Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ice Hockey/Archive26

1. národní hokejová liga
Hello. I have just created 1. národní hokejová liga - I hope you can understand this article. This is maybe without references, is this a problem? I have taken most informations from the Czech page and the German page, also from hokej.cz. --VoletyVole (talk) 22:16, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
 * References are important to establish that the article is notable. They don't necessarily all have to be in English, although it is helpful as this is the English Wikipedia. That said, it's good to see more coverage of less publicized leagues here on Wikipedia. Kaiser matias (talk) 09:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I question whether or not this league is notable enough to have an article. Join the discussion on its talk page. Masterhatch (talk) 19:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think, that for Wikipedia, when a player leaves the NHL for the league of another country, he is forgotten. I understand, sure, because there are mostly Americans who make and edit ice hockey pages here, however I can try and help with some. I know the NHL is the best around the world, but players have to start to play in some league in other countries! --VoletyVole (talk) 21:45, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * My concern here was more that I was just making sure that this league was not just a glorified beer league. Since I couldn't find any English sources, I was asking people here for their thoughts. Masterhatch (talk) 07:53, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * What is a beer league? Certainly, players drink beer, but not during the games, of course! --VoletyVole (talk) 08:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * He meant a recreational league. DMighton (talk) 10:56, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Kenora Thistles
I am thinking of making articles for the Jr. A Kenora Thistles that played in the MJHL from 1968 until 1982... they were known as the Muskies for the first half of their existence... but I would also like to make a separate article for the Kenora Thistles that played in the MJHL from 1930 through 1940 as well as the current Allan Cup contending Sr. AAA team that now exists... any thoughts on how I go about naming these articles? DMighton (talk) 15:58, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The first two I would name Kenora Thistles (1968–1982) and Kenora Thistles (1926–1940) and the last one Kenora Thistles (senior). -Djsasso (talk) 21:32, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks man. DMighton (talk) 23:38, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I would also make a page at Kenora Thistles (disambiguation) and point to it from the main Thistles page which I am sure you planned to. -Djsasso (talk) 00:01, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Definitely... I'll probably get started on them either tonight or tomorrow... DMighton (talk) 00:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't it be better to skip the (senior) part and use Kenora Thistles since it's the only active one? —Krm500 (Communicate!) 01:31, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * No because Kenora Thistles is a page about the Stanley Cup winning Kenora Thistles which is obviously the more well known. -Djsasso (talk) 02:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'll go stand in the corner from now on... —Krm500 (Communicate!) 02:34, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * LOL... poor Thistles. DMighton (talk) 03:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Also did one up for Kenora Thistles (intermediate). DMighton (talk) 20:25, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

List of members of the Hockey Hall of Fame
Could someone please fix the Larry Murphy link? I don't know how to. RandySavageFTW (talk) 22:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You forgot a "|". ;-) I fixed it for you.  Maxim (talk)  22:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

