h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, I am happy as a clam right now. My Dallas Stars just won their best of 7 series to advance to their conference Finals. They will face a bunch of fairies from Colorado, and I have a bet going with someone on this web site about the outcome of the series ... if he hasn't chickened out that is! Dallas is a fickle town, they only support their teams when the win. Even the "beloved" Dallas Cowboys, surely you have heard of them, or at least their cheerleaders? Even they didn't sell out games when they were losing.

Okay, at the risk of sounding dumb (again), what's a Norwegion nutter? I know what a Norwegian is, but what's a nutter? Are these games only once per week? It sounds like it? Do you go to the games, or just watch on TV? Yeah, just for me I am SURE!!!

I went to the URL's you gave me ... sheesh! I bet you kill a lot of time on that page with all those football links! I live that guys cute littel striped fishie! (Is that a girlie comment or WHAT?!?!) So do the English teams only play each other? I mean, are the Irish and Scottish teams playing in a different league? There are a lot more teams there than I would have guessed, not that I had many actual facts to base a guess on!! On thing I really prefer about my hockey playoffs is that rounds are decided by a best of 7 series, rather than just one game. The better team typically advances when they must win 4 games to move on. Anyone can get lucky for just one game. American football does the one game playoff too, but hockey, baseball, and basketball do the best of 7 game series.

Mom left yesterday afternoon. While waiting for her Dallas to NYC flight, I notice a former American Football star and his wife waiting to board the plane. He's an announcer now. They sat in first class, of course. And his Mrs. was COVERED in expensive jewelry. It must be nice, eh?!?!

Don't bite your nails too short!

For some reason the system has screwed up every time I try to post this, So here goes again.
Good job I wrote it off line

The Dallas people sound just like some people over here, support the team when its winning, deny all knowlege when they lose, they call themselves fans, I dont think so!
and yes I have heard of the Dallas Cowboys, theres a highlight programme every week on channel 4 but otherwise theres not a lot of coverage of American sports on the main channels.

Changing back to this side of the pond
Nutter = Madman, Idiot, Weirdo etc......
I'm sure you have a few in the states and its not just a British thing, Over here there always seems to one on any bus or train and they always sit next to you!!!

I go to some home games but not as often as I would like, work keeps getting in the way. Soccer on TV over here is limited they only show one or two games from the premier leauge live each week and just highlights of the rest.

There are 20 teams in the premier league and they play each other twice in a season (Home and Away)the other 3 divisions have 24 teams in each, in addition to the league games there is also the FA cup and the league cup which are knockout competitions and for some top teams there are also places in the European competitions.
The leauge season starts at the end of August and ends this weekend

The total number of games a team plays depends on how far they get in the cup competitions but there are a lot of weeks with two games.

The English and Welsh teams play in the same leauges at professional level, the Scots maintain their independence and have their own leagues, in Ireland there are two football associations one in the Republic and the other in Northern Ireland.

As for the striped fish its in Ormandroyds teams colours so I'm saying nothing about that at the moment.

Why is that some people find it necessary to display their wealth while others who are far richer seem to be a lot more discrete.

As for biting my nails by Sunday i'll be down to the Knuckles!

Whooo! Hooo!

It Worked

At last, I've been trying to post that reply for two days, all I was getting was the could not find server error when I tried to post it

Congratulations on getting your message posted! I had wondered what happened to you.

So, you use the word nutter like we use the word nutty. Funny, I know someone with the last name of Nutter. If I were them, I'd change it. And yes, we certainly DO have a few nutters here, and I seem to run into them all the time!!

I am surprised there are THAT many pro teams over there. I mean, what's the population of England?!?!?! I am surprised they would play from August until May. I would have guessed the opposite, that they would play in the summer since it's an outdoor sport. But then again, American football is played during the winter, but the season is MUCH shorter. And for that, I am thankful since I am not crazy about it. Hockey is my game, and the playoffs are in full swing.

