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Tuesday 19 July 2011

A Sports-Man's Hockey Rant


Hi. Let me first preface this blog by saying that I love hockey. I grew up in the nineteen-eighties watching Dave Semenko pummel the face of any man woman or child, who dared look upon Wayne Gretzky in a disparaging manner. Unfortunately for my heart, I also grew up a Toronto Maple Leafs fan; I know… I know…. You don’t have to rub it in…. What’s worse is that I went to almost every home game. I didn’t just watch hockey though, I breathed it, played it, read books about it. You know like a regular Canadian boy.

I’m writing all this, because I want you nice readers to understand what a fan of hockey I am. So when I say that I’m deeply concerned about the game, that’s because I feel the NHL game, has lost something, and for me… that something is character.

Before I continue let me explain what I mean by character. Words the dictionary uses to describe character: personality, moral fiber, make-up and my favorite, spirit.

Something is missing in today’s NHL, and for me that’s character. And I’m not picking on anything in particular. But just look at the NHL headlines in the last decade. NHL lockout! Year lost due to greedy owners and players. Bertuzzi hit on Moor. Players misbehaving. Goalie pads too large, equipment being used as weapons, hits from behind, concussions ruining star careers. Shootouts! Russians are staying in the KHL. Owners and GM’s are overspending again, and the list goes on.

So how can we fix this you say? Well I do understand that the NHL is a business, and that, yes a lot of the issues have to do with greed, players owners and media alike. For these reasons a lot of the issues plaguing the NHL may never change, it may in fact get worse.
But here is what I’d love to see return to the game that might help.

From the owner’s side: Stop spending ridiculous amounts of money. Owners and GM’s get carried away, they just locked out the players for a full season because of a salary cap, and now because of poor management and nonsensical egomaniacal competition, they may do it again. Plus we need to stop confusing the poor referees. It’s obvious that players have no fear of financial repercussions. They’re in the heat of the moment when they act. Anyone who’s played hockey knows how adrenalin sometimes affects ones better judgment. In order to prevent concussions and other injuries the answer lies with the equipment and arenas themselves. Use softer equipment, instead of those hard plastic weapons they wear. Make the ice surface bigger; players are too big now, not enough space on the ice anymore. Loosen the boards so that they aren’t hitting concrete walls for crying out loud. I liked lively boards, it added character to they game.
Yes all this costs money, but in the long term a healthy NHL will generate even more profit.

From the players: Try to remember what it meant like to be a rookie. Play with love of the game. What happened to the Messier’s the Gilmour’s the Yzerman’s, where are all the heart driven leaders who sacrificed body and soul for the team? Stick up for one another; if anyone hit Gretzky like the hit on Crosbey, that guy would have been in a coma. Come on guys grow up! It’s not just about dangles and autographs, it’s about honor, pride and determination. You had to have it just to make it to the NHL, but somewhere along the lines it seems to have worn off.

The media: Grow up! I get it you need to sell papers and airtime. But creating controversy for the sake of sales and then not taking ownership of the crud you created is just gutless. The Bertuzzi hit was a great example of how the media over hypes something, like the Moore hit on Naslund. The media hyped the next meeting as world war three, throwing fuel to the fire. They generated sound bites by asking ridiculously leading questions aimed at angering the parties involved. Then what happened? Well someone got badly hurt. Am I defending the hit? No. But the media took none of the blame and right away painted themselves a brand new villain and sold papers. Good job! There needs to be some ethics, morality, character in the media. Behave like gentleman not scavengers.

Last but not least the fan: We as fans need to be smarter. Smarter with the money we spend, smarter with the articles we choose to read, and smarter about the players we emulate. But most importantly we need to take back the game we helped create. If there were no fans, there wouldn’t be any NHL. 

I’m not picking on the NHL, I can write novels about the problems with professional sports in general. But this article is only about hockey. I will still watch it, and still cheer for the Leafs, probably from a distance until I start seeing some real change with the team. But I will hope for a time where I can feel the same way now about the game, the way I did like when I was just a boy. 
        

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