List of current NHL team rosters
In the 'List of current NHL team rosters' article, it seems there is a limit on the 'template include' size. In my browser, the last three templates (LA, Phoenix and San Jose) don't get displayed. When I tried to do a blank space update to see if they need to be 're-included', I got the error that the 'include size' was too large. So, what is the solution? Move to two pages? I was looking to see what rosters were out of date, as I see some date back to November 2. Alaney2k (talk) 17:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think I am going to make an eastern conference and western conference page and leave this one as a disambig. -Djsasso (talk) 13:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Infact its already done now. -Djsasso (talk) 13:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I guess that's the best solution. Maybe the league will contract. (We can hope) Alaney2k (talk) 15:36, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Was probably too big to scroll through anyways, I rarely go to that page so I never noticed before. I noticed on the talk page that the problem has been there since last october so its probably a side effect of our new templates. Which isn't that big a deal though. -Djsasso (talk) 15:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Just looking through the page and noticed something, Nikolai Zherdev's little flag was shown as the Russian flag even though he was born in Kiev which is in the Ukraine. For the purposes of the roster templates, should the flag represent where they were born or the nationality they prefer to play with? I think where they are born should be used, otherwise you would have the oddity of say Petr Nedved with a Canadian flag even though he is by birth a Czech. Shootmaster 44 (talk) 11:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The long standing consensus on this has been to use the country they play with internationally. -Djsasso (talk) 12:54, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * First criteria is what country they represent in IIHF competitions. Somewhere we have a list of such nationalistic oddities. I think it might be a branch off of someone user page ccwaters (talk) 18:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * User:Buchanan-Hermit/NHL Player Nationalities (Flags) ccwaters (talk) 18:51, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The column which contains the flags lists the player's nationality. Nationality is not determined by place of birth, at least in many countries it's not. Btw, Zherdev's country of birth is the USSR, not Ukraine. Bohdan80 (talk) 21:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Which is why we list the country the have played for internationally first. If they have never played internationally we list place of birth. -Djsasso (talk) 00:22, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * If they have never played internationally we list place of birth. No, if they have never played internationally we still list nationality. Bohdan80 (talk) 15:27, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately that is not what the WP:CONSENSUS is. Unless you can source they do not have citizenship in their birth country and do have it in another country. Do not confuse nationality and ethnicity, they are different. -Djsasso (talk) 15:43, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * We assume nationality (citizenship) based on place of birth but what we list is still nationality not place of birth as evidenced by the fact that when the two differ we disregard place of birth. Also it seems it doesn't even have to be sourced : the very first player listed in the list of current NHL Western Conference team rosters is given a flag different from his country of birth without any source to justify it. Bohdan80 (talk) 17:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * When the two differ and we can source the fact that they differ, ie Craig Adams playing internationally then we list the nationality they most recently represented. There may be mistakes on some rosters no doubt, but this has been discussed in the past and the decision was to list place of birth until you can prove they are another nationality, we can't just assume they are or are not a certain nationality. Anyways without proof they are a different nationality than their birth location it would be original research to assume they were someting different. Playing on a national team prooves they have a different nationality because to compete in a major international competition you have to have citizenship in that country, which is a round about way of sourcing their nationality without a direct quote from a paper. -Djsasso (talk) 17:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * You are confused. If you look at the rosters list, you will see that the column with the flags IS named 'Nat' with a link to Nationality. It IS what we are listing. Birth place is NOT what we are listing in this column.
 * we can't just assume they are or are not a certain nationality : this is exactly what you're saying we do, assume the player has the nationality of his birth country unless proved otherwise.
 * As for Craig Adams playing internationally, it is not mentionned in his article, let alone sourced. So did he really play internationally ? Bohdan80 (talk) 20:41, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * (outdent) Well, it is an educated guess rather than an assumption, really.  Lacking any evidence to suggest otherwise, a player's nationality is their country of birth, or its successor state. Resolute 21:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

List of 2008 National Hockey League all-stars
I just came across this page, hadn't a clue that it even existed. Is this really necessary? It's all included in the game's page itself. Thoughts? – Nurmsook!  talk...  21:20, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd merge and redirect to 56th National Hockey League All-Star Game. Resolute 21:39, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with the merge and redirect, that being said it's actually not a bad looking list.  black ngold29  23:48, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

"French Canadian" Players
I'm really not going to sort through 25 archives to see if this came up before, so if it has, just point me to the previous discussion.

