A Real Fixer Upper

AARYON LYNETT/TORONTO STAR Toronto's Darcy Tucker and New York's Sean Avery get right down to it during a game on Nov. 10, 2007.

On the first day of Pebble Beach deliberations, the NHL board of governors accomplished nothing that will help the league.

Sure, they rubber-stamped the transfer of the Nashville Predators to a new ownership group that will no doubt be back in two or three years with new tales of woes and plans to sell or move the team.

The guvs also voted in a new schedule, which will immediately attract new complaints as soon as the dimwitted understand the league has effectively increased the number of games between unfamiliar opponents at the expense of contests between rivals.

Tell us how you would improve the NHL.

More Preds-Sens and Oilers-Panthers, fewer Flyers-Sens and Oilers-Avalanche. Hmm. Can't wait.

On the second day, perhaps the governors will do better.

The most important item on their agenda should be the state of the game itself, with defence and fighting way up, scoring and excitement way down.

But what to do?

Now that it appears evident that coaches have again shut the game down, erasing the openness initially created by the removal of hooking and interference and the red line, there's nobody who has a terrific idea to fix the game again.

I've said for years they're going to have to increase the size of the nets, but too many non-thinkers still argue it would make a mockery of the NHL record book.

As if goalies the size of airport hangars didn't do that long ago.

Bigger ice will do nothing. The Europeans proved that long ago. Four-on-four would work, probably, but there's no appetite for that.

So at the same time the NHL is trying to figure out a way to win ESPN's heart again, it's got a product that is devolving back into what it was three or four years ago, and what it couldn't sell three or four years ago. The league, sadly, has fallen back to its old reflex of insisting all is well no matter the evidence to the contrary. The best the dinosaurs can offer is that taking the instigator out will make it a more manly league.

After a brief respite, the coaches, goons and goalies are dominating again, and nobody has a great idea how to fix the NHL now that it appears broken again.

Comments

[Jonathan]

You can't be serious on the scheduling changes! If anything, they ought to have gone further: ensuring each team visits each rink each year. I, for one, would appreciate the opportunity to see the Flames live in either Toronto or Buffalo each year.

On the goal scoring issue, my modest proposal is to eliminate the position of coach. These guys are paid to sit around all day coming up with tactics to limit offense. Can you believe it? Know what's worse? They succeed! Send the players out there with no game plan, I say. Just have them skate around, hitting each other randomly and so on. Want proof it works? It's what the Leafs do, and they're letting in an average of 3.5 goals a game.

[Joe]

Hi Damien. To open up the game and create more offence, what about just having bigger ice surfaces for our now bigger players to play on? With the size of NHL players today, it' pretty crowded out there on the ice. It seems to me that some of the best games ever played have been on the larger european rinks.

[paul]

Actually, since the Flyers and Senators are not in the same division, they'll play each other four times under the new schedule, the same as they currently do.

For all the hand-wringing over the schedule, only 8 games will be - or ever were - changed. 8 more out-of-conference games at the expense of needlessly forced rivalries is a change I can get behind. Familiarity can breed boredom as easily as contempt.

[Ian]

I think you're only one of a few who is not in favour of the new schedule. Playing every team in the opposite conference ONCE is hardly a bad thing.

"More Preds-Sens and Oilers-Panthers, fewer Flyers-Sens and Oilers-Avalanche. Hmm. Can't wait." I don't quite get this statement. The Preds-Sens/Oilers-Panthers would only be playing once a year. Why is that so bad?

As well, cutting down on inter-division games from 8 to 6 is definately a good thing, even the players are sick of playing the same team 8 times a year.

However, I do share your opinion about the size of nets. Either increase them, or decrease the size of the goalie equipment, and you'll see an increase of goals. It seems that the goals from the blue line are almost extinct nowadays, the goalies just cover too much of the net.

[Dave]

Dimwitted? That's a bit harsh. It's exactly what most people want.

