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Do you leave hockey games early?  We asked the question on Monday, established some scenarios where it might be acceptable, and then put the question to you. And your answers provided a clear indication that if you want to enjoy the entire game, you should (a) live near the arena and (b) never, under any circumstances, have children. After sifting through 75 or so emails to puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com , here is a smattering of responses to why you do, or do not, leave the game early: -- Maybe it's because I grew up in a part of Canada where hockey options were limited, and maybe it's because I don't have a car I have to get to or traffic to beat, and maybe it's because I'm a "frugal" person who expects full value out of what they pay for, but I never leave a hockey game early. I sit there, elbows on knees, stone cold sober in the face of $9 beers, and I watch until the 3 stars skate onto the ice.    - Ryan "Neo" Andrews -- Thank you for bringing up this issue. I stay. I attend about 1/3 of the Penguins home games/playoff games and a few on the road each year. I didn’t even leave when they got blown out by the Bruins at home in the playoffs a few years ago. The amount I pay does factor in, but I pay the money because I care about the team and its development.  So I don’t stay because of the money. I spend the money because I want to see the team, not for client entertainment or anything like that. I want to see as much as I can and assess the team and play and lineups etc. myself.  So there it is.  - Melissa -- I don't leave games early.  I paid for entertainment, I'm getting every moment, good or bad! I was at the Flyers Penguins 5-OT game with my pregnant wife...We stayed until Keith Primeau's goal at 2:30 a.m. And I had an 8 a.m. final at Penn State in the morning (a three hour drive). No way was I leaving that game! And I witnessed history and Primeau's greatest moment. The best part is we had nosebleed tickets. When the first OT started we noticed empty seats near where the visitors take the ice. So for the start of the second, we went and sat there. Seats 3 rows from the ice for an epic OT game because fans left early!!!  (Pens fans left early for the Flyers fan's benefit-oh the irony!) We arrived at Penn State at 6-6:30-ish, took a 1-hour power nap, went to the 8 a.m. Final. I almost left early during a Flyers blowout in 1999.. .getting bombed by Ottawa 5-0 and 5 minutes left. A friend drove 3 hours to go with us, and he said "let's go.” At the top of the steps, there was a huge hit and a line brawl started. We all stopped and watched the end from the tunnel edge. But I never completely left a game early. - John Phillips (Let's go Flyers!) -- Part of an Avs season ticket group for all 20 years. Make about 15-20 games a season. Can count on one hand times I've left early, always the same. 8:00 start Avs getting blown out (down 3+ <5 to play), early work thing next day. But I totally get and don't resent fans that leave early on nights when the team just doesn't show up and plays like crap. When they play like they don't care why should they expect anyone to stick around and watch.  - John Lee -- When I first started attending hockey games seven or so years ago, I never believed in leaving early. I wanted to be there as long as I possibly could to get everything out of it, pre-skate to the announcement of the 3 Stars and all. Time passes, get older, you get season tickets, you hate sitting on the LIRR to Penn an hour each way and you hate the exhaustion you feel the next day. I started season tickets about 4 years ago now and the more I went the more I believed I was entitled to leave early. If a game is close I will of course stay till the end. But if the game seems out of reach sometimes that 9:29 train outta Penn Station gets really tempting. If it's a weekend game or I don't have work the next day I honestly don't care and I'll stay later but if I have to be up at 6 and not getting home till 1130/12 it's not worth it to me. I go to at least 20 games a year (not including the playoffs) if I wanna go home, I'm going home. Guess I don't party as hard as I used to. - Leigh Cuomo -- I have two tales to tell, one about the only time I have ever left a game early and one about the reason why, other than an extreme circumstance, I never will. The one game I have ever left early is an AHL game in my now home of Rochester. We didn't have normal seats, we were on what is called the Party Deck, which is located directly behind one of the nets at ice level. A good friend of my wife asked if we wanted to go since they rented it out and there's no way we could say no, and it allowed us to bring our then 6-month-old daughter without bugging the people in the seats around us since there is space to roam. One thing we did not realize though is that we were right next to the goal horn. The joy of our home team scoring turned to instant dread as it sent our daughter into a fear induced terror fit. Each and every one of those four goals sent her into an absolute fit with nothing we could do to  console her. So with less than a minute left in what was a 4-3 game and the Hamilton goalie pulled, we headed for the exit. As we were half way to the escalator we could hear the goal horn for the empty netter, but knowing we didn't have to see our daughter’s crying gremlin face again was worth the 58 seconds and empty netter we missed. That said, because of an earlier in life incident it made it hard for me to leave even that game. I grew up near Utica, NY, and became a hockey fan going to see AHL games when they had the Devils farm team. It was also a nice bonding experience for my dad and I, although I learned later in life he thought I just wanted to go to games to eat nachos. After they left town, we got a team in a lower minor league called the Bulldogs. This team was bad, like almost un-watchable. So I'm sitting with my dad at a game and they are getting pounded. It was 6-1 midway through the 3rd, so my eyes start wandering around the arena. I notice an well dressed older couple a few sections over that were not there before and am looking at them for a minute before I realize that I'm looking at Gordie and Colleen Howe (Marty was the team’s coach). So since I know I'm not missing anything on the ice, I went over and started talking to him. I had him sign my T-shirt, I'm sure I asked him 100 stupid questions because I was trembling and 13 and his hands looked like tree trunks and after abut 5 minutes my dad came over to drag me away and thank Mr. Howe for not punching his spazzy son, plus by this time I had blown his cover and made him known in the arena. I know we watched the rest of that game but I could not tell you anything about it. I know that I'll never be at a game again no matter how good or bad and have a chance to meet a true legend of the game, but it just left an impression on me: Never leave games ... unless it is causing physical distress to your daughter. - Aaron Bidwell -- Continue to Article