I still like that striped fish on Ormandroyds page. Why don't you create one in YOUR teams colors?!?!

I don't care for people who show of their wealth either. I don't care for show offs period. It's rude and it typically masks an insecurity of some sort. Being wealthy doesn't make you a better person, and being poor doesn't make you a bad person. I have never judged people based on their bank accounts. I have dated guys who were well off, and I think it pissed them off deep down that I was not fawning over their money. They all SAID they don't like gold diggers, and they didn't want to be a sugar-daddy, but deep down I think it annoyed them that I didn't care about their money. I judged them as men by the way that they behaved generally, and how they treated ME in particular, not by their paychecks. In case the words mean different things across The Pond: sugar-daddy = a rich guy who financially supports a woman who typically doesn't work at all and enjoys spending a lot of money. Golddigger = a woman only after a guy for his money, usually looks for a sugar daddy but sometimes a golddigger will actually work for a living. Pissed = angry. Doesn't pissed mean drunk over there? I get that feeling from some British comedies that I watched. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now.

Well, I guess it's Sunday over there now ... its' Saturday afternoon as I write this. how are your fingernails and your team doing? My team, The Dallas Stars, begin playing colorado tonight. It's a best of 7 series which I have a bet going with 3 people on this web site. All are betting against my Stars. I am SO abused! (sniff sniff)

Do you have Mother's Day over there? Tomorrow (Sunday May 14th) is Mother's Day here. I'll have to give her a call since I can't see my mom in person. She's with my dad and my brother and his family this weekend. My dad's birthday was Thursday so it's a combo celebration. I sent my cards and gifts back home with mom when she left last weekend. I am just SO organized! Ooops, I think I pulled a muscle from patting myself on the back just then.

Well, it's a beautiful day here, sunny and in the high 80's (don't ask me what that is in YOUR C degrees). I need to get out and enjoy it before the BIG game. Hope all is well with you and with your team and with your fingernails and with your pub quizzes and with your work and .... well, you get the idea. Bye for now!

Ah well a very mixed weekend

First the good news.
Although I had some work to do on Saturday I managed to get along to the h2g2 do in Hyde Park before the end of the Softball game.
Its the first time I've been to any of these type of gatherings.
I must admit it felt a bit strange wandering accross Hyde park looking for a group of people I've never met before on a sunny afternoon when there must have been five or ten other groups of about the same size (40 ish) also in the same area, however the h2g2 party stood out from the rest because of the mix of people in the group.
I was relived to see a number of the "more mature" researchers there, I did wonder before I went if I would be the antique of the group.
Everyone was very friendly and and a lot of good banter was had in the park before retiring to the pub for the evening.
Just as we started off across the park to the pub (about a 20 minute walk) we got caught in a thunderstorm well away from any shelter so it was a very wet and bedraggled pack of reasearchers that arrived at the pub.
However we eventually dried out, on the outside at least, and the evening was spent playing pool chatting and drinking
Even better it was being paid for by h2g2 !!! which I certainly wasn't expecting
It was great fun and I can now put faces to some of the names on this site
Have a look at the post for the full story and pictures

and now the bad news
Sunday was a DISASTER
The worst of all possible results.
Wimbledon lost to Southampton and Bradford beat Liverpool, which means Bradford survive and stay in the premier league while we are relegated to division 1.
I'm saying no more on this at the moment, I'm still pissed off .

On to other things
Not all the teams listed on Ormy's page are full time professionals,
most teams other than the 92 in the four English divisions and the three Scottish divisions are part timers i.e. they have another job as well as football.

I think the population of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) was around 58 Million at the last count, I dont know what the head count for England on its own was.
So its a lot more crowded over here as the Whole of the UK would fit into Texas several times.

Soccer, Rugby and (Field) Hockey are Winter sports over here, the main outdoor summer team sport is Cricket.

How do your leagues work?, how do teams get to the play offs? and what happens to the teams at the top and bottom of the league?