The fact that you think Edm-Col 8 times a year is a good thing submarines everything else you've said. Ask anyone from those cities how they enjoy it. Calgary and Colorado have already played FOUR times this season. The teams, and the fans, are sick of eachother.

The whole approach to the argument is ridiculous. Let's try it with other teams: less Oilers - Coyotes, more Oilers- Habs. Leafs - Panthers, more Leafs - Flames.

Now it doesn't sound so bad.

[Moosely]

The "dimwitted" have been asking for this schedule because it is what the fans want.

How about less Leafs - Panthers, and more Leafs - Calgary/Edmonton/Vancouver? How about less Oilers - Coyotes, and more Oilers - Penguins? The arguments you used are directly offset by the increased games between other great teams.

And you're complaining about fewer Oilers-Avalanche games... Have you even watched any of these games? From your terrible analysis of hockey, I would assume you've never watched games that the Maple Leafs weren't participating in.

[charade]

I gotta be honest with you man, eight Leafs/Bruins tilts a year is criminal.

I'm all for the change.

I've even been getting tired of seeing our grand rivals the Sens and Canadians so many times a season.

[Pat Kane]

Red-line, no red-line. Fox puck, no Fox puck. Bigger nets, smaller nets. New jerseys, old jerseys. Fighting, no fighting. More expansion, no expansion. I'm no marketing wizard here, but how about making up your minds and sticking with something for a change? The NHL is like my girlfriend getting ready to go out: "Should I wear this or that? How's my hair? I don't know if I like these shoes. Am I getting fat?" By this point, I'm channel surfing and could care less. "Honey (read, NHL), you're fine just the way you are. Now shut up and let's go, please."

[Denial]

Do you know what I'm getting very tired of? (Pretend that you care, okay?). It's this: trying to figure out what's wrong with the NHL, and trying to apologize for the fact that it is no longer an elite professional sports league.

For the last...I don't know now, seven years? Longer? There has been a consistently open "what's wrong with the NHL" question. SEVEN YEARS OF WONDERING WHAT'S WRONG!?

Do you know what that's called? It's called my stupid blog name: DENIAL.

It's denial. Plain, simple, denial.

Here's the thing that I want to blurt out today, and ask that you please all at least consider it before rejecting it (which is what people in denial do, unless/until they snap free). The problem is NOT with the NHL. I repeat: NOT with the NHL.

The problem is with our expectations. We (the collective, idiotic "we") cannot accept that things have changed. So we're trying to fit a round peg into a square hole -- and we utterly REFUSE to accept that we're doing this.

The problem is NOT with the game. The problem is that hockey, itself, is run by dinasours who know excrutiatingly little about basic marketing concepts like: market research, supply-induced-demand, and other tedious -- but profitable -- things that every other league, including the NLL, *GETS*.

Hockey was on its way "down" in the 1980s. We claim that these were the glory years of the Oilers, but you didn't have to be Kreskin back then to see that the rise of entertainment in sports means that hockey would have to adapt.

So what did the league do? It coiled up into a bubble, endorse Don Cherry's religious effort to brand this game as little more than thugs-on-ice, and "ignore" the fact that hockey is a game that is only deeply understood once you PLAY it -- and when parents decide to buy little Jimmy a $50 baseball glove or $800 hockey equipment, which thing do you think they'll go for?

Hockey could have made some hard -- but necessary -- decisions back in the 80s and 90s when it could have seen that this was going to happen; it's not that hockey sucks, it's that it sucks and we expect it NOT to suck. And so we are doomed to continue trying to find out what's wrong with it.

Is there ANYTHING MORE PATHETIC IN THE SPORTS WORLD than the 'fans' of a league constantly, endlessly, TEDIOUSLY talking about what's wrong with their sport? No wonder basketball fans think we're idiots. WE ARE IDIOTS. Basketball fans just (gasp) enjoy the game. We have to spend hours finding out what's wrong with ours. We're such total losers it's worthy of some kind of tax relief.

