September 29, 2005

WILL IT BE HOCKEY, OR WILL IT STILL BE WRESTLING ON ICE

       When last we saw NHL hockey--some time around the turn of the century I think—conversations among fans usually tended to involve fights, hard hits and checking.  A typical father and son conversation about a particular game would have gone something like this:

Son—You missed a great game last night Dad.  There was some of the best hooking and holding I’ve seen all year.

Father—Oh, Yeah.

Son—Yeah.  There was one time when a defenseman on the other team tried to come out of his zone with the puck but one of our guys latched onto him and didn’t let him go until he forced the guy off the puck inside our zone.

Father—Oh, yeah.

Son—Yeah.  And then one of their forwards tried to come across the middle of the ice and two of our guys just pounded him to the ice.

Father—Oh, yeah.

Son—Yeah.  And at one point their big star player thought he was going to have some open ice so he starts skating through the neutral zone…only he runs right into both of our defensemen, and then one of our forwards took his stick and stuck it up under his armpit and rode him right into the boards. It was something to see.

Father—Oh, yeah.

Son—Yeah.  And our goaltender, Dad I tell you, it’s a wonder that anybody ever scores on him.  One time this guy came down the wing and let a big slap shot go and our goalie didn’t even move, and the puck hit him.  There was no way those guys were going to find a hole to score in.

Father—Oh, yeah.

Son—Yeah.  Say, Dad, can I borrow the car?  There’s some kind of charity cross country run going on outside of town and the guys and I want to go out there and grab onto the runners and slow them down.  We’d bring our hockey sticks and hook them a little but for some reason that’s not allowed.  I don’t think the people in charge of this race are hockey fans.

       So now we move into what is being termed “the new NHL.”  Supposedly, the officials will be cracking down on obstruction and interference, and that will go a long way into opening up the game.  The elimination of the red line could have benefits, but then it could curtail defensemen from leaving their own zone for fear of the long pass.  The shoot-out to decide tie games is long overdue and will, in itself, create a form of excitement as games dwindle down to the end.  The shrinking of goaltender’s equipment will mean that mediocre goalies won’t be able to succeed merely by standing up.  But it is the obstruction and the interference that, if the league is finally serious about its eradication, could free up enough ice so that skilled players can actually perform. 

       Of course skeptics, and I am absolutely one of them, will look back at the previous half-dozen attempts by the league to open up the game.  Each time the officials began the season by calling the infractions properly causing the teams to complain to the league, and each time the league eventually backed down.  The game slowed down again like it was a small vehicle caught in the bus lane of a city street during rush hour. 

       This pre-season has seen officials cracking down and calling tons of penalties.  Hopefully, the teams will learn that the officials won’t back down forcing the players to change their course of action.  But teams are already complaining.  Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Pat Quinn is in mid-season complaint form.  He stated that they would have to call what they were playing something different because it sure wasn’t hockey. 

      I’ve got new for Pat Quinn, a noted defensive-minded defenseman in his day whose idea of a bold rush was when he had too many spicy tortilla chips before the game, what this league was playing before sure as hell wasn’t hockey.  It was wrestling on ice.  Now, I’ll wait until about a quarter of the season has passed and see how the new crackdown on penalties is going before I spend the time needed to watch a game.  Here’s hoping that Gary Bettman’s new stronghold on the game carries over from the financial side into the actually game.  I, for one, would like to see a hockey game again.  Of course it’s been so long since a hockey game was played in the NHL I doubt whether anyone would be able to recognize it.