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%)