So there I was last week, basking in the glory of another widely-read and enormously funny edition of "A Hockey Cynic's Guide to the NHL." A celebratory brew in my frosty New Jersey Devils 1995 commemorate Stanley Cup Champions mug, I was putting the finishing touches on the second divisional preview for the "Cynic's Guide" to the Western Conference...
... and then my computer died.
Well, not dead. More like poisoned, like that Ukrainian politician whose face became Silly Putty after a few weeks. I could load Windows, but as soon as the desktop came up, so would a blue screen and an error message that made as much sense as your average episode of Lost.
I'm happy to report that everything is now A-OK. But I feel that publishing the full Western Conference preview would be a waste, seeing as how the season is about two weeks old and I never did get around to previewing the "No, Seriously, Texas is on the Pacific" Division. (All you really missed were 10,000 jokes comparing J.S. Giguere's pads to everything from a Thanksgiving Parade float to Kirsty Alley's ass.)
But I feel I owe everyone who had such nice things to say about Part 1 a few of the better lines from Part 2, such as:
The Columbus Blue Jackets' Worst Excuse For a Player — Manny Malhotra. In 1998, Wayne Gretzky said, "in six or seven years, the Rangers will be building the team around" Malhotra. Maybe at that point they were considering building from the fourth line out.
The Detroit Red Wings' Worst Excuse For a Player — Chris Chelios. I Googled his name and found this entry on something called ThatHockeyChick.com: "chris chelios is a self absorbed, pompous prick and even his immediate family will agree. he's so caught up in his fame and fortune that he has completely turned his back on all his friends and family. chris chelios cares only about one person...chris chelios. he is a sad example of what fame and fortune can do to somebody." Who am I to argue with an anonymous poster on a message board I've never read before?
Why the Calgary Flames Won't Win the Stanley Cup — Actually, I really hope they do, or at least make it to the Finals. My amateur porn collection could use a few more snaps of Flames girls "celebrating" on the Red Mile.
The Nashville Predators' Worst Case Scenario — Paul Kariya becomes a household name in Nashville ... for having a "purdy mouth."
Why the St. Louis Blues Won't Win the Stanley Cup — Because there's a legitimate concern that Keith Tkachuk will attempt to peel it open to get to the chocolate he's convinced is inside.
Okay, with that out of the way, let's focus on the here and now in the NHL. A few random thoughts on the season thus far:
Item: Scoring Up, Hitting Down
Having actually seen this "new" NHL in person, I'm impressed. There's more room in the offensive zone, little time spent in the neutral zone, and the flow of the game is better...
...when it's five-on-five, which in the case of the Devils and Penguins, whom I saw open the season, was for about 27 seconds. I imagine that power plays will decrease when the players "learn" what they can and can't do; but if they don't, I can't say I'll be happy with half-court hockey for three periods.
The biggest problem I have with these new rules is the utter lack of physical intensity in any of these games. I'm frustrated by the tentative nature of the defensemen in the league, who feel like if they look at a forward near the crease the wrong way, they're getting whistled. And boy, do I miss those scrums after every stoppage of play — what used to seem like a petty annoyance is practically nostalgia now.
I'm putting my faith in the players and The Game, in that once the rules are clearly established and obstruction has its expected reduction, the physical play will return. It better, when the playoffs come — I refuse, as a fan, to sacrifice physical play for flashy stats. This isn't Roller Hockey International.
What will Gary Bettman's legacy be if his regime actually figured out a way to screw up playoff hockey?
Item: Bill Clement Hosts NHL Studio Show on OLN
OLN is taking its lumps in various corners of the hockey media, but from a production standpoint, I'm willing to work with them. They're not going to reinvent the wheel, but let's wait and see what these games look like in January. Especially if they get around to using the Rail Cam, which is the coolest thing to hit the NHL since Pavel Bure.
(That said, I'm incredibly disappointed that, yet again, there's a complete lack of attention to the commentators they've chosen. When will these broadcasters learn that the "casual" viewers they so badly yearn for in the United States don't care if the color guy knows where Brad Richards played as a 10-year-old — they just want someone who can pronounce "out" without sounding like they just flew in from Moosejaw.)