I noticed that on the article for Vincent Lecavalier he is listed in the lead as a "French Canadian" hockey player. This is not the case with most of our player articles. Some articles like Mario Lemieux and Martin Biron describe players as "Canadian professional ice hockey player", other articles such as Patrick Roy and Guy Lafleur simply say "professional ice hockey player" with no mention of nationality, aside for place of birth. Our guidelines (using Scott Walker as an example) say that nationality should be mentioned in the lead, which I believe is doubly important for national team-calibre players. Now I'm not going to get into a debate about the national or cultural status of "French Canadians", but there's no "Team French Canada" at the olympics, so for our purposes would it not be best to refer to all players from Canada as "Canadian"? Random 89  17:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, he is French Canadian. His citizenship is Canadian, and maybe American too. There have been Team Quebecs at various tournaments. What's the standard at WP:BIOGRAPHY? Alaney2k (talk) 17:39, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Personally, I would standardize it to "Canadian". There is no need to get that specific, unless we are going to start referring to all players by their cultural heritage as well.  Do we list Jarome Iginla as "African Canadian" in the lead?  I think not. Resolute 17:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Yup I agree, I think this was a case of POV pushing. I know I have had to fix stuff like this on a number of pages awhile back from someone who was anti-canada and pro-quebec. -Djsasso (talk) 17:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * yes, it should be "Canadian", not "French Canadian". Masterhatch (talk) 18:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, that's what I thought. For Vinny I'm gonna change French Canadian to Canadian. Now the question is, should we go through other articles that don't list a nationality and add in "Canadian"? Though I haven't checked, I have a suspicion that it is only players from Quebec which don't have this listed. This can be a touchy subject for some editors. Random  89  20:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC) EDIT: Resolute already fixed this case, and I did the same to Daniel Briere but what should we do about, say, Maurice Richard (to really cut to the point).  Random  89  20:35, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
 * On a lot of articles, the nationality was left off, simply on the assumption that the reader would know what country they are from based on the city, state/province. It is very North America-centric thinking rather than any nationalist ideal, I think.   I'd say to add it in if you like. Resolute 20:38, 15 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm all for listing players as "French Canadian" the moment that (a) France reconquers Canada, or (b) we start listing "British Columbian Canadian" and "Manitoban Canadian" as well.   RGTraynor  11:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm glad it's been decided to stick with Canadian. Imagine having to go through all the articles & adding British Canadian, English Canadian, Scottish Canadian etc etc? GoodDay (talk) 16:12, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Why does BC retain 'British'? It sounds like another country. Substitute Canadian for British at least. CC would be waaaaaaaaaayy cooler. They could possibly get sponsored. How about some exceptions. Can we list Harper as 'Albertan'? He's not liked at all in his hometown. (And, it appears is losing support elsewhere... ):-) Alaney2k (talk) 19:54, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Harper is considered a God by many in Calgary...that being said perhaps they will finally get sick of him. In someways I am glad to have escaped Albertas conservative lock. -Djsasso (talk) 20:29, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Blasphemy! ;) Resolute 20:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * As long as the Liberals keep shooting themselves in the foot, Harper will be around for awhile. GoodDay (talk) 20:45, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I noticed that Tommy Dunderdale is up for GA. Here is someone born in Australia who moved at 17 in Canada. I know that for the infobox we list both citizenships, but his 'lead paragraph nationality' is listed as Canadian. Should it not be Australian? Even if he was raised in Canada? Do we have a 'typical' line where its the born nation, or the 'raised' nation? Although in Dunderdale's case, it seems to be 'adopted' country. 21:02, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Another example... I just added dual citizenship to Bob Nystrom but article currently doesnt say if he is Swedish, Canadian, Swedish Canadian or Canadian Swedish. There are a lot of fascinating categories, but only Category:Swedish immigrants to Canada suggests he is Swedish. Not sure if this really is possible to say what he is, or even add it to Wikipedia. SIHA even views him as optional in their list of Swedish Stanley Cup champions (click on "Svenska Stanley Cupvinnare" (Swedish)). --Bamsefar75 (talk) 21:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't get me started on those various descent categories...I have been ighting with Mayumashu or however you spell it for years about them. He litterally just guesses by the last name and has told me such....and he has created thousands of these categories an populated them. Personally I would never trust a single category related to so and so of x descent. -Djsasso (talk) 21:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * As far as a line that we have...there isn't one...this is one of those hotly debated areas across all of wiki. I would probably just leave that sentence out of the lead on ambiguous people, but thats just avoiding the issue. For the record I am on the side of listing it as country of birth. You are "from" where you are born, regardless of nationality. He came from Austrailia and went to Canada. -Djsasso (talk) 21:55, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sheesh, Nystrom is a mess. There are all sorts of odd or unreferenced categories on that article. Where is the cite for his conversion to Judaism? Canadian ice hockey expatriates in the US? Never mind the lead, these categories need to be addressed. I mean (while there is nothing wrong with it :-) ) why does Wikipedia even have a conversion to Judaism category? In this case, there is no reference. Maybe the best approach is to leave out nationality in the lead when there are two citizenships in the infobox. The lead is supposed to address why an article is notable and summarize it. It's more appropriate in the dual cases to list born in X and raised in Y, if it is noted in the prose of the article. Like Dunderdale. But not use the 'Canadian' or 'Australian' or 'Australian' Canadian term. (There is probably a more specific word for it) Alaney2k (talk) 22:13, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It gets better, actually. Someone actually tagged Eric Nystrom with the Jewish athlete cat based on Bob's apparent conversion.  Not sure what to make of that at all.  Resolute 04:35, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Without trying, I found a cite saying Eric Nystrom is Jewish. Located here, it says he is, but makes no mention of his father, Bobby. Kaiser matias (talk) 00:00, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually ... Dunderdale's parents were emigrants from England, neither of them were Canadian, so I think I'd like to see a cite for Canadian citizenship, if this is up for GA.   RGTraynor  06:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In those days, was there a difference in citizenship? I mean, was there a specific Canadian and Australian citizenship or were persons born in either country considered British subjects (only)? You know, they were just 'colonies of the Empire? In that case, he might have not been able to become a Canadian citizen and maybe it didn't matter for work rules, like it might today. Alaney2k (talk) 17:32, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Tampa Bay Lightning
Just curious. Has Halpern replaced Maszaros as an alternate captain? or is Halpern now a third alternate. GoodDay (talk) 19:36, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Knowing that franchise, I doubt anyone other than the owners knows for sure. The Lightning website does not list Halpern as an alternate, however. Resolute 19:55, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It appears that others disagree at List of current NHL captains and alternate captains article. GoodDay (talk) 20:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd say wait a day or two and see if the Lightning site updates with such a change. If not, revert it back and ask the user to provide a cite. Resolute 21:11, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Okie Dokie. GoodDay (talk) 21:12, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I've done as you've suggested. But, Meszaros continues to be replaced with Halpern. It's my guess that Tocchet's has indeed made the change, but nobody's made note of it. GoodDay (talk) 20:27, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Perry Johnson notability
Trying to determine if Perry Johnson is notable enough for an article. If you look at his hockeydb listing, he played in the WHL junior in the 90s, and he played for the Canadian National Team. I'm not sure which team that was. That could be a junior team. Not drafted by the NHL. Anyway, he has played pro for Manchester Storm, Kansas City Blades and Rodovre Mighty Bulls. Are those teams notable enough? He is not listed for this season, so I don't know what is up. He might have retired from hockey already. He is 31. Alaney2k (talk) 16:01, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * He was on the Memorial Cup-winning Portland team in 1998. Alaney2k (talk) 16:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * WP:ATHLETE says a player is notable if they have played professionally, which Manchester, Kansas City and Rodovre are. As long as there are reliable sources to fill out the article with, I'd say he's notable. Resolute 16:56, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I know that players as notable as Glenn Anderson played for the Canadian National Team. It seems like an on-again/off-again thing where it has (maybe still does) operated for a full season of play, changing rosters for various tournaments. I was wondering if being a listed member of the Canadian team is enough to be notable, for their seasons of play. They seem to have played full seasons according to hockeydb. Probably not the highest level of amateur play for most of those games, although soccer friendlies do count toward country rankings. I ask because I'm unfamiliar with its operation. Not to open a can of worms, just wondering. Alaney2k (talk) 17:06, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It's a tricky situation, but because that team didn't always compete at the highest amateur level, I would say no. Only if they played at the Olympics or World Championships, which before NHL players could go, the Canadian National Team was heavily involved with. Aside from that, Johnson easily passes our own notability standards because he played in the highest pro league in Denmark. And then of course, he passes WP:N based on the 3 pro teams he played for. – Nurmsook!  talk...  03:16, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