February 17, 2016 11:48:am EST

9. Suspense Have a look at the NHL standings. Go on . Ahead of Tuesday night's games, there seemed to be maybe two teams (Pittsburgh and possibly Carolina) that could threaten to take away a playoff spot from a team currently occupying one. The middle of the Metro is a bit of a mess, after all. But out West? Everyone else is just jockeying for position. Arizona and Minnesota are pushing for playoff spots, in the strictest sense of the word, but the odds they get them are vanishing. Feels Minnesota probably only has about a 1 in 3 chance to make up the gap, and Arizona is actually dead but doesn't yet know it. Which means, boy oh boy, it's gonna be a fun final two months of the season out West and probably in the East as well. Gentlemen, start your tank battle. 8. Moral indignation So Arizona Coyotes GM Don Maloney basically told Sports Illustrated's Alex Prewitt the same thing he's been saying for a year: “We were awful in 2014-15 and I thought it was my job to ensure we were as awful as possible so we could get a high draft pick, maybe Connor McDavid. But also watching your team lose every night sucks.” I'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that was the thrust of it. People were somehow upset by this. In 2015-16. It's amazing to me that people would prefer he be like, “Gee whiz I don't know why we were so bad down the stretch. Sure is weird that after I called up half and AHL team and they all got 20 minutes a night we wound up getting smoked every game. Anyway I, the man in charge of putting people on the roster, sure didn't intend for a half-AHLer/half-bad-NHLer team to get run out of the rink. Connor McDavid? Who's that?” Because whether you're tap-dancing around your tank-job or just being frank about it, the end results are the same: You get outscored badly and lose most nights. Hell, if Maloney were really smart he'd be trading every veteran whose deal expires in the next two years and is in some way contributing to the team's continued mediocrity. “If you're having a good season, enjoy your time on a contender's third line, and we'll take the second-round pick.” Their season is over anyway. No way they catch up to anyone in front of them. So just jettison everything. Why not? I really thought the hockey world was over being upset about tanking but some things never change. 7. Not-trading Stamkos It's not often you see a general manager say he will not trade someone, but that was Steve Yzerman's move on Monday and boy was it a weird one. Like, OK, fair enough that you're very much going to finish top-two in the Atlantic and you're probably one of the three best teams in the East, but making this kind of announcement states your intention to either re-sign Stamkos or lose him for very little indeed. It's easy to understand the impulse to stick with Stamkos, who's still a very, very good player having a bit of a down season (partly, I think, due to how he's used) because he is a difference-maker. But at the same time, the risk of literally losing him for nothing is very real, and it should fill Yzerman's heart with dread. Here's an example of where it didn't really hurt to trade a helpful player from a good team just before the deadline: The 2013-14 Tampa Bay Lightning. Marty St. Louis wanted out, Yzerman obliged, and they still finished with 101 points. Probably would have been more, too, if Ben Bishop hadn't gotten hurt and Anders Lindback played like an actual professional goalie (.891 in the regular season, .881 in the playoffs). Obviously this isn't a situation where Stamkos definitively wants out, as negotiations are ongoing. Some suggest he might even prefer to stay in Tampa if he can. But to preclude even the possibility that you'll trade him if talks go south in the next two weeks seems very short-sighted. The idea of only trading the rights to Stamkos, say, ahead of the draft, nets you a far lesser package than what you could likely get on the open market in February. And that's a best-case scenario. Will it be worth it? Sure, if the Bolts go deep into the playoffs, which seems likely. There's almost no way they don't make the second round. But losing Stamkos for nothing is a borderline-fireable offense, and to release a statement that precludes you from avoiding that seems unwise. 6. Winking So it now seems that Carey Price is done for the season, but the Habs are basically saying , “Oh I'm not sure I mean he might come back who knows?” Gotta sell those tickets, because people generally don't show up to see a team actively try to lose every night. Of course, they don't generally show up if you just happen to lose every night either, so the point is: Just shut him down instead of playing coy. Because who cares? Continue to Article

February 17, 2016 9:57:am EST

A new voice and approach paid immediate dividends for the Minnesota Wild. Jared Spurgeon had a goal and an assist to make interim head coach John Torchetti a winner in his debut Monday night as the Wild beat the Vancouver Canucks 5-2 to snap an eight-game losing streak. Minnesota (24-22-10) fired Mike Yeo on Saturday following a 4-2 home loss to the Boston Bruins that left the club with just one victory in its last 14 games. Continue to Article

February 16, 2016 2:41:am EST