It's been a long road since I started the blog back in September, three weeks before the start of the regular season. For the third consecutive year, a team which had never won a Stanley Cup took home the oldest and most prestigious trophy in North American sports.
That, in and of itself, is as good as sign as you're going to get that the current system is working, because we've had three non-traditional hockey markets see their city name engraved on the Cup. Also, the fact that three Canadian teams - all from small markets - made the Finals in three consecutive years is a nice leap forward for the home nation. Yet, after more than 1100 games and a season-ending celebration which took place in a parking lot and whose main attraction was the state's Governator, it's hard to escape some realities of the new NHL:
- The lawyers are going to drive the sport into the ground. Forget the empty seats in Boston, Columbus, Florida, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Washington, they say. Overall attendance is higher than ever, and ticket sales per game is in the 98 % range. Forget that two teams (Pittsburgh and Nashville) have been under the threat of imminent relocation by the same person in the last six months, they say. The health of the league depends on individual teams existing in the most financially solvent location, so relocation is good. Forget the failures in some Sun Belt markets, they say. The league is looking into returning hockey to either Winnipeg or Quebec because the NHL has always wanted to have teams in traditional hockey markets. I thought having millionaire/billionaire ownership was bad enough, but at least the owners will straight up admit when they need to get out. There's nothing trained lawyers can't spin in a positive manner.
- The American Hockey League is a joke. No, wait...a damn pathetic joke. Where once you'd go to see at least a dozen goals and a dozen fights per game featuring guys desperate to make it to the NHL, now you see the same game plans implemented here as you do in their parent clubs because almost every player on an AHL roster will see time in the Show. The new trend in the "A" is for parent clubs to set up a farm team relatively close to their home city, which means in 2005, St. Louis elevated Peoria from the ECHL, and in 2007, Chicago elevates Rockford (Illinois, folks) from the bowels of the UHL.
- While I know the Tampas, Raleighs and Anaheims of the world don't have downtowns like New York, Philly, and Chicago, it's still in tremendously bad taste to hold a Stanley Cup victory parade in a parking lot outside your home arena. Last time I checked, Anaheim has a population over 100,000 and looks like it has main central thoroughfares all parade ready. Then again, Anaheim is less a city than a densely-populated region which grew out of the western suburbs of Los Angeles County, which might explain why, in Orange County (pop. 3 million) only 15,000 fans showed up to the Ducks' Cup rally on Saturday.
- You can't go around firing coaches because the team finished less than three points out of a playoff spot. Current Kings head coach Marc Crawford must be throwing darts at Canucks management because he knows he could have done more this past season with Roberto Luongo in net. Crawford was fired in 2006 because Vancouver finished three points behind Edmonton, yet ended the season with a winning record. He now must slog through another rebuilding year with LA.
- The cream always rises to the top. Once and for all, I want all Eastern Conference GM's and coaches to quit basing personnel moves and team attitudes based on the old maxim "The East is wide open, so any team can advance deep into the playoffs." Let's recap. In 2004, Tampa was a division winner and won the Cup. In 2006, Carolina was a division winner and won the Cup. In 2007, Ottawa was one of the strongest four-seeds ever, and advanced to the Finals - only to lose to Anaheim, a division winner.
- Shootouts are the worst crutch the NHL has instituted for virtually every team. First of all, it inflates the record of the winning team, which used to only earn one point for a tie. Then, it inflates the record of the losing team, because they get one point for extending the game. It was bad enough when teams like Minnesota milked 20 ties out of 82 games in 2003-2004, but it's even worse when a team like Dallas milks 12 extra wins out of the shootout, wins a division title, then falls flat on its ass in the playoffs because they were more like a 40-win club than a 50-win juggernaut. Other than hardcore fans whining about the shootout itself, the numbers and how they wreak havoc with judging a team's true performance may be the most compelling reasons yet to get rid of it altogether.
- Whether it's the old three-official system or the new four-official system, the zebras in the NHL have been totally emasculated almost to the point of irrelevancy. Replay takes care of everything except the actual penalty calls and offsides, and even then, there are far too many conferences over both. Can't recall how many goal calls have been reversed whether a ref called it good or waved it off. Time to put one official in the replay booth and eliminate some time in these decisions.
