (I’d say that this has been empirically confirmed as much as any proposition like it can be, and it is the one argument that conservatives recognize in favor of some transfer payments to pay for things like public schools and roads, although hard-core libertarians reject even that); or because we are in fact morally repsonsible for each other’s well-being (the core Christian and left-communitarian argument - which, incidentally, makes it all the stranger when one finds Christian libertarians quoting Bastiat - I always wonder if they understand the theoretical inconsistency [he did - see what he says about physicians in Economic Sophisms], or if they don’t, in which case the adoption of Bastiat as an intellectual saint just might actually demonstrate one of Bastiat’s basic claims - since perhaps self-interest explains the willingness to twist both libertarian and Christian ideas to get them in bed together.)
Anyway, Bastiat’s Economic Sophisms is slightly more interesting than the Law pamphlet, which seems to me to be theoretically very simplistic - in much the same way that the Communist Manifesto is. Sort of a mid-19th century problem - some people on the right and the left didn’t like to read sophisticated things that recognize how complex the world really is. Oops, that’s not just a 19th century problem, is it?
Ain’t no easy answers…but now would not be a bad time to “throw the bums out” as they used to say…IMHO…
The thing I referred to above, from ES - it gives a better sense of Bastiat thinking more subtly than he did in The Law:
<!–QuoteBegin>
QUOTE
In so far as we are producers, it must be admitted, each of us has hopes that are antisocial. Are we vineyardists? We should be little displeased if all the vines in the world save ours were blighted by frost: this is the theory of scarcity. Are we the owners of ironworks? We want no other iron to be on the market but our own, whatever may be the public need for it, precisely because this need, keenly felt and incompletely satisfied, brings us a high price: this too is the theory of scarcity. Are we farmers? We say, with M. Bugeaud: Let bread be costly, that is to say, scarce, and the farmers will prosper: this is still the theory of scarcity.
I.1.25
Are we physicians? We cannot blind ourselves to the fact that certain physical improvements, such as better public sanitation, the development of such moral virtues as moderation and temperance, the progress of knowledge to the point at which everyone can take care of his own health, and the discovery of certain simple, easily applied remedies, would be just so many deadly blows struck at our profession. In so far as we are physicians, our secret wishes are antisocial. I do not mean to say that physicians actually give expression to such wishes. I like to believe that they would welcome with joy the discovery of a universal cure; but it would not be as physicians, but as men and as Christians that they would yield to such an impulse: by a laudable art of self-abnegation, they would take the point of view of the consumer. But in so far as the physician practices a profession, in so far as he owes to that profession his well-being, his prestige, and even the means of supporting his family, it is impossible for his desires—or, if you will, his interests—not to be antisocial.
I.1.26
Do we make cotton textiles? We wish to sell them at the price that is most advantageous for us. We should heartily approve the proscription of all rival manufacturers; and though we do not dare to express this wish publicly or to seek its full realization with any likelihood of success, we nevertheless attain it to a certain extent by roundabout menus: for example, by excluding foreign textiles, so as to diminish the supply, and thereby to produce, by the use of force and to our profit, a scarcity of clothing.
I.1.27
In the same way, we could make a survey of all industries, and we should always find that producers, as such, have antisocial attitudes. “The merchant,” says Montaigne,12* “prospers only by the extravagance of youth; the farmer, by the high cost of grain; the architect, by the decay of houses; officers of justice, by men’s lawsuits and quarrels, Even the ministers of religion owe the honor and practice of their high calling to our death and our vices. No physician takes pleasure in the good health of even his friends; no soldier, in the peace of his country; and so it goes for the rest.”
I.1.28
It follows that, if the secret wishes of each producer were realized, the world would speedily retrogress toward barbarism. The sail would take the place of steam, the oar would replace the sail, and it in turn would have to yield to the wagon, the latter to the mule, and the mule to the packman. Wool would ban cotton, cotton would ban wool, and so on, until the scarcity of all things made man himself disappear from the face of the earth.
I.1.25
Are we physicians? We cannot blind ourselves to the fact that certain physical improvements, such as better public sanitation, the development of such moral virtues as moderation and temperance, the progress of knowledge to the point at which everyone can take care of his own health, and the discovery of certain simple, easily applied remedies, would be just so many deadly blows struck at our profession. In so far as we are physicians, our secret wishes are antisocial. I do not mean to say that physicians actually give expression to such wishes. I like to believe that they would welcome with joy the discovery of a universal cure; but it would not be as physicians, but as men and as Christians that they would yield to such an impulse: by a laudable art of self-abnegation, they would take the point of view of the consumer. But in so far as the physician practices a profession, in so far as he owes to that profession his well-being, his prestige, and even the means of supporting his family, it is impossible for his desires—or, if you will, his interests—not to be antisocial.
I.1.26
Do we make cotton textiles? We wish to sell them at the price that is most advantageous for us. We should heartily approve the proscription of all rival manufacturers; and though we do not dare to express this wish publicly or to seek its full realization with any likelihood of success, we nevertheless attain it to a certain extent by roundabout menus: for example, by excluding foreign textiles, so as to diminish the supply, and thereby to produce, by the use of force and to our profit, a scarcity of clothing.
I.1.27
In the same way, we could make a survey of all industries, and we should always find that producers, as such, have antisocial attitudes. “The merchant,” says Montaigne,12* “prospers only by the extravagance of youth; the farmer, by the high cost of grain; the architect, by the decay of houses; officers of justice, by men’s lawsuits and quarrels, Even the ministers of religion owe the honor and practice of their high calling to our death and our vices. No physician takes pleasure in the good health of even his friends; no soldier, in the peace of his country; and so it goes for the rest.”
I.1.28
It follows that, if the secret wishes of each producer were realized, the world would speedily retrogress toward barbarism. The sail would take the place of steam, the oar would replace the sail, and it in turn would have to yield to the wagon, the latter to the mule, and the mule to the packman. Wool would ban cotton, cotton would ban wool, and so on, until the scarcity of all things made man himself disappear from the face of the earth.