Thanks for the responses guys.  Been a weird line of late.  Not surprised it gets lost in all the movie lines from Hasbro but they are much nicer figures.  Pity.  Ah well, as I said I've moved on to BBTS for the next waves rather than risking it and hopefully I can stumble across a few from this wave, either at HTS or elsewhere for moderate prices.

Sorry to pick on your post Nick, I know you know better.

I just have the feeling that a lot of Hasbro's issues with this line and others (let's say 3.75" altogether) are of their own making.  I don't really recall all that much of the IM lines and how those distributions were, but Thor, Indiana Jones and many others, at least going back to Episode I have been victims of craptastic case distributions.  I don't know who the individual(s) involved with determining the ratios are but hopefully they just keep rolling through people because no one has got it correct for a very long time. 

It's nothing new. 

Yes, I get the fanboys are a small portion of the market.  But they continually overestimate the love of kids for 18 versions of the main character.  Kids like to have enemies/villains to fight.  It's been happening since us old farts had green and brown army men, nothing is new.  Not rocket science.  Hell, you're better off having a shortage of basic Thor than you are having an overabundance of him.  Supply-demand? 

Ah, never mind. 

Figures for Thor - The Dark World were shown at SDCC, but not so you would've noticed.  The sculpts on these look pretty good. I just hope that Hasbro learned some lessons from the first Thor toy line and doesn't flood the market with a dozen different versions of Thor.

Bwah-hahahahahahaha.  You crack me up Nick.  Habro learning.   

Hmm, just looked into the premier guild, and it's a possibility I suppose.  If I can wait until the Fett is available and then use the $30 for him then it's more appealing.  Otherwise the $80 is pretty pricey to add to the $150.  Any canadian guild members out there - any idea what GG uses for shipping?  Just wondering if I'm likely to get hit with a bunch of customs fees.

If there's anyone out there who has the membership but doesn't want the Fett (and is willing to order it for me), let me know.

Retired member, yes.  I think JesseVader is still a current member. 

Shipping - more expensive yes, don't recall the amounts though as I usually bypassed by going to Minnesota for delivery. 

Customs fees - yes, they don't use USPS, usually FedEx or another courier type so it's not really customs fees at that point, it's brokerage fees - customs and more 

What you can do though is gamble on the exclusives solely for reselling on ebay down the road to recoup your losses.  Perhaps not the most noble approach but it does work. 

When I bailed on the PGM club they were mostly putting out crap or at the least I felt that between regular prices for busts being at $80 and shipping + brokerage fees, ebay was pretty much cheaper.  There also didn't seem to be a lot of product/exclusives that I was interested in paying for at that point either, so I failed to renew.  I think if I'd decided I wanted the jumbo vintage, I'd have stayed in but 90 odd figures at $100 each?  That my friend is what we call a motorcycle.     I do think that the recent offerings of the club, between statues, busts and jumbo vintage figures make the club well worthwhile, but my collecting has all but stopped of late. 

In Burmistrov's case there was a conflict as well with our current coach. 

I suspect he was only offered a two year deal, similar to what Bogosian got two years ago.  Basically a show us what you got type of contract - decent money, short term.  I'm sure in the case of Burmistrov he looked at his situation and figured if he was going to get that type of contract with a coach he didn't like, he might as well go to the K, develop there and make more money doing it while hoping that Noel is gone when he comes back in a year or two, which might well be true.  Claude Noel was only extended for a single year, so that doesn't really bode well.  My expectation is we don't make the playoffs this year again and Noel is gone, so it may be safe for Burmi then.  He does need to develop and grow up maturity wise though.

As for the Devils, they can have their pick back as long as Kovalchuk does not return and play for them in the future.  At least that's my opinion.  No sympathy for the devil(s) otherwise, you sign the contract as a GM you deserve what happens. 

Still bummed to see Vinny headed elsewhere.  I don't think it's really a given that he'll be back... if someone throws a few years at him for more money than he thinks he'd get taking a short deal...

Don't have a direct link for you, but Lecavalier said directly that he would be back.  He'll only go for a year because he has to under league rules, but his family (wife/kids) are settled in the Tampa Bay area and that's where he'll stay.  You could of course be right though. 