- Teams like Atlanta who sign lots of gritty veterans looking for one last shot at glory can't carry a team whose top three players are flashy Europeans with no sense of defensive responsibility. It's time for the Thrashers to reload by dumping a lot of salary.
- The Flyers organization will never stop doing business the same way until Ed Snider passes on. It's still a psychological shell game as long as Ed appears on local television to say how much he believes the team will have a big turnaround next year - as if ticket holders and the rest of us hockey fans are still sheep needing some direction instead of hard-working people with some intelligence who can't see paying the money to see games for a generally average winning team. Of course he has confidence this year's going to be better, and so should we, because it can't get no worse than last season.
Thankfully, I can take a bit of a rest for the remainder of the month now that all I wanted to get off my chest is spilled across these pages. I'm going to need the rest because once July 1st comes around, it'll be a solid month of signings paired with the inevitable cyclical discussions of how each player will help his new team and why not signing a player will spell doom for another. That's a huge task I actually look forward to, because it's the first act of a new season.
For the third consecutive season, a Canadian hockey team wound up on the wrong end of the battle for the Stanley Cup. And among the three (Calgary in 2004, Edmonton in 2006, and Ottawa this season), the Senators put up the weakest battle though they were clearly the most talented of the bunch.
It isn't every day that a team which won more than 45 games in the regular season, and steamrolls through the playoffs at a near-record clip finds itself hurled from Lord Stanley's Chase so suddenly. Ottawa made it through three rounds in 15 games, something not accomplished by any team in the era after all playoff rounds switched to best-of-seven since the 1996-97 Flyers did it. Edmonton has the record, going through the first three rounds of the 1987 and 1988 playoffs with two losses, and, it should be noted while the Oilers won both times, the Flyers suffered a similar fate in a sweep at the hands of Detroit.
In the late 1990's, only Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver were cited as economically viable Canadian teams due to the currency rate exchange between the U.S. and Canadian dollar and the relative size disparity between Canadian and American markets. Only Edmonton, Montreal and Vancouver competed for the Cup in the decade dominated by the Penguins and Red Wings dynasties. Yet now, thanks in part to the new economic system that attempts to keep all 30 teams competitive in the players market, three Canadian teams in three seasons have had a 50-50 shot to win.
The nature of Canadian fans with respect to their national game is such that any Canadian team in the Stanley Cup Finals gets not only its own fans' support, but that of the whole nation. This year, the fever was heightened since a team from Canada's capital, a bridge between Francophone and Anglophone communities, made a run. Nonetheless, all the cheering in the world can't make the team play well, and the Senators Finals appearance should go under the "bury-and-never-bring-up" file.
The Senators were under an electron microscope after their 2003 Conference Final flameout at home in Game 7, and last season's offensive explosion which collapsed into a second-round loss. To the shock of some, they struggled early in the season and came on strong late, and cruised through 15 games against Pittsburgh, New Jersey and Buffalo like a steam locomotive. The Senators killed 'em softly with scoring, and jarred their teeth loose with punishing defense. But all of that disappeared once the Finals arrived.
On paper, I saw a curious interlocking between Anaheim and Ottawa - where one team was strong, the other was weak, and so on in the opposite sense down the lineup. It was a seven-game series I predicted - to Anaheim with home-ice, and for the first three games it looked like the pattern held. But from the moment Chris Pronger unneccessarily elbowed Dean McAmmond in the head in Game 3, the Senators lost their focus and their resolve.
Daniel Alfredsson's mistimed puck-clear at the end of the second period in Game 4 in Scott Niedermayer's direction was just the physical manifestation of serious cracks in the Sens' armor. Dany Heatley was held to one goal in five games. Jason Spezza notched just two assists, leaving captain Alfie to shoulder the burden of the whole team - which he did admirably for two periods last night. Ottawa took the first three penalties of Game 5 in the first half of the first period and found themselves in a 1-0 hole. The ride was truly over when three of the Ducks' final four goals came as a result of miscues and bad turnovers.
