Originally posted on Monday June 16, 2008 @ 04:34 PM EDT @ http://fans.nhl.com/members/JuiceinLA/blogs/16912
Questions for the offseason: Into what style of hockey will the NHL allow itself to evolve? How will it attract more fans?
As the NHL and its fans debate size of goalie pads, net/crease size, and other rule changes designed to (among other things) open up ice and accommodate the speed and puck handling of today’s League, it behooves Mr. Bettman and co. to consider rink size. I don’t actually think it will happen in my lifetime, but I do think that the sport has now evolved so that many teams play a style of hockey which lends itself to Olympic and euro sized rinks.
The League stands at cross roads, it has for a while now. In the afterglow of the dominance we saw with these Stanley Cup Champion Detroit Red Wings (and their Finals opponent the Pittsburgh Pens), a puck possession team whose style of play would benefit from a larger rink, does the league need to consider rule changes that fully and wholly embrace such style of play?
This is not a Euro versus Canadian player argument. Nationality does not designate who is fastest guy out there, or who is most willing to embrace the evolution of the game.
Whether you like it or not (and I am sensitive to the reality that some of you don’t like it) the dump and run days of “beat the crap out of each other” “five for fighting” are more lore and stereotype of hockey’s past than the present and future incarnation of the game.
Has been for a while now.
Also falling to the wayside over the past 10-12 years, has been the notion that having one superstar forward is a distinct advantage. Even having two solid lines isn’t enough these days. And without depth in your 3rd and 4th lines, you aren’t going all that far.
As our current Stanley Cup champions (and their finals opponent) exemplify, puck possession teams with strong defensive forwards and brilliant two-way defensive players and depth to their 4th lines are the most successful, have been for 17 years or so,
Call it defensive lock, left wing lock, call it boring (although I wouldn’t), the game continues to evolve. And as it does, I find it all the more amazing, interesting and suspenseful. (I actually prefer a low scoring game, but I come from a goalie family- its much more exciting to me to see a shutout than a hat trick…)
Oh don’t get me wrong, when “liberties” are being taken on my team’s best players, I am all for throwing down the gloves and pulling a jersey over someone’s head. But heck, even Avery and Pronger train in the offseason.
Credit/blame the Europeans, credit/blame Scotty Bowman – whoever- but the focus in the game has shifted over these last 10-12 years. The athleticism and skill of the players currently in the league are at entirely different levels than historically. Good teams today are mentally tougher, more athletic, stronger, more disciplined, they rely more on team work, and play smarter together today than in the past.
Why even this year, Gordie Howe said he didn’t think the players of his day could have kept up with the league’s best and brightest in today’s game. I heard a recent interview where he talked about how in his day they’d go drinking and smoking after a game where today’s kids get on a stationary bike and grind out 60 more minutes.
Truth be told, no team is getting very far in the playoffs anymore without embracing the style of game Scotty Bowman brought to and perfected in Detroit. I enjoy that the whole league is embracing it. I recall watching Dallas in the late 1990’s start to take the lessons they had learned in losing to Detroit and try to evolve their game to fit the Wings style, and it was the first time I thought “Scotty Bowman is changing the face of hockey as we know it.”
I love the speed, skill, deft passing, team work strategy exemplified by my Wings. Watching a guy like Draper explode down the ice with such incredible speed, watching Dats work his Barry Sanders moves, Zetts handle the puck through traffic as if it were duct taped to his stick- seeing a guy like Rafalski maneuver as though he were a shark- well,
To me today’s game is gorgeous, exquisite hockey, beautiful to watch and very difficult to play. It takes a skilled, trained eye to watch to keep up with and to understand.
And therein lies a problem.
The NHL wants and needs a bigger fan base. The only way to get it is to find a way to avoid alienating new fans from the start. Hard to not alienate some one when they take one look and just don’t get it.
I suspect that most of the readers and bloggers on these boards no longer realize how hard it is to follow hockey for the untrained eye. You’re too experienced, have watched/played the game too long. I forgot how difficult a game it is to watch, until these playoffs when some of my non-hockey fan friends commented that they had watched games 5 and 6 of the finals. Even the guys were like “I couldn’t even keep up.” “Never knew where the puck was.” “Dang those guys are soo fast.”
I had to explain back checking and cross checking. I had to talk about watching the play unfold, so they could learn where the puck was likely to end up. I even had to explain that it took me a couple years before I could really follow a puck.
The good news is that they were enthusiastic- they appreciated the athleticism, and couldn’t believe how the players flew down the ice, how hard it is to get a goal. How amazing goalies are. One guy called it “soccer on amphetamines, only more interesting.” These finals brought confused but interested viewers to the game. Now we have to keep them.
Personally, I think the fact that you have to learn to watch hockey is meritorious in and of itself. The hockey I love is a thinking man’s game.
Yea, I said it: Hockey has evolved into the thinking man’s game- but its true.
I started watching this league when Bob Probert’s antics on the ice were as compelling as Gretzky’s goals. One of my all time favorite game clips on youtube is the 1997 bench/net clearing brawl between the Wings and the Avs. But times have changed, and here is the most amazing thing: the game has grown better and better.
A blue line goal through a screen, a team of wingers flying down the ice passing through their opponents, setting up and settling down on a power play is more compelling to me than seeing Claude Lemieux get pummeled by Darren McCarty. Give me a 4 on 4 with two puck possession teams and you have my favorite thing in the world, you know, next to ponies.
The NHL needs to grow its fan base and it needs to let the game evolve into the most skilled, challenging, intelligent athletic sport it can be.
Its clear that these two interests are in diabolical opposition. So what is a league to do when it has two conflicting roads it needs to travel?
Seems to me the only way to remain relevant is to stay true to excellence, allow the sport to evolve and hope the fans can keep up.
I think we should stop kidding ourselves that low scoring drives people away (it doesn’t as these 2008 finals clearly showed otherwise) and instead embrace the evolution of the game.
I think that evolution calls for larger rinks.
I expect that I am in the minority on this one. I don’t think any one team would- at this point be totally left in the dust if they did make such a drastic change.
Whatever they do, please (I beg of the hockey and media powers that be) never bring the “fox tail” or glow puck back….
Ever.
Copyrighted 2008, all rights reserved by Behrgreer Ltd. and the author. No reproduction or use without the express written permission of the author.
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