Thoughts on the NHL Lockout -Part 3

• The Owners Are Careless Fiscal Idiots and This is All Their Fault
  

if the Rangers or Flyers set their budgets at $60 million a year and they can afford it, how are they overspending or spending foolishly?

holdouts, arbitration and empty buildings/ public pressure to sign players...
players refusing to play and demanding trades...
Owners' competitive nature and the desire to succeed...

Thoughts on the NHL Lockout -Part 2

Just to continue my last post...

• If the Lockout Leads to Contraction of a Few Teams, the NHL Will Return to the Exciting 1980's Style of Play

This opinion is almost farcical, yet it's spouted almost everytime the lockout is discussed. In fact this is the polar opposite of the truth. The style of play in today's NHL may be boring on some nights, but it isn't due to a lack of skill or too many teams, it's that in today's NHL skill and technical level is superior to anytime in it's history. The Oilers of the 1980's thrived because on most nights the teams they faced were far less talented and on most nights poorly conditioned and coached. The haves and have-nots of the league were miles apart in every category, and some teams did not even scout in Europe and missed out on the first wave of talented overseas draft picks in the early 80's. The number one cause of run and gun hockey and high scoring games was DISPARITY.

That said, the biggest myth is that the NHL of the 1980's was a Golden Age where every single game was exciting and the fans were constantly entertained. Who are these people that bore witness to this Golden Age? In the early 80's most fans in Canada saw two games a week. Hockey Night In Canada showed one game a week, and it was contractually stated that it had to be Toronto or Montreal playing, none of the former WHA teams were initially entitled to be shown. Mid week games were available, in this market ITV showed about 20 Oiler games a year, but that was it for the local fan. Local late night sports shows showed no more than a couple highlights a night and there were no national sports channels. So tell me how on earth anyone who didn't have a C Band Dish can have any opinion on this? Of course the games looked exciting, you only ever saw the best plays on highlight reels, hence the name highlight. No one wants to think about a midweek game between maybe Pittsburgh and Washington or LA and Detroit when they were some of the worst teams in history, no one wants to remember a playoff home game in Vancouver that drew less than 5000 fans against the Oilers because the local team was so bad, no one ever clamors for an old Norris Division matchup on ESPN Classic, the Norris Division that routinely went through the season with every team below .500. I can think of only 3 goalies from that era who managed to make it into the Hall of Fame; Billy Smith, Grant Fuhr and Tom Barrasso. Truly a Golden Age....

The plain truth of the matter is that contraction would tighten up the current parity even further. The only way to increase excitement in this climate is to add intensity. Everyone says that the Ducks vs. Devils final of two years ago was boring, but only because no one cared. If the teams had been Toronto and Vancouver, which was a possibility at the time, this country would have been electric because it would have mattered. Let the league add intensity by changing the schedule and eliminating games between the conferences. More games against less teams means more rivalries and more fan interest as the teams become more familiar. Who cares to see Pittsburgh or Atlanta once a year when here in Edmonton you could see more of Calgary, Vancouver and Dallas and more hostility and intensity.

Thoughts on the NHL Lockout

Now that the CFL season is winding down and football south of the border is nearing the end of another season, I find it's really hitting home that there is no NHL this year. The local sports talk radio station is in an endless loop with the same parrots calling in their stale rhetoric and there are three opinions that bother me the most.

• The Talent Pool in the NHL is Mediocre and Watered Down Due to Expansion

This one is a favourite of mine and one that gets thrown around the most by the local idiot callers. It's easily refuted by fact and statistic. First of all, there is exactly the same amount of Canadian players* in the league as in the 1978/79 season prior to the WHA merge. At the start of that season there was less than 10 Americans and not many more European players, and absolutely none from the Eastern Bloc. For the most part the non-Canadian players are highly skilled first and second line players who have brought the talent level up several standards.

Secondly, since the merge all teams and players are light years ahead in sophistication and technical ability. In that 78/79 season, no team employed assistant coaches or video tacticians. The league for many years to come still had players who chain smoked and did nothing in the offseason, and alleged coaches like John Brophy, George Armstrong and Bill Laforge were considered talented enough to run NHL teams. In fact, until the late 1990's there were still a few select teams who had no summer training schedule for their players and relied on the individual players to take it upon themselves. Today's NHL player trains 12 months a year with psychologists, personal trainers and nutritionists employed by their teams, and has very likely been training and preparing for his career since his bantam years. Nothing is left to chance once these kids are selected for their junior clubs, they are coached in systems play and skill sets that NHL players 40 years ago would have no concept of. This summer Oiler draft pick Rob Schremp, while only 18 years old, was expected to train as a pro during the off season then attend the Oiler's summer orientation camp, Oiler's rookie camp and Oiler's main camp until finally returning to his junior club's training camp already in progress. A player in Howie Meeker's era didn't receive in an entire career the coaching, advice and attention this kid received in three months.

Lastly, goaltenders are in an unparalleled golden age today. Every team has at least one and sometimes two all star calibre goalies who are in top condition physically and mentally. Gone are the goalies of the 60's who had a puke and a smoke between periods and played without masks or slap shots.

If the Columbus Blue Jackets of last season were transplanted to 1967 with no changes in players or modern equipment they would go through the season undefeated and unchallenged.

The fact that Average Fan can look at a professional player in the NHL and consider him a fluke or an accident and that he doesn't belong is ludicrous.

*1978/79 17 NHL Teams 408 Total Players

2003/04 30 NHL Teams 728 Total Players (Canadian born = 380 Players-53%/ European born = 236 Players-32%/ US born = 112 Players-15%)