1999-00 or 1999-2000?
Which one? I've seen both used a lot. RandySavageFTW (talk) 16:53, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I prefer 1999-00 myself. The common argument for using 1999-2000 is that 1999-00 translates to "1999-1900".   It is a completely ridiculous argument in my view, but it is what I've been told when battling others over this. Resolute 16:55, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that 1999-2000 is a more appropriate convention for an encyclopedia. We are noting a century change, and in the case of 2000, a millenium change happening during the season. I'd rather introduce 2000 at that point instead of 2000-01. That's why I use it. The XX-XX is kind of a short-hand, and I think in the case of the century change, it's a good time to be more encyclopedic. When you are talking about time periods, we should always use both full years too, I think. Alaney2k (talk) 17:20, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I prefer 1999-00, too. It's obviously 2000, no one will be confused. Plus most hockey cards use 1999-00. RandySavageFTW (talk) 17:46, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Personally I prefer to use 2000 just to be completely accurate. But its not a huge deal if I see it the other way, in otherwords I don't go around changing it. But if I am creating a stats table for a player I always use the 2000. -Djsasso (talk) 17:23, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

Hockey-reference.com
Should this website be used for all NHL player pages, similar to how Baseball-reference.com is used for all MLB players? I think that it would be very efficient.  Ksy92003  ( talk ) 17:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is already gaining prominence in some articles. i.e. New York Rangers seasons.  For the most part, I find it redundant to hockeydb.com, so I'd think either works well. Resolute 17:35, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hockey-ref is a bit easier to use for me, so I've found more interesting stats. A lot of Tiny Thompson is sourced to there. butterfly (talk) 22:38, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Lists of teams' seasons articles
Considering they're lists, shouldn't it be List of Toronto Maple Leafs seasons instead of Toronto Maple Leafs seasons? RandySavageFTW (talk) 17:48, 24 December 2008 (UTC)