The NFL is a dramatically different beast than the NHL.  The football revenues from television alone dwarf the entire NHL, never mind merchandise, gate, etc. 

And you accurately point out the NFL player can opt to restructure the salary as opposed to being cut.  In the NHL you cannot outright cut a player and then not pay him as you can in the NFL*.  All salaries are guaranteed, unless there are performance bonuses but I believe those are not allowed in the NHL, at least not formally as a part of the structure of the salary as it is counted towards the salary cap.  Any signing bonuses, plus salaries over the length of the contract, are added together and divided by the length of the contract to give you the "cap hit" against the salary cap.  So front loading, back loading, all count against a team's cap to try and provide some degree of parity, lest the Toronto Maple Leafs become perennial cup winners simply because they have nearly unlimited revenues.  I daresay it would be worse than the Yankees/Red Sox by a substantial margin.

The * in there is what Lecavalier in TB, Bryzgalov in Philly and others have experienced is a compliance buy out that is allowed under the new CBA of the NHL to get rid of those idiotic deals.  Teams are only allowed two over the length of the CBA so Philly for example has used both of theirs.  Players in a sense do get hosed, as they are only paid 2/3 of the total salary owed to them on the contract.  But they are allowed to immediately sign another deal with any other team.  So as in the case of Lecavalier he's likely ending up ahead of the game.  But even if they never play again in North America, a guy like Bryzgalov ends up with $20+ million in his pocket, immediately, and then trundles off to the KHL to play for $5 million tax free.     Such hardship they endure if they are a compliance buyout.  It's nothing like the NFL where you're an aging running back that gets cut and has no more money coming in. 

It may be easy to prevent teams from circumventing the cap in the NFL, I think it's a far better run organization and has the ability to buoy up teams where necessary from alternate sources of revenue. The NHL simply can't do that and there are general managers/owners that are clearly a little nuts and think buying a championship will work, where in the NHL it never really has (Messier's cup in NYC?).  There is also massive disparity that isn't offset by television broadcasting right.  Phoenix Coyotes?  New York Islanders?  Or perhaps Winnipeg/Quebec City/Hartford circa 1995?

I still think the Coyotes go to Seattle because QC and Toronto 2.0 will be more willing to pony up 250+ mil for the expansion fees than Seattle. 

Then, in a few years when you're ready for expansion, you'll see...
- Colorado heads West to the Pacific group
- Toronto 2.0 and one of DET/TB get dropped into central division
- QC gets dropped into Division C to take the place of DET/TB

That way, with Toronto 2 in the West, they can dream of an all Toronto Cup final (or the much less likely all FL cup final with TB in the west and FLA in the east )

Likely the case with Seattle, we'll find out soon enough I think. As for the expansion, I think you're likely correct for the most part.  I think TB maybe goes west, but I don't think Toronto 2.0 goes west, the big market teams they want to see in that new facility will be on the east coast, and given what they'll likely pay for that expansions team ($0.5B), they'll get what they want.  I think the league sits unbalanced and Detroit remains in the east though I'd love to see them come back west. 

Yeah I thought it more than a little insane for that pay scale.  I'm just kind of surprised at how much the Pens have thrown out of late.  Obviously you want to pay Crosby and Malkin but then you better be hoping for some real good performances from lower end guys. 

In other news it's looking like the gauntlet has been thrown in the Phoenix saga.  A decision needs to be made by July 2nd.  In spite of the massive rumours surrounding Seattle I'd place my money on Quebec City simply because they're in a position so similar to what Winnipeg was in...almost.  Their arena is a lot closer (corruption in the government and construction industries notwithstanding) and I think their ownership group is more tangible.  I think Seattle is a few years away yet and will get the expansion franchise.

On the other hand it would be better for scheduling if it was Seattle and really, how much worse than Phoenix could it be initially?  Plus you can probably get the $170M out of Seattle and then hose Quebec City for well over $200M for an expansion franchise.  Plus moving out of a U.S. market to another U.S. market would fit the little weasel's ideals much better. 

But neither location is as well prepared as Winnipeg was.