You don't find out what's wrong with winter. Winter is cold. You don't go outside in minus 10 degree temperature and then wonder on phone-in talk shows why it's so cold. You accept that winter is cold, you get a jacket, you stay inside, you adjust. But to stand out in the cold and "wonder" why winter is cold is not just stupid -- it's utterly insane.

Hockey fans are insane.

French toast, pleast.

[Alex]

Why does everyone think the problem is goal scoring?? Just because more pucks go in the net doesnt mean a better product on the ice. The real issue is keeping the speed and end to end action at a high level. European soccer doesnt have many 7 goal games yet the fans still apck stadiums to watch. The real issue is diluted talent pool and about 12 to many american hockey teams.

[John Martin]

Yes, everyone who disagrees with Damien Cox is either a "dimwit" or a "non-thinker". Well I guess I'm a dimwit because I'm sick of seeing Leafs-Senators 17 times a season and a non-thinker because I think a bigger net is a gimmick that will result in a lot of silly goals and do nothing to improve the excrutiatingly boring play we've come to expect from the NHL the last 10 years.

Excuse me, I have to go marry my first cousin now.

[Rick]

First, there will be the same amount of Sens-Flyers, I'm fairly certain, with two in Philly and two in Ottawa.
Second, the league would be more exciting with less teams. Not only would there be more concentrated talent, there would be fewer teams with pratically no fans, such as the Preds and ... ugh... Panthers.
Third, it's either bigger nets or samller the goalie equipment. If Broduer and Luongo won't play with one or the other, they can go to Europe along with Bryan McCabe who wouldn't play with a salary cap. As for Iginla-types who say the record book will be altered, I say, so what? Hockey is exciting, goals are exciting. Is anyone excited by record books? No, so who cares!
If every team played like the Leafs (pourous defense, high-intensity offense, and shoddy netminding) then more games would be like Game 82 of last season vs. Montreal (hugely excting, even for loser Habs fans). However, the trend is toward the Canucks style (suberb defense, suberb goaltending, offense when convenient) and there are more games which look like the Stars-Nucks playoff series (dead boring, even for the victorious 'Nucks fans)
Rick, Vancouver.

[Aaron Mossey]

The constant whining and moaning from the sports columns is what is killing the enthusiasm for this sport more then any other factor. It seems lately, no matter what outcome, decision, or direction is decided on, there are a rabid group of talking heads (and hands) that spring forth like cranky children to deride NHL Hockey and inject fresh doses of poison to any prospective fan that may be falling into the sport.

I swear, if I did not love hockey so much, this endless march of negativism and pouty reporting, would turn me off the sport as quick as you can say, "sour lemons".

thanks for being part of the greater problem.

[NonThinker]

Bigger Nets?

Great...instead of watching a boring 2-1 game, I can watch a boring 3-2 game.

The only way to make the game better is to do what will never happen. Reduce the number of teams. Too many crappy players are in the league which means teams have to focus on defense and play the trap.

It'll NEVER NEVER happen but contraction is the only solution. The league has ruined the game and it will never be any good now. It's too late.

[Salvador O'Mally]

My god, you really are unbelievably pompous. Just let the dimwitted have this one, we will at least be able to see the Leafs play the Bruins 6 times each year instead of 8. Maybe the dimwitted just can't take that much excitement. When will people realize that the fundamental problem with the NHL is that there are way, way, way too many teams. Sure, the equipment needs to shrink, and not just the goalie equipment, but that is a minor change. We've got to stop tweaking the game to make it a certain way. The league is way too watered down, there are too many teams that are loaded with untalented players, and coaches have no choice but to trap the hell out of opposing teams, because not to do so would mean losing 10-2 every night. If I was commissioner, I would do everything I can to reduce this league by ten teams. The league has got too big for its britches, and it is high time people who love the game of hockey reclaim it.

[Yves]

Right on the money. I can't even remember the last time I saw a *really* good hockey game, and when you watch footage of games from the '80's it's almost like a different sport. The NHL is boring, and I don't waste any of my hard-earned money on it.