 * . RandySavageFTW (talk) 17:16, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * They are not really lists, the idea is that they are articles about the seasons in general and then have links to the seasons. They mostly just need to have their prose expanded. But yes as they stand they are more like lists than articles. -Djsasso (talk) 17:20, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you think we should move them then? RandySavageFTW (talk) 20:44, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Not really, I don't believe there is a policy that List's have to be called "List of ..." But I could be wrong, I haven't looked into it. I think the New York Rangers seasons just got a rating increase and its not called list of so its probably not necessary. -Djsasso (talk) 14:04, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't really see the problem in leaving them where they are either. Like Djsasso, not sure if there is any naming standards for list titles.  - Rjd0060 (talk) 19:49, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

It's inconsistent, though. List of NHL seasons, List of NHL statistical leaders, List of NHL players with 50 goal seasons, etc. all have "list of." I think they should all have it, or none of them should at all. RandySavageFTW (talk) 21:14, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Technically those are different sort of articles. All team season artcles lack the list. And being that one achieved Featured status without it, I would be inclined to leave it that way. -Djsasso (talk) 18:38, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Important dates in political history relevant to hockey articles
Here are some dates relevant to the whole country of birth issue that comes up with biographical data with hockey players. I believe we'll start seeing players born post Soviet Union in this draft.

March 11, 1990 - Lithuania declares independence

October 3, 1990 -German reunification

August 20, 1991 -Estonia

September 6, 1991 -Latvia

December 26, 1991 -collapse of the Soviet Union

January 1, 1993 - Dissolution of Czechoslovakia: Czech Republic and Slovakia

ccwaters (talk) 04:13, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you. I was recently thinking about researching this. Jc121383 (talk) 04:48, 29 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess the date of the Soviet collapse applies to players born in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine (and possibly Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan)? --Bamsefar75 (talk) 12:07, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That's the date the Soviet Union was officially and legally declared dissolved (See History_of_the_Soviet_Union_(1985–1991)). I'll double check on the individual states later today. Yugoslavia is another complicated one, but its rare to see hockey players out of there (Kopitar and one other guy I think)... ccwaters (talk) 12:22, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This is helpful too...Independence Day. There's going to be some inconsistencies: Does one become a sovereign country when independence is declared or is it when other countries recognize the independence. ccwaters (talk) 14:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think we as a project will have to decide that, as that is something that is debated even among world leaders. -Djsasso (talk) 15:20, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The US never recognized Soviet rule over Lithuania and the Russians still hasn't officially recognized their independence. :) As far as the project is concerned: hopefully players born within the "gray areas" are limited. ccwaters (talk) 15:25, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * FYI: The other player I was thinking of that was born in Yugoslavia is Ned Lukacevic which, as of 2006, is Montenegro. ccwaters (talk) 15:37, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

For the sake of clarity in the case of the USSR, the following is a list of when the individual SSRs declared independence:
 * Lithuania; declared March 11, 1990
 * Georgia; declared April 9, 1991
 * Estonia; declared August 20, 1991
 * Latvia; declared August 21, 1991
 * Armenia; declared August 23, 1991
 * Ukraine; declared intent August 24, 1991
 * Belarus; declared August 25, 1991
 * Moldova; declared August 27, 1991
 * Azerbaijan; declared August 30, 1991
 * Kyrgyzstan; declared August 31, 1991
 * Uzbekistan; declared September 1, 1991
 * Tajikistan; declared September 9, 1991
 * Turkmenistan; declared October 27, 1991
 * Russia; declared December 12, 1991
 * Kazakhstan; declared December 16, 1991

The USSR itself recognized the independence of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia on September 6, 1991. None of the other SSRs were formally recognized as independent until Gorbachev declared the office of the President of the USSR defunct on December 25, 1991, and the Supreme Soviet dissolved itself the following day. Whether we recognize the independence of the SSRs based on their unilateral declarations or the fall of the Union itself is a matter that I don't think any of us are qualified to resolve. In any case we can all agree that Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians born on or after September 6, 1991 were never citizens of the USSR.

