Vanek

[agentzero]

Great post, agentzero! Your Euro tough guys made me chuckle, I immediately though of Ulf and Kjell. Man, those Samuelsson brothers knew how to play tough back in the days.

The whole argument is pointless. It would be just as stupid to say something like "euros are the classier players because you never see them in mcsorley-brashear-bertuzzi-like misbehavior".

Thanks for the support, PMeya. Ya I hate these silly arguments. Though to counter your final thought, Perezhogin did do in an AHLer pretty bad once...But anyway, always pointless arguments I agree....

And yes. Ulf was a badass...Like Bobby Clarke Badass....lol

[KFV]

I guess Canadian/American players are brought up to play a tougher game than the Europeans, but I would take Ovechkin or Malkin over any Canadian player (yes even Crosby who's been hurt more than the aforementioned).

Personally, in a one-year league, if I had got 1st pick this year I would have tried to trade with the 4th pick and get some good pick upgrades elsewhere, and then selected Thornton (assuming no positions).

It's true that some Canadians get injured a lot, Mario most notably, but also Brassard, Briere, etc... but yeah, they're *usually* from out east. I don't have numbers to back it up, but I'd bet that Western Canadians on average miss the least games out of any geographic area. I mean Yzerman played on one leg. And is there anyone in the world tougher than Braydon Coburn? Heatley, probably the grittiest player to reach 100 points since Messier? (who is also from Western Canada fwiw)

Maybe I have a subconscious bias... as I just realised 4 of my first 7 picks were from Western Canada... heh.

P.S. Coburn video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNNk6vl41dM
P.P.S. Here's another thing, are there ANY short European NHLers? Besides Finns (Timonen/Saku) who incidentally are the least European of the Europeans. I can't think of ONE... ever! And that makes sense, they just don't seem gritty enough to fight that hard to make the NHL.

[mister_mcgoo]

Personally, in a one-year league, if I had got 1st pick this year I would have tried to trade with the 4th pick and get some good pick upgrades elsewhere, and then selected Thornton (assuming no positions).

It's true that some Canadians get injured a lot, Mario most notably, but also Brassard, Briere, etc... but yeah, they're *usually* from out east. I don't have numbers to back it up, but I'd bet that Western Canadians on average miss the least games out of any geographic area. I mean Yzerman played on one leg. And is there anyone in the world tougher than Braydon Coburn? Heatley, probably the grittiest player to reach 100 points since Messier? (who is also from Western Canada fwiw)

Maybe I have a subconscious bias... as I just realised 4 of my first 7 picks were from Western Canada... heh.

P.S. Coburn video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNNk6vl41dM
P.P.S. Here's another thing, are there ANY short European NHLers? Besides Finns (Timonen/Saku) who incidentally are the least European of the Europeans. I can't think of ONE... ever! And that makes sense, they just don't seem gritty enough to fight that hard to make the NHL.

Heatley = Gritty? WTF are you smoking and can I have some?

and you would really have us believe that players from Eastern Canada are more fragile than the West? I dunno that Nash, Perry, all the Staal brothers, Pronger, Horton, Coffey, Francis, Hawerchuk, and about 20-30 HOF Habs would agree with such an obtuse statement

[KFV]

Heatley = Gritty? WTF are you smoking and can I have some?

and you would really have us believe that players from Eastern Canada are more fragile than the West? I dunno that Nash, Perry, all the Staal brothers, Pronger, Horton, Coffey, Francis, Hawerchuk, and about 20-30 HOF Habs would agree with such an obtuse statement

I didn't say he was like the grittiest guy of all-time, I said he was the grittiest guy to score 100 points since Messier. I was HUGELY exaggerating with time, admittedly, and also I forgot about Staal, but I'd say he's the grittiest (not counting Staal) to score 100 this decade.

About eastern Canadians
a) Was being politically correct. Thought it was clear with my examples of Lemieux, Briere and Brassard what I was meaning by "east".
b) not counting old-time hockey. Obviously someone like Maurice Richard is the epitome of gritty, I would never argue against that. I'm talking about since I've been following hockey, which is 1992.

[fungchen3]

I didn't say he was like the grittiest guy of all-time, I said he was the grittiest guy to score 100 points since Messier. I was HUGELY exaggerating with time, admittedly, and also I forgot about Staal, but I'd say he's the grittiest (not counting Staal) to score 100 this decade.

Umm, Ovechkin would have a couple things to say about that. I love Staal (Heatley not so much) but Ovechkin has more grit in one leg than both of those guys combined.