Although Canadians are of a more forgiving sort, it can't sit well that the best club North of the Border to participate in a Cup since the 1990 Oilers still couldn't bring home the silver. Thankfully, it's no longer a question of cost in grabbing the best players at the trade deadline, but it remains a question of who will keep their wits about them when the pressure's on - something which the Senators may be forever doomed to repeat.
The good news is, short of a radical roster resection this Summer, the Sens are Canada's best shot to make the Finals again. They are Canada's best team right now, and certainly the most talented. Perhaps, like the Oilers of the 1980's, they have to lose to know how to win. If so, this was a big step in the right direction.
Of course, congratulations to the Anaheim Ducks for wiping out the juggernaut that was the Ottawa Senators with an inspired 6-2 victory last night in Game 5 of the Finals in Anaheim.
I picked the Ducks to win the series, but didn't anticipate on Ottawa's end how undisciplined they'd play, or how passionless they'd skate at times when facing a deficit, or how dead the Alfredsson-Spezza-Heatley line would be. That's not to denigrate the winners, who got all the little and big contributions from all the right players throughout the playoffs and this brief Stanley Cup series, but the fact that it ended in five games instead of going longer is more of an indictment of the Sens' play and state of mind than Anaheim's ability to stop the onslaught.
After watching the game and writing it for work last night, though, it didn't seem to me that Anaheim was really celebrating as loud and as long as other relatively new cities whose teams have won the Cup. The Ducks, Mighty or not, have played 13 seasons in the NHL, but have only seen five playoff years. Even Carolina, with its populace rooted deeply in basketball, baseball and NASCAR, blew its collective top when the Canes won last year only eight seasons removed from Hartford.
You'd think, even with the California cool and its proximity to Hollywood, that there'd at least be some high-profile people in the seats and cheering passionately. You'd think, with a city blessed to have seen a young Paul Kariya, Teemu Selanne in his prime then reborn, a Conn Smythe winner on a losing team now a Cup winner, and some grizzled old vets who helped the Ducks to the Finals in 2003, that the place would go nuts.
Instead, Cuba Gooding, Jr. is the only star power carried by the club. Heck, the fans didn't even boo Commissioner Gary Bettman loud enough to be picked up on TV, something which has happened at every Stanley Cup presentation since 1994.
Even with the glitz and glamour painted on top of hazy Los Angeles, there was a buzz and more of a hockey tradition in the city since it was awarded a team in 1967, saw Gretzky come in 1988, then made the Finals in 1993. If you've ever been to Southern California, people will tell you there is a radical difference in attitude between LA and Orange
County - like having season or playoff tickets to a sporting event is an indicator of social status. There are supposedly nearly 2 million Canadian expatriates in the LA basin, and I guess most of them must root for the Kings.
It does make you wonder why Disney sold the team to the Samuelis when they did.
The best possible outcome for the Ducks' sudden success after the cancelled season, is that they continue to be a top-tiered club in the West for at least three or four more seasons. Butts in the seats are still the main indicator and bottom line of a franchise's imprint in its own community. Sure, the goal every year is to win the Cup, but with the financial structure and competitiveness of the NHL what it is, it's a lock the Ducks won't win next year, and maybe not the following season. I hope the fans of Orange County don't lose interest and stop showing up when it's either unfashionable to do so, or the Ducks happen to not make it to the Conference Finals like they have the past two years.
With four officials on the ice at all times, you'd think they could raise their level of work and their level of recognition in the Stanley Cup, but apparently it's not so.
It began on Saturday night, when no penalty was called on Chris Pronger's un-called-for elbow to the head of Dean McAmmond. You can't get any more blatant without a stick being involved in the infraction, and yet, the game was allowed to get more heated because no action was taken in-game. More surprisingly, the league stepped in and levied a one-game suspension to Pronger, which he served last night. Look, folks, it's not brain surgery. Either it's nothing, or it's severe enough to warrant a penalty. I have no idea what kind of message is sent to either side, that an unwarranted elbow to the head in mid-ice gets no punishment during the game, yet the perpetrator has to miss the following contest.