[PPP]

Do you think that 8 regular season games between divisional opponents has done anything to create rivalries? The ones that exist were forged in the playoffs. During the regular season fans want variety. I don't care about playing the Bruins 8 times if it means not playing the three Western Canadian teams.

The changes are an improvement and I doubt that you would find any fans that would say otherwise.

[doug]

wow thanx for another uplifting article and insight.....oyu told us nothig we already don't know...quit whining and do some professionalism journalism for a change instead of painting this world according to Damien Cox messsage..who cares what u think!!!..

[Jordan Whyte]

Fix the NHL? Whatever would you write about then?

[John A]

Hi Damien-

What would you think of a coaching salary cap? Say you can pay all the coaches in your organization a million bucks, total -- and that includes the film guys.

I think that one of the things holding the game back is that the coaches are so completely able to prepare their teams to neutralize their opponents. I think that hockey, unlike football, is better when it's a little scrambly and not so precise and robotic. Let's make it harder for teams to prepare for each other and let the players decide the game, not the coaches.

[Evel Knievel]

Bigger nets? The goalies will just come up with bigger equipment.

Compare a goalie from the late '80's to one today and you will see one of the problems with the NHL. That and there are too many teams, and there are too many players on the ice at the same time. We have 10 players, 4 refs on an ice surface that hasn't changed in size since the '50's.

I'm in favour of 4 on 4 hockey. Faster game, more excitement, more scoring, teams wouldn't have to carry as many players (and consequently, teams could get rid of the goons/crappy players).

4 on 4 is the way to go. Plus, it is a natural progression. Anyone remember when hockey had the 'rover' position?

[Jack in Haliburton]

Fewer teams. Fewer games.

[Remi]

Listen Cox,
You are very stupid to say that that they should increase the size of the nets.I don't agree with you at all because it does not make sense.I have been a hockey fan for over 60 years and the only thing that I don't like is stupid shootouts.They should get rid of that.This is not the way to decide the outcome of a hockey game.As for you Cox,You don't know too much about hockey.

[Robert Brett]

It often seems like the pundits refuse to admit that in sports, not every game is an instant classic. I've seen just as many dull football or baseball games as hockey games. That's why God invented sports bars with beer. I'm thrilled that in the new NHL a one or two goal lead in the third period is not virtually insurmountable as it was in the clutch 'n' grab era. The level of competition in the game is very high and the players are better than ever. The obstruction crackdown worked and fighting is up - what's not love?

People have to keep in mind that much of the debate around 'what's wrong with hockey'is an imaginary discourse carried on between the hockey pundits to keep the 24/7 sports news cycle fed with air time and column inches. That's why many of the pundits appear to loathe hockey - if there were nothing to complain about there wouldn't be enough content to support the advertising space sold along side it (and less pundit jobs available).

The hockey 'debate' in this age of media saturation is doomed to be like the Quebec separation debate - a never-ending low-grade susarration that goes on habitually while the rest of us somehow manage to once in a while find a few minutes to actually enjoy the game.

[kenny d]

Being Canadian I would like to see all the Canadian teams play each other four times. Two home and two away. There is not a Canadain who wouldn't and it makes sense and that is precicely the reason Bettman won't hear of it. For Bettman it is not what makes sense it is what makes money. That is why he wants to expand the NHL. Have you ever heard of anything so stupid. Half the arena's are half empty now. You want a better product? Decrease the number of teams. The talent would be concentrated making for a better game. Makes sense so it won't happen. Keep the game moving. Stop all the inscensent penalties. It seems you can't touch anyone anymore without getting a penalty. It's ridiculous. We don't need bigger ice surfaces or bigger nets. Let the game be played the way it is supposed to be played and fans will flock to it because when played the correct way it IS the best team game. It makes sense so naturally it won't happen. Give me eight teams in Canada and the same in the USA and the NHL will be wicked good. Makes sense to me so, well you know the rest. Go Leafs Go