Cold Hard Rants

Fresh off my dip in the swimming pool, while enjoying a bright, warm, sunshiny day in Winnipeg, what best to do other than talk about the Stanley Cup Finals? The finals, which begin Saturday, live from HockeyTown, in front of a capacity crowd of people masquerading as row upon row upon row of empty seats in the Joe Louis Arena, the youthful exuberance of the Pittsburgh Penguins will face off against the veteran smarts and ingénue of the Tre Kroner of the Swedish National Team Detroit Red Wings?

Many commentators, in their previews, are speculating that this series will spark a potential renaissance of the NHL; the series that will force the NHL back into the forefront of the consciousness of the American viewer. One of the marquee franchises, pitted against the future of the game in a battle for NHL supremacy. The finals that will re-create the famed SI cover that said the NHL was hot and the NBA was not.

While I think that the NHL lucked out in getting as good of a match up as it could have possible wished for, I also think they are (typically) unlucky in that at the same time as their marquee match up is “dropping puck”, the NBA conference finals and Championship Finals will be hitting their stride. Unfortunately, the NHL will only take to the forefront of American sports consciousness when the viewing public have no better options to occupy their sport-watching time (heavens forbid they exercise). With their being a very good chance that the Los Angeles Lakers will be meeting the Boston Celtics in the NBA championship, the NHL will not get their place in the forefront; they will be lucky to get 5 minutes in the 2 AM SportsCentre on ESPN Desportes.

Despite this, the tall foreheads in New York and Toronto couldn’t be more excited. The network executive/janitor in charge of Versus couldn’t be more excited. NBC couldn’t be more excited (unless the game runs long, in which case it will be pre-empted for the finals of the 2008 senior women’s amateur heads up poker championship). CBC couldn’t be happier that they don’t have to broadcast an abomination of a final involving two teams from cities more likely to get hit by a hurricane than actually have ice form. And I couldn’t really care less, but because, ostensibly, you have come to this site because you like hockey, I will keep my apathy to myself for now. So, let the puck drop. Let the skates glide, let the sticks slash, and let the home team fall behind. Lord knows this year has to end soon, as training camp begins in 2 months.

For Illegal Curve, I am Andrew (Drew) M.

About the author: Writing sporadically since the inception of illegal curve, (An)Drew has been alienating people since that time. He has the unique skill-set to alienate readers hailing from the Westchester area of New York. Those people seem to be especially touchy about people criticizing their newspapers. Who needs them? Just like the Jews and the Blacks. (It’s from a Seinfeld Episode, you Anti-Dentite bastard.)

News You Can Use Late in the Day

1. Ed Chynoweth, former WHL president, has passed away. Bob McKenzie has a mini-obit here.
2. NBC and the NHL have extended their agreement through next season.
3. Adam Proteau calls out the officials from last night's Caps-Flyers game.
4. Scott Burnside with a postmortem on the Capitals.
5. Interesting piece on Brian Burke, as found in the National Post.
6. A comprehensive look around the NHL by Stan Fischler.
7. Five for Fighting (wasn't that a band?) updates the injury situation in Dallas.
8. Doug McLean wants to coach the Panthers...again.
9. The Red Deer Advocate calls for more nudity and less arson should the Canadiens win again. Jean Beliveau is upset with the rioting.
10. Another article on playoff beards.
11. The LA Kings have signed Oscar Moller to an entry level deal.
12. The Hot List.
13. HV71 wins the Swedish Elite League championship.
14. Willa Ford blogs on the Stars' first round victory.
15. The IHL lives to play another season.
16. Elliotte Friedman discusses the Mike Gillis hire.
17. The Slapshot blog looks back at some memorable Montreal-Philly matchups.
18. The USA wins the bronze medal at the World Under-18's.
19. The Leafs' GM wish list.
20. Canada hangs a dirty one on the Russians; win Gold Medal.
21. Sean Avery will intern at Vogue this summer, while the NHL looks to cash in on its new rule.
22. Scott Burnside breaks down the Wings-Avs series.
23. Bruce Boudreau has been given a new contract by the Washington Capitals.
24. Allan Muir has questions about the Sharks.
25. Interesting article about the demise of the NHL.

Cold Hard Rants

Sitting here in my shirtsleeves on October 25^th with the sun shining through the windows, a cold thirst quenching slurpee in my hand, a bike ride on my mind, and a day by my pool in my dreams, my thoughts naturally turned to hockey and the NHL. As is my wont, those thoughts were along the lines of how dumb the NHL and its schedule makers are.

