hockey article of interest

(Re-printed without permission) :-O


Silent Treatment

February 19th, 2007


Jim Kelley

(for Sportsnet.ca)



Amid the buzz of who might be traded where, the real issues affecting the NHL go unnoticed.

Here are a few thoughts jotted in a notebook while watching NASCAR roar past the National Hockey League via the Daytona 500; the PGA tour capture a massive share of attention with Phil Mickelson blowing another chance to shed his "Never On Sunday" image; and the National Basketball Association showcase an All-Star "competition" that still manages to capture your wandering eye even though it's very much like
the NHL's silly showcase (that you can't find without television's answer to a digital microscope).

I mention all this as the collective hockey media is gearing up to run endless hours of televised, print and internet speculation about trade rumors that may or may not come to pass during the three-days of general managers meetings in Florida ... while the real issues of the NHL are virtually ignored.

Some examples:

Bogus Issue No. 1: Some teams will be buyers at the February 27 deadline, and some will be sellers.

No kidding! Is there something new here? Have we not heard or read or seen this every year since the NHL established a deadline. Look, this isn't the issue. The issue is whether or not the GMs will suggest to the powers that be in the NHL (Gary Bettman, Bill Daly and Colin Campbell) will make any real and/or relevant suggestions regarding what is necessary to move the game forward.

The general consensus seems to be that the changes imposed after the lockout are enough for now and the old saw about "don't fix it if it ain't broken" applies. How can that be? Fans across North America are looking at the new NHL with a very large ho hum. Ratings are static in Canada. Ratings are non-existent in the United States. The league claims attendance is on the rise but it doesn't release paid attendance figures, or even the value of those paid attendance figures. The league has those numbers; but nobody in media unearths them or holds the league accountable for not providing them. Meanwhile, we see thousands of empty seats in arenas from Boston to Chicago to Los Angeles and a great many cities in between.

While the talk is endless about whether or not Nashville overpaid for Peter Forsberg or Edmonton is signaling they are sellers after the dumping of Marc-Andre Bergeron, nothing is being said or written about the demise of the NHL on both broadcast TV and cable in the United States. The rise of NASCAR to a place of mega-prominence on ESPN (once the home of hockey in the US) was witnessed Sunday when ESPN opened with 15 minutes of coverage of the Daytona 500 Sunday night. A whole 15 minutes of coverage for an event it didn't have the rights for. Hockey coverage was non-existent except for the crawler at the bottom of the screen.

Bogus Issue No. 2: The endless debate regarding scheduling changes and whether or not the GMs will take a stand during their meetings.

Hello? The GMs can stand on their heads on the 19th tee or hook each other off the deck of the "Looking for the Big One" charter boat and it won't matter.

Changing the schedule, or even recommending changing the schedule, to address divisional or conference play isn't their domain. It wasn't their domain when the met in Toronto earlier this winter and it won't be during these meetings.
This just in: the general managers don't control the scheduling, the owners do. The general managers do not reshape the way the game is played these days, the competition committee does.
The real issue that needs to be addressed is what the heck has happened to the competition committee? They don't seem to be meeting; they don't appear to be addressing anything. They appear as immobilized as Brendan Shanahan (one of their
members) was while being wheeled off the Madison Square Garden ice over the weekend, the victim of a head-on-head hit.

Look around, concussions are still a major problem for the NHL. What's being done? Knee-on-knee hits seem to be on the rise. What's being done? The coach of the Eastern Conference at the All-Star game, Lindy Ruff, charges that hooking, holding and obstruction are making their way back into the game. He gets about one day of coverage and then it's back to who might be traded.

These are serious issues in the game today. So is the fact that Campbell has unilaterally changed the rules about physical contact and seems to have turned a blind eye to the seriousness of serious intent to injure, ignoring some incidents that scream for supplemental discipline while holding to a three-game-no-matter what standard for the few instances he does rule on. How is it that one man holds so much power to determine the shape and course of the game?

Isn't that worth writing about or asking about? Isn't that more important than a national debate on the value of Ryan Smyth's contract?

Meanwhile ESPN Sunday spent about five minutes after its Daytona report on the NBA All-Star game with a promise to come back to it later in the show. Still no mention of the NHL, or even the fact the GMs are meeting. Coverage moves to Phil Mickelson's melt down on the 72nd hole (shades of the US open revisited) and a lengthy segment on pitchers and catchers reporting to baseball spring training. Finish up with an endless chat with Lou Pinella about the joys of managing a baseball team in Chicago, an event that hasn't happened yet.

The NHL and NHLPA need to be looking at their "partnership" agreement. How close can the two sides be when there is an ongoing federal investigation (According to a report in Sports Business Journal) into whether or not labour laws were violated regarding contractual side agreements between the league and the Players' Association? Or what about the fact these letters were not revealed to the players who ratified the agreement? The CBA issues between the Players' Association and the league and the players and their leadership are huge yet go virtually unreported.

Bogus Issue No. 3: The length of pregame ceremonies honoring former players, teams or events and how maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs got it right (as if honoring a 40-year drought by bring back it's last championship team really matters).

Okay, maybe it matters to visiting teams that Steve Yzerman's goodbye took 80 minutes or that Mike Vernon's number retirement dragged on. That being said, what about some dialogue on the bogus system that gives teams a point for losing in overtime or a shootout? Anybody find it interesting that goalies, everyone's consensus choice as the most valuable players in the game, are being run at every
opportunity and it's not an accident, it's a coaching tactic?

Anyone notice that Wayne Gretzky has flip-flopped on the need for fighting in hockey and how that might open the door for more of it in the game? Does anyone have a lick of interest about revising the instigator rule or "no-touch" icing or the fact that goaltenders really haven't given up much of anything in regards the size of their equipment or that some coaches and GMs are arguing for a lessening of "soft"
penalties, an affront to the still-new officiating standards if there ever was one?

Doesn't seem like it.

Hockey has issues, but we in media rarely seem interested. In the race to be first to report the hot rumour or denigrate Sidney Crosby, or be funny, different or sexy, we've managed to overlook the fact that the game is still struggling to come back from a horrific labour dispute, one that is only now showing the extent of the damage it did to the game.

In the race to rack a GM in either the buyer or seller category we've neglected to ask whether or not he has a viable idea for fine tuning the game. In the hustle to identify a hair-thin report of a possible new commissioner have we even bothered to take an in-depth look at the accomplishments and/or failures of the current commissioner?

The consensus say hockey is a hard sell, especially in the States, because far too few people play it; but how many sports fans have ever piloted an automobile around a packed race course at 200 miles per hour with a competitor sitting right on his bumper? How many of us have actually jammed a basketball home from above the rim or had to putt-to-win on 18 with the eyes of millions questioning whether or not we're
going to choke?

Hockey has just as much right as any other major sport to be in the eye of the entertainment world. The fact that it isn't is the question that needs to be addressed. The ways to make hockey happen need to continue to be discussed.

That it isn't happening now is part of the reason why it took until thirty one minutes into the show before ESPN showed about 30 seconds of hockey, profiling the Pittsburgh Penguins-Washington Capitals showcase of young talent and another 15 before other game highlights are shown, other game scores announced. It's why NBC has the games virtually for free and can't get people to watch. It's why the sport we know and love is dropping like a rock in terms of major audience appeal.