In the case of Yugoslavia, the timeline was as follows:
 * Croatia & Slovenia declared independence June 25, 1991
 * Macedonia held a referendum on independence September 8, 1991; recognized as FYROM April 8, 1993 by the UN
 * Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence March 1, 1992
 * Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia reorganized itself into the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia April 28, 1992
 * Federal Republic of Yugoslavia changed its name to the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro February 4, 2003
 * Montenegro declared independence June 3, 2006

--93JC (talk) 22:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Naming standards
Since this new proposal seems to be an attempt to force us into line with other peoples ideas of how to name articles. I thought I should make a note of it here since they failed to let us know the discussion was going on. Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (sportspeople). It is someone who has proposed this before and was shot down before but I think he is now trying to officially propose it. -Djsasso (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * What's your point of view of this Djsasso? Double Blue  (talk) 20:30, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Yep, that constitutes canvassing, since Djasso is using loaded wording ("force", "shot down"). Members of this project might as well not bother responding to the existing threads there, and save your time for the upcoming WP:RFC on these matters. I now don't have any choice but to go that route, since Djsasso has forced my hand by posting POV-pushing debate notices here and elsewhere.
 * In response to Djsasso's specific wording: 1) It isn't a proposal, it's a draft proposal. 2) Your project should be doing what everyone else (with the exception of WP:BASEBALL, from what I can tell) is doing. Site-wide consistency is why we have conventions and guidelines in the first place. The hockey/baseball issue was not even the genesis of this document; rather, the mass-moving of zillions of football articles was, so quit trying to make this personal, please. 3) I didn't "propose" anything before, I pointed out that your two projects were not adhering to the guidelines, and you and another two or so editors flipped out about it. 4) Nothing was "shot down".  I voluntarily changed the wording of WP:NCP myself (against your opposition, ironically) to put a stop to the increasingly pointless debate temporarily. That did not resolve the debate, just postponed it. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 20:57, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm content with whatever's chosen. GoodDay (talk) 21:40, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * To be specific with ice hockey, the proposal would be to change everyone who has the disambiguation of John Doe (ice hockey) to John Doe (ice hockey player). Tavix (talk) 22:40, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
 * To correct again, no that isn't what's proposed. It is to use "( field  role )", just as any other topic would (except for baseball, I guess, for now).  For ice hockey, " role " might be "player", "coach", "referee", "announcer", "journalist", or whatever.  If someone where notable as a player, coach, sportscaster and team owner at different career phases, it would be "figure". Please do not misrepresent the draft proposal just because it interferes with your disruptive activities (for others unaware of those, cf. comments at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Baseball; the bulk of User talk:Tavix and much of its page history, as Tavix does not archive, just deletes; and two WP:ANIs in the last month). —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 03:07, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * A little off topic, but I take a great deal of offense to the comments you, SMcCandlish, made towards Djsasso. He was simply informing us of an important issue that will have a massive effect on our project, something that you did not do. How do you expect any sort of fairness without the participation of the project this decision will most effect? Oh, and you stated that "[m]embers of this project might as well not bother responding to the existing threads there, and save your time for the upcoming WP:RFC on these matters." You're complaining about POV on his part, yet decide to toss in a bit of your own? This is an important issue for this project, and to be totally honest, you have shown us a complete lack of respect by not letting us know about this. This is an important issue and a little courtesy informing us about these procedings goes a long way... – Nurmsook!  talk...  03:34, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Based on some of his comments on the other discussion thread, I doubt he would have informed us of his proposals. He expressed frustration that the last discussion went against him after he informed the projects.   It's easier to form a "consensus" when you try to keep your opponents out of the discussion. Resolute 17:01, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * What I find amusing is that he took me to ANI for this. And his wording of a number of his comments on the draft propossal indicate that he thinks this needs to be passed immediately. Why immediately? Is it cause its going to break something? Is it cause the world is going to blow up? Or was it because he was worried we or the baseball project would notice the proposal and outnumber him again? I am of the opinion failing to notify the projects that he numerous times in his proposal came just short of calling idiots is worse that the slightly POV sounding notices I made. Which clearly did not violate WP:CANVAS as I did not indicate which way people should side, which is the most important component of CANVAS. The amount of opinion or lack there of opinon is clearly subjective and without me actually saying go vote against this complete garbage or something like that then it doesn't violate canvas. -17:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Also note our "disruptive activities"... —Krm500 (Communicate!) 04:08, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I wasn't talking about you, but about Tavix, whose second and current ANI is coming to the consensus that he has in fact been disruptive. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 05:05, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Nurmsook, I'm not entirely following you. Djsasso's notices were not neutrally worded, but clear advocacy against a draft proposal he personally doesn't like, and this is clearly canvassing under the definitions at WP:CANVASS (as has been noted by others at WP:ANI; not all agreed, and the ANI was closed.)  There are hundreds of sports projects; WT:SPORT and WT:GAMES as well as WT:NCP and WT:WPMOS were all neutrally and consistently notified. Being expected to notify every single sport/game-related project is a bit much.  What "POV of my own"?  I'm simply notifying you that Wikipedia-wide RFCs will be filed on the issue, to get broader community input, and they will thus make the current back-'n'-forth on the topics, with very few participants, pretty much moot, and thus a waste of your time.  I.e., after Christmas there'll be plenty of time and notice for everyone's comment. The draft proposal would have no impact on your project at all and is not an "important issue". It will impact no one but the person who AWBs all the bad disambiguations into WP:DAB-correct ones. Naming and disambiguation conventions for articles are a WP-wide matter, determined at WP:DAB, WP:NC and subpages thereof, and so are not topical-WikiProject issues at all, much less "important" ones.  I'm really at a loss why a handful of people in this project (I want to stress that - the majority of project members appear to have no stake in the issue at all) insist on making a mountain out of a molehill and getting red in the face about a matter that is nothing but a site-wide consistency issue.  Also, the document is simply a draft, not even a proposal.  It is not my fault that you are not paying attention to WT:SPORT (everyone actively involved in any sports project should be).  Before it even goes to proposal status, there'll be RFCs on the contentious issues. Before it goes toward guideline status, it'll be a proposal announced at the Village Pump. Please just calm down. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 05:05, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm really at a loss why a handful of people in this project (I want to stress that - the majority of project members appear to have no stake in the issue at all) insist on making a mountain out of a molehill and getting red in the face about a matter that is nothing but a site-wide consistency issue. Yet you're making an issue of Djsasso simply informing the projects that have largely been discussed in this draft? All that I'm saying is that your comments to DJ came off very insulting. You claim that you are under no obligation to inform our project of the draft, and while that is most certainly true, we are under no obligation to follow WT:SPORT as you seem to think we and any other sub-project should. It's simple courtesy. I don't know where you keep getting this "hundreds of sports projects" nonsense from, because as DJ recognized, only two, Baseball and Hockey, have been hotly discussed. Would it really be that difficult to spend 30 seconds posting a link to those two projects so that their members can stay in the know? Like I said, courtesy goes a long way, but it's when you jump on and accuse someone of malice for simply being courteous that suddenly something becomes insulting. And for the record, renaming such a large number of articles is a big issue, the same way that diacritics in article titles is a big issue. I don't know about you, but if this passes, my watchlist is going to go crazy. I fully intend to participate in this whole process, and I have DJ to thank for that. If he hadn't stepped up to the plate, I would never have even known this was going on, and I am by no means some casual editor here. Lastly, I am calm, and I don't need to be told that; I simply wanted you to know that while his comments may have had a hint of bias in them, DJ only did this for the good of our project and to inform us of what's going on, the same thing he normally does and the reason why he is so respected around here. Regardless, this has nothing to do with the topic at hand, and I don't want to suddenly make a huge deal out of it. It just seems like you could have gone without the ANI process for all the reasons I stated above, and most certainly could have been more polite in your comments to him and our project. Have a merry Christmas :-) – Nurmsook!  talk...  05:59, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd have to say that it takes a unfathomable stretch to see Djsasso's notice as being neutral. There is also no need for anyone to have been notified of a proposal being drafted. It was posted to WT:SPORT, WP:GAMES, WT:NCP, and WT:WPMOS presumably because the author was seeking more input and that is to be congratulated not denigrated. If and when this would actually be completed and proposed, it would obviously need wide input to form a consensus and SMcCandlish has already stated he will initiate an RFC for that. The fact is that the parent group of this group was notified and it's not hard to believe that a member of this descendant project would see that and, indeed, Djsasso saw it somewhere and notified the group. If he had simply said, "There is currently a proposal being drafted for naming conventions for sportspeople that would change how we dab our articles, please share your opinions there.", that would have been great but calling in the troops to defeat those who seek to overpower us is way out of line and clearly Campaigning per WP:CANVASS. Double Blue  (talk) 07:13, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In order to violate WP:CANVAS I have to either inform only those likely to side with me. Which informing a project is not doing becaue there are likely a number of people in this project who disagree with me. Secondly I have to actually tell someone which way to vote (ie. Go vote against this naming proposal because its stupid.) Which again I didn't do, in fact I didn't go that far on purpose so as to avoid canvassing. -Djsasso (talk) 15:51, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess that you misunderstood what was going on. It's neither a vote nor a proposal; it's a draft. Please bring your ideas and thoughts but leave your vitriol for when it's appropriate. Double Blue  (talk) 19:58, 25 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Hopefully we've stopped smacking each other with red herrings and now will discuss this proposal civilly at the talkpage. butterfly (talk) 22:32, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