Oh yes
as you will have seen above we used pissed in several ways over here but not in the sense that you use it.

examples

"Joe's Pissed"............................He's Drunk

"Joe's Pissed Off about that".............He's Upset / Angry

"Joe's Pissed Off"........................He's Gone away

The only consistant thing about British English is it's inconsistancy
It all depends on the context.

I pity anyone with the last name of Nutter they must have gone through hell at school, but its fun for the rest of us

Mothers day over here is at the start of April (2nd) so its been and gone over here.


TTFN
Bald Bloke

There are many hockey leagues, but the major pro league is called the NHL. Currently there are 26 teams in the USA and Canada. Two more teams will join the league in the next season or two. The regular season is from October until mid-April and it lasts 84 games (the last time I checked). It's a LONG, grueling season. The playoffs last another 2 months, and it has been dubbed "hockey's second season" because goes on so long. The league is divided into two conferences; east and west. The top 8 teams in each conference make the playoffs. Within the conference the teams are seeded 1 - 8 based on their regular season record. The first place team plays the 8th place team. 2nd place plays 7th; 3rd, plays 6th; and the 4th place team plays the 5th place team in each conference. The team with the better regular season record enjoys the "home ice advantage". As I said before, each series is a best of 7 series, and having home ice advantage means that if the series goes for the 7 games, 4 out of the 7 games will be played on home ice. After the first round, 4 out of the 8 teams get eliminated. The remaining 4 teams are reseeded based on regular season record, and again the last place team plays the first place team, and the 2nd & 3rd place teams play. Two more teams from each conference head to the golf courses and the last 2 teams in each conference play for their conference trophy. That's where we are now in the playoffs. There on only 4 teams left standing, 2 in each conference, and one of them is MY Dallas Stars, who happen to be the defending Stanley Cup Champions from last year. The two conference winners then play each other for the oldest trophy in sports, the Stanley Cup. It originated in Canada, where hockey began, and it has a storied history. First off, every single player on the winning team, and the coaches, all get their names engraved on the cup. The base of it are huge rings and every 14 years or so, the oldest ring gets retired to make room for a new ring. But still, decades of winners are engraved on the cup itself. The thing weighs about 34 pounds! Also, each player on the winning team get to spend a day with the cup. There are some very wild stories of that cup ending up in strip clubs, on the bottom of pools, etc. The cup got so abused a few years ago when NY won it, that the league now has a chaperone for the cup to make SURE the guys don't damage it! It has come back with dents, but they hammer those out. During the season the cup resides in the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto Canada, until next June when the next champion is crowned. It really pissed off the hockey purists in Canada when Dallas won The Cup last year. They HATE it when an American team, particularly when the first team south of the Mason Dixon line won the cup!! Losing does not get a team demoted to another league, they just get no respect!!

My dallas stars won tonight in a GREAT game. Their series is tied at one game each. Whooo Hooo! North American hockey is different from European hockey in that the rink is smaller and there is MUCH more hitting. By hitting I mean the players are allowed to throw their bodies into each other and slam each other into the boards. I LOVE THAT! European hockey doesn't allow that much contact. Here it's encouraged! Can 'ya tell I am CRAZY about the game?!?!

The h2g2 party sounds interesting ... I probably would have gone if I lived in London. I am not surprised to hear the demographics that you described. I got the impression that you were in your 40ish, as well as a few others on this site. I am a ONLY 36! A mere child by comparison!! And being 40-something doesn't necessarily make you "mature"!
Did you guys identify yourself with your REAL names, or did you stick to the nicknames? Were there many females in the group? Or was it mostly guys? I am guessing it was mostly guys. Is there a picture of you on the party post ....?!?!? Nice that h2g2 picked up the tab. I am surprised. Was it mostly ACES there? Will there be an American h2g2 party?

Sorry about your team .... 3 frownies?!?! Wow! I have seen pictures of a lot of fighting in the stands at British soccer games. Is that only during the playoffs or during international competitions? That doesn't go on every game, does it?

