The latest on the news now here is that Gretzky has been in Vegas at some $25000 per hand Poker Tourney... even if they can't link him to the ring, they are trying to play it up as a big "gambling is bad" thing. 

Personally, I see no problem on the bettors part if they were not betting on Hockey.  Even if a few players were betting on NFL games, who cares?  It's not against the law and it's not against the CBA.  It's a totally different situation than Pete Rose who bet not only bet on his own sport, but also on his own team.  If it turns out that the bettors were also betting on the NHL and/or their teams, that's a differnt thing to me.

That's the bettors though - the people placing the bets.  The Bookies/Organizers are another beast.  Tocchet is basically screwed - he's the one who broke the law by profiting off the betting and endorsing gambling.  He is the bookie in essence and that part (being a bookie) IS what is against the law in the USA.  He's looking at some big damage if/when everything shakes out...

So, for me, I look at it this way -
For the people who placed bets, it's embassaing but understandable.  A large number of people bet with their friends on the superbowl in office pools and the like.   Just kind of an embassassment to deal with... but if they bet on NHL games, well that's a no-no.

For the people who took the bets - Tocchet and pals - they are screwed.  They are the ones who did the illegal part and they are the ones who have to deal with the aftermath...

As for Gretz, I'm sure he knew his wife was involved on some level but maybe not the extent of how much she was involved.  Does that make him guilty?  Not really.  Can you blame him for trying to dust it off?  No, it'd be most guys reaction to try to protect their wife in a situation like that...

You can read the whole saga over at CorePlanets where the sighting first originated.

Here is the original, unaltered, un-resized photo they posted over there:



In it, you can make out the date (02/11/06) and sku number for the vintage greedo figure.  Easiest way to see if it's a fake or not is to have someone take that SKU number from the reciept there and have your local Wal-Mart see if it's in the computers yet.

The strange thing is that they claimed to find the new vTSC figures amongst a bunch of old vOTC figures and they rang up at like $5.00 each or something like that.  Something just doesn't feel right about this, but I just can't put my finger on it.

I have to imagine this is one of those cases where a box got put in the worng spot and accidentally shipped ahead of it's time.  Kind of like the one-off box of RotS figures that showed up in a MN Target in January alongside the Sneak Previews figures.  Just one box and months before anyone else found them.

I'll just set this aside as a really stange fluke since like everyone said previously, they aren't even on eBay or the e-tailers like ActionHQ or anything (and those guys always have stuff early).  

Apparently it's time for my "every two weeks or so" feedback for Simon!

Thanks Simon for another assist in the Kubrick category!   

The photos popped up earlier in the thread from a guy in the RS forums I believe...

Looking over the league just now, one problem I see is the "goalie hoarding" by some teams (having 4 and 5 goalies) yet they are still way under on using goalie games. 

Yeah, Brent and I were talking about this the other day. 

Each goalie spot = 82 games so that's 164 games total.  Each goalie will only start 50-60 games during the year (less if they are splitting 50/50 like the Wild do).   If your goalie is only getting 40-50 starts, then you will need more like 3-4 goalies in order to reach that 164 game cap.  Once you add in times you start a goalie only to have him not play, or times your goalies get injured (like both mine were at the start of the year), goalie hoarding becomes a necesity to reach your cap.  

Take my team for example - Lehtonen and Nabokov went on the IR early so I picked up Manny and Giguere to cover for hem and have 3 good goalies.  Once the first 2 came back from IR, I realized that I was still going to need to have all of them to reach my goalie cap.  Hell, even with 5 goalies I'm still 5 games under the pace for our cap. 

While I was for raising the cap for the scorer positions, I would actually be in favor of lowering either the # of starting goalie spots to 1 if we go to a H2H format OR maybe lowering the goalie cap to 60games if we keep 2 goalies like we have now.

I agree.  The level of competition isn't where it should be.

That's funny, I have no problems with the way things are going in our league right now...   

Seriously though, I do think we could change it up next year and it would not affect the "fun factor" at all.  H2H can be just as fun if everyone is engaged and willing to do it that way.  As long as all the changes are laid out BEFORE we draft, I would be open to re-jiggering the league a little for next year.

Hey Gang,

I just had a buyer back out on me, so I now have an extra Star Wars Series 6 Master Case ordered from Robby.jp up for grabs.  Please send me a PM for the details if you are interested... 

And as a reminder, here is who I have counted on my tally list - if I forgot anyone, please let me know ASAP (since I obviously forgot).  Thanks!

Master Case #1 - Jeff
Master Case #2 - Scott
Master Case #3 - Bob Dylan SW Fan
Master Case #4 - split between jedijaybird/spacemantis/JediMAC (plus one box of 12 still up for grabs)
Master Case #5 - still up for grabs

I see Julius Marx has some pretty good Marvel/Toy Biz coverage up now:

http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/toyfair2006/toybiz.shtml

Nice to see that Hydro-Man comes with legs too and not just a water spout:
http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/toyfair2006/images/toybiz/toybiz95.jpg

Also nice to see a de-iced Bobby Drake (I'm a sucker for figures of the original 5 X-Men):
http://www.actionfigureinsider.com/toyfair2006/images/toybiz/toybiz78.jpg