As for the OLN studio show ... wow, what a delightful train wreck.
Keith Jones, I like very much. Good enthusiasm and I think, when he gets a bit more comfortable, he's going to be a better "middle man" than Ray Ferraro was on ESPN.
Neil Smith? Either get this man a Red Bull before every taping, or have Simon Cowell write his lines. What should be the curmudgeonly cynic of the panel comes off as a giant bore. And what's the sense of having the GM of the 1994 Rangers commenting on a game whose new financial landscape makes people of his ilk complete relics?
And then there's host Bill Clement. That's right, host. The former color commentator is running the show, and it couldn't be more awkwardly hilarious.
You haven't lived until you've heard this man do voiceovers during game highlights. He actually tries to drop of few hip SportsCenter-esque references into the mix. Imagine your dorky uncle swapping places with Stuart Scott for a night, and then trying to work with the same lingo.
How geek-tastic is Clement as a studio host? Picture the lovechild of Cliff Clavin and Ned Flanders trying to spice up Minnesota/Nashville highlights with something akin to "and boom goes the dynamite."
But in the end, that's exactly what a good studio host is. He's folksy in a noble nerd sort of way. There's something inviting about Clement, just like there's something inviting about James Brown and Greg Gumble and Ernie Johnson. None of them are making the cover of Rolling Stone any time soon, but you could picture any of them teaching a Bible study class or working the grill at the company picnic.
Clement is the first studio cable host for hockey that might actually be able to please the puckheads as well as Joe Fan. ESPN's John Buccigross loves the sport and knows his stuff, but he was preaching to the converted — nothing about his shtick was going to attract a new viewer, even if they had an '80s hair metal fetish.
I never liked Clement as a color commentator. He always came off as John Davidson-lite, and never really adding anything to the broadcast other than Flyers homerism.
But, strangely, I do like him on OLN. Now stop pucking around and get the right supporting cast around him.
In other words: would you finally just retire, Jeremy Roenick?
Item: Sportsnet.ca Hires Discredited Rumor-Monger Eklund
Well, there's one bookmark that just opened up for me.
Item: Protect the Damn Goalies
Finally, it's come to my attention that the entire new slate of NHL rules has been implemented to physically and mentally torment the goalies who dominated the dead puck era.
Quoting the great Dr. Cox from Scrubs: "You stole my moment ... and you will pay!"
Goalies are restricted from handling the puck in the corners. They're facing more odd-man rushes thanks to the elimination of the two-line pass. Their defensemen are dead-tired in their own zone, both from chasing around free-skating forwards and because they can't make a change after an icing call.
But the most damage comes from the unchecked runs offensive players are taking at goaltenders — free to crash the net because defensive players are scared that if they sneeze on a forward, they're going to the penalty box.
As Devils goalie Marty Brodeur told TSN (hereby known as "The Canadian Sports Network That Didn't Hire Eklund"), "The forwards are really taking advantage of this right now. They know everybody now can be a tough guy in front of the net. You don't pay the price anymore. That used to be a tough job, standing in front of the net, but now everybody can go. And they're taking liberties."
Why Brodeur is even complaining about this, I don't know. It's not his game, according the Bettman and the NHL. If it were, they would have marketed Marty and Dominik Hasek and CuJo and Chris Pronger and all of the other defensive stars that were the best in the sport during the last decade, rather than focusing attention on offensive players that were pale imitations of the stars from the 1980s. (And one star from the 1980s who was marketing because he came back from cancer.) Now the rules have been changed to ensure the most talent-laden position in this generation of The Game, goalies, is no longer dominant. They might as well just play with the Score-O board in front of the net.
Ironic, isn't it, that when the NFL wanted to increase offense, it did all it could to protect the health of its quarterbacks, but when the NHL wanted to increase offense, it put a death warrant out on its most vital defensive players?
Such is the "new" NHL.
Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History" will be published in Spring 2006. His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].
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