Wow. I really didn't think the population of the Uk was that large. London is bigger than NYC, right? NYC has 8 million people. Is London larger than that? I visited London and Cardiff when I was 13, by the way. It was then I learned that Wales had their own language!! I remember most of the people being very polite and well-spoken, and I remember it raining at some point every single day. We went in late April. Oh yeah, lots of old castles too, and green countrysides with sheep all over the place. My dad almost accepted a job offer other there and I came very close to growing up British! Don't know if that would have changed me any ... probably so. I would be more dignified and refined and less "earthy"!

Well, I'd better get some sleep so I don't look so tired. Later!

Further notes on hockey and the NHL:

The NHL is THE premier hockey league in the world, and players from Sweden, Norway, Russia, Czech Republic, etc. all aspire to play in the NHL. It's truly an international league, although the bulk of the players come from Canada, since it is a national obsession there. Last time I saw some stats, it looked something like 60% Canadians, 18% Americans, and 22% miscellaneous Scandinavians and Eastern Europeans. When the Winter Olympics come around, the NHL shuts down their season to allow these prime-time players to play for national pride, and the result is some very awesome hockey. I don't think the quality of the game compares with the Stanley Cup playoffs, because there isn't time to build team chemistry and a well-oiled system. However, the emotion of the game rises to a new level, and makes it incredibly exciting. And because it is played on European-sized ice (which Blondie already mentioned as being bigger) the game becomes more wide-open and faster, with more offensive opportunities, combined with some of that hitting that North American hockey is famous for (they're not supposed to do it, but when emotions get high, people get checked. But at least there aren't any enforcers and brawls).

The NHL also does some weird thing for scoring the season record, which I recommend to the soccer clubs, as I think it has been an immensely successful experiment this year. They do the usual 2 points for a win, none for a loss, and one for a tie. Then there's a seperate category for "overtime loss" (or "regulation tie," they still haven't got a standard name for it), which is also worth one point. Previously, teams would enter the overtime period, and they would be concerned that they might lose that one point for a tie, ansd so would become overly cautious and dull. Excessive ties were the result, and no fan walks away happy at a tied game. So they decided that if the score were tied at the end of regulation, they would each be rewarded one point in the standings, and any team that manages to score in OT will be rewarded with a second point for the victory. This means that, in overtime, teams have nothing to lose, and another point to gain, and the excitement of overtime periods improved dramatically. The losing team acquires a lo9ss in the standings, and an "overtime loss," which gives them that point, but makes a distinction between the loss and a true tie.

Ahha! Here you go talking about hockey behind my back....

LOL Wow! Marv, you are GargleBlaser are NOSY, aintcha?!?!

Well, Bald Bloke has been telling me all about sports on his side of The Pond, and he asked about hockey ... so I told him. Now with my diatribe and GargleBlaster's further details, I am sure Bald Bloke will be totally put off by with NHL hockey!!

I see that a Tina Turner concert tonight (Wednesday) is interferring with OUR playoff series. I think they should play WHILE Tina is singing!

Bald Bloke: I hope you don't think we "hockey nuts" here are too obsessed! We ARE, but we become more normal during the off season!

Its suddenly got busy around here, I see your friends from the ice hockey club have popped in
Hi Gargle Blaster & Marv.


Ok ignorant brit here
I cant quite work out the maths of an 84 game season with 26 teams, how many games does each team play during the season, excluding the playoffs?

I take it that each "conference" has 13 teams in it?
So if they played each other "home and away" that would be 24 games per team during the normal season?

As for the stanley cup being the oldest trophy in sports, I have a feeling that some people may want to argue about that, the golfers in particular, How old is it?

We dont have the concept of here in league matches each half is 45 minutes of playing time so at the end of 45 minutes the referee adds on any time lost through stoppages / injuries.
Extra time is only played in cup matches (Knockout competitions) where there has to be a result, although sometimes these can go to a replay or even to penalty shoot out depending on the competition.

