Sunday, July 31, 2005

Finally, its back

The collective bargaining agreement has been signed. Opening night is October 5th, and all the teams will be in action. Bob Goodenow has stepped down, and teams are scrambling to set a roster that complies with the new salary cap. After 1,230 missed regular season games, a cancelled All-Star game, and a spring without Lord Stanley's Cup being raised, here are the top 10 things the NHL (still) needs to do:

10. Eliminate ties - This is #10 because its already been done with the addition of an extra period of overtime, and ultimately shootouts. But it is still worth mentioning because when I look back at sports, the creation of the OTL (overtime loss) in hockey ranks right up there as one of the worst rules ever in sports. I would open the paper and the standings would read: Bruins 21-15-3-6
What does that mean? Why are there 4 columns for wins and losses when in other sports there are only two? Did you win? Or did you lose? Oh, you lost in overtime; but you still get a point for that? What's going on here? How does that work? Ties are boring, I want to see someone lose, and I want to see someone win. Baseball doesn't have ties, neither does basketball, and football has one maybe once a year. Thank God we got that out of the way.

9. Paint the helmets - (stolen from John Buccigross) Just like the Michigan Wolverines. Is it tacky? Sure, it could be. But it could also make the game fun. Not for the players, the players don't care if their helmet is black or pink. For the fans, for us. For those that pay the salaries and watch the games, the ones that wear your jersey's, and the ones that cheer for you. The fans lost the same thing the players did, a whole season of hockey, a whole entire Stanley Cup playoff run. Bring them back, make sure the fence sitters come down on the right side of the fence. Make the game fun, and make the fans feel like we're getting something in return, even if its only symbolic.

8. Improve the flow - Hockey is fast. Keep it that way. The league plans on really cracking down this time on obstruction and the like. I'll believe it when I see it. The culmination of speed, finesse and toughness put together is what makes hockey great. Not the ability of some goon to hook someone on a breakaway. Some of the finest athletes hockey has went to play in Europe this past season. One was because there was actually a season to be played in Europe, but another was that a lot of players prefer the European game. Bring them back, don't lose the Peter Forsberg's and Jaromir Jagr's of hockey, there are already too few. Make sure they understand that unless they lose the puck, or get flattened by Scott Stevens, they aren't going to be mugged on their way into the offensive zone. The flow will also be helped out by the elimination of the red line. If there was one thing that kept me entertained during the lockout, it was college hockey. Watch the Devils try to trap a two line pass.

7. Make stick violations stick - Back when the Red Wings were winning back to back Stanley Cup titles, then head coach Scotty Bowman came up with a great idea. All stick violations, should be considered major infractions. That is, you don't get to leave the box if the other team scores if your penalty was a result of your stick being weilded carelessly. Players of today are bigger, faster and stronger, and the sticks of today are no longer logs. They're composite or graphite. They're stronger than old wooden sticks. And they're also lighter. Put that in the hands of today's players, and you've got yourself a weapon. Sticks shouldn't be carried above the shoulders anymore than they should be used to spear or slash someone. If you use your stick against another player in a manner other than which it was intended, you better be ready to sit the full two minutes, regardless of how many power play goals the other team can rattle off. What could the NHL possibly have to lose other than less injured players, and increased power play time.

6. Lower ticket prices - Someone wrote in on ESPN.com the other day that they've been a New York Islanders season ticket holder since the 90's. And when the NHL announced the signing of a new collective bargaining agreement last week, they got a letter in the mail announcing all the fun things the Islanders were going to do for their fans. But at the bottom of that letter was printed "Note: Season ticket prices will remain the same as the 2003-04 season." Fans will always think athletes are greedy and overpaid. But we lost a whole season because the owners agreed. And now you mean to tell me that even though there is more than a 20% rollback in players salaries, we still have to pay the same amount of money to see the game? Where is all this extra money going? I didn't miss a whole season of hockey so that the owners could get richer instead of the players. I can go to a Celtics game and sit in the bleachers for $10, why can't I do the same for a Bruins game? Work with us here. The "if you build it, they will come" cliche doesn't work here. Fans need to feel that the lockout wasn't for nothing.