"There is also no need for anyone to have been notified of a proposal being drafted." Are you fucking kidding us? Is there some reason why there's something wrong with notifying people that a proposal affecting this project is under discussion?  RGTraynor  08:40, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Who said there was something wrong with it? Double Blue  (talk) 21:27, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That would be you.   RGTraynor  05:41, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It would have been better if Wikipedia had adopted Name (field) for disambiguation in every subject area, not the occupation-based method. That's the real mistake and instead of fixing that, people want to push a bad standard. Say there were three Frank Mahovliches. The real one, who has notability in ice hockey and politics and one who has notability in ice hockey and another. You could have Frank Mahovlich(ice hockey/politics) and Frank Mahovlich ( 1930s ice hockey) and Frank Mahovlich (business). Much more flexible. Use role only as an additional modifier, e.g. ice hockey scientist. :-) Too late?! Alaney2k (talk) 21:42, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
 * This will totally blow your mind, but I completely agree with you. -Djsasso (talk) 13:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Say it ain't so, Joe, say it ain't so. :-) Alaney2k (talk) 14:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Merging head coach and general manager lists
I recently revised List of Pittsburgh Penguins head coaches and List of Pittsburgh Penguins general managers and I started wondering if it would be better to just merge the two lists. I know that some people want lists to be consistent league-wide, but if enough people would support the merge then we could just merge all of the teams. List of Philadelphia Phillies managers is an FL that includes both and List of Pittsburgh Pirates managers and owners includes managers, general managers, and owners—it is currently up for FLC. I know that SRE.K.A.L.24 is working to get all coach lists up to FL status (help him out), but I think that we're capable of high enough quality merges to keep all current FLs up to snuff. I know there are people who don't care about FLs and whatnot, but most coach lists are FLs (or close to it) unlike GM lists; so in my mind one merged FL is better than one FL and one List that'll likely never get promoted. Thoughts? Thanks!  black ngold29  07:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In my personal opinion, I don't want them to merge just because I'm currently trying to get all these lists featured to get a featured topic. If I include the general managers and/or owners, then there will have to have three topics in one, which can't happen in WP:FT. As I did work on these for all my editing period, I would be happy to keep them the way they are. This is only my personal opinion, but I will always respect the WikiProject's decision. -- signed by  SRE.K.A nnoyomous .L. 24  spell my name backwards at 10:16, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * They are completely seperate topics so should stay seperate. -Djsasso (talk) 13:15, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * For the record, I believe that a few bronze stars is not a reason not to merge articles. butterfly (talk) 15:01, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I chase bronze stars as much as anyone in the project, but at the same time, I don't see the need to dilute articles simply because one list is not capable of becoming featured.   The goal is to create high quality articles, and while the featured star is an obvious proof of the quality of an article or list, it is no shame that some lists cannot reach that mark. Resolute 15:59, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Just piling on - I don't think they should be merged, per Djsasso above. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:02, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't merge, as GMs & Coaches on a team, tend to be different people. GoodDay (talk) 16:21, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Gee, I wish we reached a consensus that fast on everything. Anyway, it seems pretty clear we'll keep them seperate, but I just wanted to clarify that I'm not trying to get more FLs for their own sake, in fact if we merged the lists we would have less not more. Thanks.  black ngold29  18:50, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Arab Ice Hockey Federation
Anyone know much about the Arab Ice Hockey Federation. Their website looks distinctly bloggy so I am not sure how official they are. But that being said this is ice hockey in the arab area so I don't really blame their site for not being top notch as its probably not a well organized group yet. -Djsasso (talk) 01:33, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * They are indeed official. I've got a book by Dave Bidini from a few years back, the Tropic of Hockey, where he goes to "non-traditional" hockey countries. One of them is the United Arab Emirates. They host a tournament every year between Arab states. While it was mainly comprised of Canadian and other western expats, it is growing in numbers of Arabs. What I'm trying to say is they are official, just a relatively new group of nations to the world of hockey. Nice to see someone around to give some prominence to lesser known hockey countries. Kaiser matias (talk) 02:58, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh I realize there is hockey there. I have the same book. Big fan of him actually. But the website lists that they were formed less than a month ago. This is why I sort of questioned it. -Djsasso (talk) 03:05, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * How does this relate to the IIHF? ccwaters (talk) 12:09, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I gather it's like an umbrella organization for these nations, similar to how the Canadian Olympic Committee, United States Olympic Committee, Barbados Olympic Association, etc. are part of the Pan American Sports Organisation while still being under the International Olympic Committee. – Nurmsook!  talk...  19:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)