This week, I read with bemusement about how the Detroit Red Wings’ proposal to extend the season to 84 games had been rejected by the fellow NHL governors. Only in the NHL would owners be delusional enough to think that more games are the solution to one of the myriad of problems currently plaguing the NHL. Currently the NHL season stretches from September to June. That’s ten months for our readers who are mathematically challenged. Arguably, the coldest city that has an NHL team is Edmonton, Alberta. When the coldest city to house an NHL team only has cold weather for probably 6 months a year, does it not make sense to shorten the season rather than lengthen it? In my humble opinion, a game that is played on a cold surface (i.e. ice) works best when it is cold outside! Fans are in the mood for hockey on a cold winter’s night. No one has ever said, “it’s 95 degrees outside, I don’t want to play golf, or go swimming, or go sit on a patio with a cerveza, I want to watch people skate!”

Now while I am a strong advocate for a shorter NHL season, I am also not naive enough to think that there is a snowball’s chance in hell of this ever happening (pardon the pun). The reason why, comes down to the usual issue when discussing problems with the NHL, namely, dollars and cents. Currently and for the foreseeable future, and despite the Tiny Perfect Commissioner’s best spin efforts, the NHL is referred to as a gate driven league. In short, and taking away all the b.s. around that euphemism, it means that an NHL team receives the majority of their revenue by getting people to pay their way into the arena to see a game. The TV contract with NBC pays each team a percentage of the zero dollars NBC pays the NHL to televise their games. Believe it or not, any percentage of zero dollars equals zero dollars per team. (Again, the help is for our mathematically deficient readers—although if someone would copy and paste that fact to NHL head offices in either Toronto or New York, it might aid in their understanding of the mathematical equation.) To contrast, the NFL pays all of their players’ salaries via the revenue from their TV contract long before they have had one person pay for a ticket to see a game. So, when the Detroit Red Wings want to extend the season by two games, it is a blatant attempt at a cash grab, to help offset the loss of revenue they have experienced by no longer being able to refer to themselves as Hockeytown, a title that was stripped from them when they were unable to sell out playoff games, and this year’s home opener.

Now, as I know from my political days, it is easy to be a critic, but I can hear my readers yelling, what is your solution, Andrew M? The answer is easy (at least to me it is.) Fewer games played in a season would result in those games being viewed as more valuable. More valuable to the team’s season and potential playoff future, and as an intended consequence, the fans would put more value on each individual game. Thus, the team would be able to charge a higher amount for tickets to the games. It’s simple supply and demand, yet this basic economic concept seems lost on the NHL and the owners. When there is only 35 home games per year, they are played during an environmental season that actually befits hockey, and the Tuesday night in February against Atlanta seems a lot more important to the paying public than the Sunday afternoon in April versus Nashville does. Although why there are NHL teams in Atlanta and Nashville in the first place is another issue for another time and day.

For Illegal Curve, I am Andrew M.

About the writer: Formerly a speech writer for a Canadian Federal Politician, Andrew will be bringing his unique take on the hockey world to the illegal curve blog once a week, or more often if the rage needs to be released in a manner other than clobbering a referee over the head with a whiskey bottle. Mainly because he doesn’t have enough empty whiskey bottles at his disposal.

The HD Corner - Exhibition Opening Night Thoughts

My first night of hockey watching for the 07-08 season has come to end. NHL Centre Ice subscribers were treated to two games: Sens - Flyers via the local Ottawa Rogers channel, and Leafs-Oilers on Leafs TV (blacked out in the Oilers and Flames regions). Lucky for me I found a diamond in the rough with a Habs-Pens game on RDS. GT's! Remember what I said about how I feel sorry for the folks that settle on watching RDS Habs games during the season, as an alternative to the usual Leafs Saturday night crap that's shown? Well I take that back. Not only is the feed usually excellent quality, even in standard definition, but all these French announcers are actually the best in the biz. Who knew? Simply put, I don't care for any of the pointless analysis that these retired/fat/senile ex-NHLers think provides so much insight to the game. Sure, Greg Millen does provide the odd interesting tid-bit of info sometimes, but usually he's just babbling on about details we've heard a million times like Ray Emery's Mike Tyson Helmet, or the fact that Dustin Penner got cut from his Jr. Team. Big deal. Like do I really need to know that Mervin Cheechoo is in town watching his son play for game 31 of the regular season? When I'm watching on RDS, all I can understand is something to the extent of "Koivu.....Ryder....avec la rondelle....le tir....et le but!". And really that's all I care about. Tell me who's got the puck, who's scored, who's on the ice, but please don't waste my time mentioning how Guillaume Latendresse is a fan favourite because he is from Quebec. I'm trying to watch a hockey game here, not an episode of Access Hollywood.

Moving on, other rumblings in the media world include both CBC and NBC covering the outdoor Pens-Sabres game on New Year's Day. Finally something to watch other than the Cotton Bowl. There is a god! Features apparently this year include blimp shots of the stadium a la NFL football. Can't wait...so as long as Joe Buck doesn't show up to give us his opinion on Eli Manning's bum shoulder.

On that note...time to see Martine Gaillard in action on SportsnetConnected. I'm out.

For Illegal Curve, I'm Neil Rockman.