5. Decrease the number of teams and increase the talent pool - There are a few things that just make sense. The Packers in Green Bay, the Bulls in Chicago and the Red Sox in Boston (how else do you explain fans actually believing 'Well, there's always next year...' for 86 years?). Now try that with the...Trashers in Atlanta? The Coyotes in Phoenix? I'm not saying move teams back to Canada (though that would be ideal), but really, even as a college undergrad, common business sense tells me that if I'm not selling my product, I'm not doing as well as I'd like. Sports sense would tell me that if my team plays in front of more empty seats than full seats every home game, something is wrong. And last time I checked, Carolina didn't strike me as a hockey hotbed. Solution? Only keep teams where you can fill the stands. There are 30 current NHL teams, as much fun as the Original Six would be, the league would be just fine with 24 teams. The talent pool would skyrocket, and gameplay would improve. Baseball balked at taking away teams a few years ago, be the first to take that step in the right direction. I don't know about you, but the last time there was a hockey season, the Columbus Blue Jackets vs. the Phoenix Coyotes game didn't exactly garner a circle on my calendar.

4. Do something for the community - Hockey is expensive. Trust me, I've worn the same skates for the past seven years. Reach out, buy equipment for local youth hockey, hold camps for kids, hell, make funny commercials like the NFL does with the United Way. Do something. Make sure hockey isn't a game only for the rich kids. Make it so that learning to skate is the hardest step in starting to play hockey, not being able to afford equipment. Players come from all over the world, but they should come from here too. America is once again home to the most elite hockey league in the world, make it also the home to the most elite players in the world. Children shouldn't not play hockey because all they had to do to play baseball instead was buy a glove.

3. Bring back the organ - This is a small and simple request. I don't go to hockey games to hear techno and top 40 music blasting between each faceoff anymore than I tune in to watch the commercials. The game should be the spectacle, not the nonsense that surrounds it. I went to a Celtics game this past winter, and a twenty second timeout turned into 2 Unlimited being blasted on the PA system while a guy dressed as a leprechaun did the jig and shot t-shirts into the stands. Thats not what I shell out money for. I attend games to watch the game, hear a classic on the organ and consume more sodium in a three hour period than I had in the past week.

2. Move the nets back - I've seen Mario Lemieux score from behind goal line extended, and Wayne Gretzky draw more attention behind the net than he did in front of it. But thats about it. Thats not to say that players today aren't talented and creative, far from it. But honestly, how much space do you need behind an angle that, barring an oddity or bounce, cannot be scored from? Fans want offense, and the NHL wants to give it to them. The blue line has already been extended to allow more room in the offensive zone, gain yourself another few feet and move the nets back closer to the end boards.
Note: I believe this rule is actually going into effect.

1. Don't mess with the playoffs - I didn't miss any of the politics of hockey, the expensive ticket prices, or the lack of televised regular season games. But I sure as hell missed the playoffs. It is the most physically grueling of any of the playoff races of the four major sports. Sixteen teams start to play a game every other night, each with the same goal: win 16 games before any one team beats your team four times. Its as pure as hockey gets with that caliber of play. Game 1 sets the momentum, Game 4 is pivotal and the rare Game 7 is always riveting. Its the one playoff system set up so that David can beat Goliath. Its all just a race for the most recognizeable trophy in all of sports. And there is only one, a new silver Lombardi trophy isn't pressed every year for the eventual winner. Teams don't get to keep it in their trophy case for years to come so that their fans can remember the glory days. It has spent a night at the bottom of a river, and been drunk out of by a horse, traveled to Europe and probably kissed by every player that has ever won it. So many stories that it now has its own security 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I can put up with a lot of things, and I'm just as content watching a game on television as I would be if I were there. But please, do not do anything to undermine the run for Lord Stanley's Cup.