Following up on this post, let's see how the National Hockey League's season had gone, by this time 30 years ago, i.e., January 6, 1980.
Lo and behold, the Philadelphia Flyers still had not lost a game since October 13, 1979. Their unbeaten streak had reached 35 games, and their overall record was 26-1-10 (back when that third number mean ties, not overtime losses).
15 days earlier, they had broken a league record, by extending the streak to 29 games.
Meanwhile, this writer was working in his first job after college, in a suburb of Minneapolis. In that same suburb, the Minnesota North Stars were emerging from a string of dismal seasons in the mid-to-late '70s. When the North Stars beat the Washington Capitals on January 5, 1980, their record stood at 19-9-8. That gave them more points (in the two-for-a-win-one-for-a-tie sense of points) that they had garnered in the entire season two years before.
The North Stars were playing their best hockey in seven years. And the high-flying Flyers were headed to town for a game on January 7.
Almost enough excitement to cause one to forget that there were American hostages in Iran, and Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Almost.
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3 comments:
this has nothing to do with hockey: but, i am VERY interested in your opinion regarding the Dems apparent plan to bypass committee on the health care bill. seems dangerous to the Dems in the long-term in that every problem, every unforeseen issue will be dropped at their feet. seems like a high risk gambit to me. your thoughts??
There are some things in the world that are more important than hockey, but not many.
I don't think that the decision about whether or not to use the conference committee procedure for the health care bill will change the outcome. Either way, Republicans will continue to oppose it, but the Democrats have the votes (barring an upset in the Massachusetts special election, which I don't expect, but would be happy to be proved wrong about) to pass at least the Senate version.
Republicans, at least in some states/districts, are well-positioned to use this against Democratic incumbents in the mid-terms.
But, if the Democrats were to agree to convene a bipartisan conference committee, there would be at least some semblance of bipartisanship in the procedure, even if the Republicans maintain their unanimous opposition.
What the Democrats are doing will reinforce the fact that this is solely a Democratic product.
That should play extremely well with the Democratic base. But I think it will give them trouble with the middle-ground of the electorate, who were the ones who gave the Democrats their victories in '06 and '08.
i see that overnight two more dem senators announced that they'll not be running in the next election cycle.
november will be interesting.
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