Soccer had the same problem with draws, it was "solved" over here by making it 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw.
Having said that..
I've been to great games which have ended in a 0-0 draw but both teams were really going for it and I've seen games which have been boring but have ended in a result but making it 3 points for a win has reduced the tendancy for both sides to play for the draw rather than try to win.

Unfortunatly there are small groups of people who it seems go to matches only to cause trouble, ( that applies to teams accross europe not just in the UK ) regretably we've had another example of that with the Arsenal / Galatasaray UEFA cup final in Copenhagen tonight.
I don't know if you get any similar crowd trouble at sports events in the US but over here the media seem to focus on that sort of thing rather than the game its self when it happens.
I can only think of a few games I've been to in over 20 years where there has been any real trouble inside the ground, most of it seems to happen between groups of piss heads (some of whom I suspect never went to the match) before and after the game.

On to other matters
The h2g2 had quite a few female researchers in attendance, NO i'm not in the picture I arrived a bit later due to work.
Before I got there I did wonder if I would be considerably older than most of the other who were attending.

Are you aware of the Welsh Rarebit (Cheese on toast)?
Well the alternative definition is a virgin from Cardiff


As for being more refined if you'd been brought up over here, your dad obviously only took you to the better parts of town!

When I was a kid I used to play football (UK style) and our 30 minute halfs were arduous. I follow the world cup, and love to watch those games. As for the fans doing crazy things here, I think there is a little less of that. I do remember when a football (us) fan jumped off of a thirty foot ledge to catch a ball. There is also the occaisonal idiot that has to streak across the field (the most recent example was at a basebll game that featured Jonh Rocker who has created some controversy about racist comments he made) or when a fan will interfere with the game in some way, but it is less common than in the UK from what I understand. In central america however there are tradegies when fans are crushed trying to get into the staduim. When I go to a game though I leave with out a voice for some time. Fortunately there are no NHL teams in Utah.
marv

Sports hooligans exist here, too, but the problem isn't near so bad. The Raiders (football) used to draw some bad seeds when they were in Los Angeles, and there was a fight in the stands most games, but it was small scale. Otherwise, we've had incidents where fans have thrown things onto the field... a football game where they hurled chunks of ice at the players, and a baseball game where the audience threw the free baseballs they'd received at the gate as a promotional giveaway at the players. So it does happen... but no riots, thank goodness.

Okay, here's how the NHL seasons break down:

Now that Atlanta and Nashville have been added, it is 28 teams, not 26. And the number of games for a season is 82, not 84.

Each team is placed in one of 6 divisions. These divisions have 4 or 5 teams per division. You play each team in your division 3 times on the road, and 3 times at home, for 6 games total. The winner of the division automatically claims one of the top 3 seeds in the playoffs, regardless of how your record matches up against the rest of the conference, so these games are all important. So if your division has 5 teams, you have a total of 24 divisional games.

Then comes conference games with teams outside your division. These you play 4 times, 2 home and 2 road. The Western Conference only has 13 teams, because there aren't as many teams out west (and Nashville is quite a bit to the east to be in the Western Conference, but there you go), so this would involve another 8 or 9 teams. So if you were in the Pacific Division, which has 5 teams as I illustrated before, you now have an additional 24 games on your calendar.

Now comes inter-conference battles. Since we've been sticking with the Pacific Division so far for this model, I will continue. That means there are 15 teams in the other conference. You would play each one once at home, and once on the road, for two games each, so we have another 30 games for the schedule.

This formula gives us only 78 games. It works out better in the Eastern Conference, because there are extra conference games, so Western Conference teams make up for it with an fifth game against four non-divisional teams. When the league gets up to thirty teams, the math will work out perfectly for both conferences. Each division will have 5 teams, and each conference will have 15.

