Hockey’s Higher Calling

My favorite Rick Tocchet story isn't a story that Rick Tocchet should know, or really want to know.

It was back in the late 1980s, at a New Jersey Devils preseason game at the Meadowlands. I was in my early teens, and my father — true to form — had us in the cheap seats, even for an exhibition game. Tocchet was perhaps the most hated player on the extremely hated Philadelphia Flyers — a forward whose physical play and determination could only be matched by his propensity for cheap shots and antagonism.

As Tocchet skated a shift during the first period, a portly gentleman in the row behind us, wearing a green-and-red Devils home jersey that barely covered his considerable midriff, shot up out of his seat, took a deep breath, and bellowed:

"HEY, TOCCHET! YOU SUCK, AND YOUR MOTHER NEVER LOVED YOU!"

Wow. Just, wow. I had heard catcalling from the upper deck before (always an exercise in egomania, since there was zippy chance anyone on the ice was going to hear you). But that was just so ... appalling. Dreadful. The kind of words that, if uttered in a bar, might guarantee a bottle of Budweiser splitting open the speaker's head by the end of the evening.

Of course, our partisan section roared with approval, clapping and laughing as the Devils fan sat back down. It was at that moment I realized the potential for comedy in the nosebleeds — an act I would perfect for the next 18 years.

His mother aside, there aren't many people giving Tocchet much love these days after he was charged by New Jersey State Police with financing a multimillion dollar gambling ring. It's a scandal that has quickly been linked to the mafia, several yet-unnamed NHL players, and Wayne Gretzky's wife, Janet Jones, whom I hope is recovering nicely after her husband threw her under the bus in a post-game press conference.

There's going to be a lot said about Jones in the next few weeks — like if she wasn't betting for others, she might have been betting for herself. I don't have a clinical background in diagnosing an addiction to gambling, but I believe that with any addiction, there are telltale signs — such as when Jones allegedly put down a few grand on the coin-toss for Super Bowl XL. Seriously, that's the sports gambling equivalent of "I'll bet you a dollar that dog over there sniffs his own ass within the next 30 seconds," isn't it?

The NHL's problem in this scandal is two-fold. First is the question of whether there was any wagering on league games by league players. Police have denied that's the case, but if it's proven otherwise, the NHL has itself Black Sox 2.0. The league's integrity would be down the drain — well, a littler further down the drain that it already is for a league that has pissed away its goodwill, ignored its heritage, reconfigured its rulebook to juice scoring, and ends overtime with an all-star game skills competition.

The other less serious issue for the NHL is the "black-eye" it will suffer if several high-profile players are named as having been involved in the gambling ring, but did not bet on hockey. I find it interesting that many pundits are calling TocchetGate a "black-eye for hockey," which was actually the headline for Scott Burnside's column on the matter for ESPN.com. It's a natural reaction: Pete Rose and steroids were "a black-eye for baseball," after all.

The difference is that Major League Baseball is baseball, just like the National Basketball Association is basketball, and the National Football League is football. All three of those organizations encompass the entirety of the history, prestige, and legends of their respective sports. Sure, they may call them the "Baseball Hall of Fame" and the "Pro Football Hall of Fame." But you tell me how many players, coaches, and executives you see enshrined that didn't make their mark in MLB or the NFL?

The NHL is different. It's the North American arm of an international sport. Look at the Hockey Hall of Fame, and witness the reach of the game beyond Canadian and American borders.

The NHL only thinks it's the end all and be all of hockey, which is ironic when you consider the way Gary Bettman, marketing genius, has run away from tradition like Willie Parker running away from Seattle's defense. (Of course, if you ask a Seahawks fan, it's because the nefarious cabal of evil referees ignored 15 holding penalties on the play, as well as the secret rocket boosters in Parker's shoes.)

(I don't mean to get off on a rant here, but this notion that the Seahawks should have beaten the Steelers because they were the first losing team to lead in yards, time of possession, and takeaways is just idiotic. It never happened before, so therefore it can never happen at all? With that logic, should the Seahawks have even been in the Super Bowl? Seriously, if you're one of these people who think Seattle was robbed by the officials in the Super Bowl, you may want to make other plans next winter — there's a minimum level of emotional maturity necessary to invest time in professional football, and you obviously don't reach that threshold.)

What the hell were we talking about? Ah, right, hockey. Not the NHL, but hockey. There's a difference. Hockey is a sport, while the NHL is the pathetic bumbling bureaucracy that's managed to keep it a secret from the majority of Americans for roughly a century.

But two news items this week served as a reminder that if the NHL should ever go down, it's not taking hockey with it.