Thanks for that GB, I'm not sure I got all of it, but it was a good try.
What a complicated system, I thought it was a British thing to have convoluted rules and organisations (A bit of colonial influence rubbing off ).
Ok a bit more seriously, I take it that the confrences are geographical due to the distances involved. Are the divisions also arranged geographically to minimise travelling or are the teams in each division spread out across the conference area?
Also as the distances a greater do a large number of fans travel to away games or is the crowd mostly home supporters?

In the east there are teams that are closer to each other making it easy to travel to the away games for your favorite team. In the New York area for example there are three teams (NY Rangers, NY Islanders, NJ Devils) within spitting distance of each other. So you will see more travel. In the West the teams are typicaly further away from each other. 800 mile road trips are not uncommon. During the Playoffs however fans are more likely to travel. But you have much better support at home.

As for the complications, it was best summed up in a musical number that was nominated for a grammy this year... "Blame Canada!" The league originated there, if I'm not mistaken, and has been dominated by Canadians in the front office, officiating crews, and of course, on the ice.

The idea is to group teams that are close together, but as you go west on this continent, the further apart major cities that can support a franchise become. Still... why would Dallas be considered Pacific Division, and not Vancouver? The answer to that one is political... the top three teams in the Western Conference for the last several years have been Dallas, Detroit, and Colorado. So when they went to the three division format this year, they wanted to keep those three in different divisions.

And yes, people travel. I saw visiting colors both times I saw the Kings this year... once they came from all the way up in Vancouver. And Detroit is so disgustingly popular that red jerseys came out in force during the playoffs.

Marv, You forgot to mention the infamous incident at a NY Giants game where the fans pelted the opposing team with ice balls! Someone got injured, I though. That was around Christmas 1995, I believe.

I agree with Marv, our streets over here may be more voilent, but somehow that the fans at sporting events don't seem to cause the trouble that we hear about at your soccer games.

Hey Bloke!! Are you getting a taste of why the call us hockey fans "hockey nuts"?!?!? Either you love hockey or you hate it. There really are not many casual fans like(US) football or baseball attracts. You are obsessed with it, particularly this time of year, or you don't give a flip.

I avoided getting into the division rules as GargleBlaster and Marv did, I left it at the conference level to avoid confusion. All of the math will be changed in the next season or two when two more teams come into the league. They wil balance out the western conference, numerically speaking. Oh yeah, and if you haven't guessed it yet, these are the two guys who I have the bet going with. Both are against me and my Dallas Stars.
I am SO abused here!

Golf isn't a REAL sport, it's a recreational activity! How can you call that a sport when there is no sweatting involved?!?!
Okay, then I left out the words "North America" in my description of the Stanley Cup. It's the oldest sports trophy in North America. But it's still unique because they allow the winning players to spend a day with it, take it home, take it to their dad's grave, whatever. It's a meaningful and special trophy.

Extra time in hockey is playing overtime until someone scores a goal. It can go on for many hours. There are no shot outs, they play regular periods until someone scores. That's in the playoffs when a winner MUST be decided. During the regular season games, they give them a 5 minute overtime period. If someone scores, the game is instantly over. If not one scores, each team shares a point.

I have heard of a "Welsh Rarebit" but I didn't know what it was ... either of your definitions! A lot of British slang for women seems to have food involved. Tart, bit of crumpet, welsh rarebit, etc. Interestng ....

Well, I may not have been more refined if I grew up English, but I would SOUND more dignified with that dialect! As it is, I grew up in Brooklyn NY, notorious for an annoying (and dumb sounding) accent. I don't speak that way, and people are very surprised to hear that I am from NY. Although, my NY accent tends to become very obvious when I am angry or when I am drinking!

One example of how ong a hockey game can go is the recent playoff between Pittsburg and Philledelphia. It went to 5 overtimes and ended over 7 hours after it started.

And....

How many spectators were still there / awake at the end of that, I would have left and gone for a drink long before the end

As I recall there were abour 2/3rds of the arena filled at the end. As for being awake, I think that this is most likely up for interpretation.