First are the Winter Olympics, opening this weekend in Torino or Turin or Turban or whatever it is. (I prefer Turin, because as my colleague, B.J. Koubaroulis, pointed out when he covered up the first letter, it can become "Urin," which made me giggle.) The Winter Games feature what is basically hockey's version of the soccer World Cup: the best of the best battling for their countries on an international stage every four years.

Hockey is bigger than the NHL because the league actually shuts down so players can play in the Olympics. The league will claim this is so its best players can be showcased in a high-profile sport during the Winter Games. I'm pretty sure it's because every single one of the league's international stars could care less about representing the Anaheim Ducks in a meaningless regular season contest when they could represent their homelands with a gold medal on the line.

Those international players are a sticking point when it comes to my plan, which is the NHL forbidding players from playing in the Olympics. The league shuts down for nearly a month — but for what? There's never been an appreciable boost from the Olympics in terms of attendance or ratings in the NHL. The only star the Olympics ever made was Peter Forsberg, and that was before the NHL players were allowed to compete.

It would better serve the league to have young prospects competing on the world's stage — players whose profiles could be raised considerably before they join the NHL. Or perhaps the answer is an age cap that would allow young stars in the league (Bobby Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin) to compete for their nations once or twice before becoming league veterans. Hell, it wouldn't be the first cap the NHL instituted that would piss off the players.

The bottom line, however, is that the league's international players would never go for it, because representing their countries in their chosen sport means too much.

They don't play NHL hockey — they play hockey in the NHL.

There was a second reminder this week of the NHL's place in the hockey world. It came not from the Olympic rink, but perhaps its mirror image: a Toronto beer league.

Gard Shelley and David Burt are pickup hockey players. During the NHL lockout, they were also cheesed-off fans who couldn't believe the Stanley Cup was going into mothballs for a year. In fact, they felt the notion that the NHL controlled the Cup wasn't in keeping with the original wishes of Lord Stanley when he gave the chalice to the league in 1892.

With a little research, the boys discovered a legal opinion from years back that stated the NHL didn't have control over the cup. Shelley and Burt, lawyers themselves according to the Toronto Star, decided to take the NHL and the cup's two trustees to court, arguing that another non-NHL team should be awarded the cup should the NHL not hold a championship tournament for the trophy.

This week, the league relented, and an out-of-court settlement had the NHL agreeing that the cup's trustees can award it to a non-league team if another season is cancelled.

The chances of the trustees — both former NHL executives — awarding the cup to a non-league team are slim, even if there's a lockout. But for one moment, we're reminded of the Stanley Cup's roots as an award given to amateur teams up until 1926, and the fact that legally it could happen again.

The key provision argued by the beer leaguers was from a 1947 agreement between the NHL and the cup's trustees at that time. According to the Toronto Sun, the agreement includes a clause which states that in the event of the "dissolution or other termination of the (NHL), the Stanley Cup shall revert to the custody of the trustees."

In other words, through labor disputes, gambling scandals, and other humiliations, hockey will live on long after the NHL has gone the way of the Whalers.

One Thought on Tony Kornheiser

I'll reserve judgment on the new "Monday Night Football" booth until I actually hear them work together. I do think Mike Tirico is an improvement over the egotistical bombast of Al Michaels. Joe Theismann, on the other hand, should have fans yearning for those halcyon days of Dan Fouts gasping for air like a trout on a lake shoreline after Dennis Miller's 20th obscure pop culture reference of the quarter.

Then there's Tony Kornheiser. Interesting choice. Keep in mind that as familiar as he is to Washingtonians, fans of his radio show and "PTI"-philes, there's still millions of people tuning in to "MNF" that really have no clue who he is. That's his challenge: convert the unconverted. And he's going to have to do it without the following:

* Breaking into the broadcast to talk about how much he likes the first five tracks on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds."
* Saying a NFL owner's wife is wearing "a dopey hat" when she's sitting next to Paul Tagliabue in the box.
* Referencing anything written by anyone in that day's Washington Post sports section.
* Announcing in the third quarter, "Okay, I'm tired of talking about football. Did anyone else see Jerry Lewis on Larry King last night?"

Like I said, it's a challenge. In fact, I'm curious why ESPN didn't go with another choice for the booth: Michael Wilbon.

I've heard him on color commentary during Redskins preseason games, and he's quite good. There's no questioning his knowledge base for football. He'll also take the contrarian point of view just to take it, much like Kornheiser will. And while we should all try to approach these things colorblind, there's no getting around the fact that after years of lilywhite broadcast teams on "MNF," hiring an African-American for the booth would have been the ultimate "this ain't your father's MNF" move.

Not that it matters. "Monday Night Football" will never again be "Monday Night Football" because it's now a cable television show. And if you don't think that matters, riddle me this, caped crusader:

Who won the Miss America pageant this year?

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].