Which brings me to last night, and the sudden outbreak of Ottawa flops. First it was Chris Neil in the first period. Frankly, after seeing multiple replays, I still don't know what part of the body or stick Neil latched onto before sliding 15 feet in the fetal position. Then, Ray Emery gets into the "act" when Ryan Getzlaf comes within 15 feet of the net, crosses paths with the netminder, who promptly falls on his back like he slipped on a patch of ice in his driveway. Never mind the fact that Getzlaf was following the path of the puck, and Emery was at least 3 feet out of his crease. Neither player gets a diving penalty, and the Senators receive two gift power-plays.
Unfortunately, the practice of unscrupulous acts like diving gets a good rep this time of year. It falls under the category of "doing anything to win the Cup." It's a bizarre double-standard which even I can't understand. Usually, everyone in the hockey universe shoots daggers into the eyes of any player who embellishes or flat-out dives because it goes against the nature of the game - to take punishment and give it back without drawing undue attention. Yet now, because both teams are seeking that winning edge, diving can work in your club's favor - like last night when neither of the two dives were called. Oddly enough, you also can argue that it backfired, because the Senators lost the game and now face a 3-1 series deficit going to Anaheim, but the officiating is so scattershot, they can be the beneficiaries again in Game 5 and capitalize.
This is one of the things I bang the drum for, eliminating the two-referee system. First and foremost, there are problems when you pair up a veteran with a youngster, because of the respect dynamic. There are also problems when the veteran wants to give the kid the reins, or when neither ref can decide what to do and have to call the linesmen in to confer. The players have gotten bigger since it's implementation on a full-time basis in 1998, and it seems every year none of the four officials can really escape the pace of the action except in center ice. Short of going back to one ref, maybe the league can look into putting the second ref in the replay booth, and can have clearer pictures of dives - at least then, he can communicate with the on-ice ref and suggest two penalties instead of one for the original infraction.
Tonight, one of Canada's hockey broadcasting icons comes South, with a fanstastic opportunity to embarrass himself in front of a national audience.
Don Cherry will be an intermission guest host for NBC's coverage of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals in Ottawa, and this can only end badly.
For anyone who doesn't know, Cherry is the mouth that roars, every Saturday night during hockey season, for CBC's Hockey Night in Canada coverage. He's been plying his trade on TV for 20 years, following a wildly varying coaching career in the minors and NHL. He has a penchant for wearing loud or mismatching suits, impeccable grooming, and during each intermission's "Coach's Corner" segment, a proclivity for saying some of the most ridiculous statements in the history of the game.
On the one hand, he is revered for his working-class angle on the game. He loves hard skaters, energy players, guys not afraid to take and give beatings and keep going. He talks fondly about the culture of the game which springs from the heartland of Canada, on bitter Winter days on thousands of frozen ponds and rinks. He most often takes a traditionalist view towards rules, penalties, and both the attitudes and actions of players on and off the ice.
On the other hand, though, he is a living nightmare. Knowing that television is based on ratings, Cherry often goes for the outrageous, the inciteful, the spiteful, and the hateful if it will draw attention to either himself, the broadcast, or the league. He has railed in the past about the European style of play, the greediness of players with respect to salary, agents, league GM's, Gary Bettman, the lack of respect between players with respect to penalties of the stick, the relative impotence of the officiating system, and last but not least, French Canadians.
He's considered a cultural icon, sort of the elder statesman/storyteller of the village for the hockey-mad nation. So, it's not too hard to see how Canadians can dismiss his seemingly back-water, ignorant, or bigoted opinions, as long as he keeps the fire of the old days true to his heart and to his treatment of the sport. It's a hard line to tread since Canada, for it's population of 30 million, is a far more ethnically diverse nation than the U.S. He's drawn ire across the Dominion before, with at least one comment per year drawing heated criticism and discussion. However, that's Canada. Ten percent of the population of the United States, and one-hundredth the media outlets.
When Cherry steps into the spotlight with his clown costume and his smug sense of security which comes with his fame, he may find the heat of the glow too much to bear. If he's restrained, it's because certain people have gotten to him prior to broadcast, with compelling arguments as to why he wouldn't want to come across as too brash lest he sully NBC's reputation for a floundering sport. In that case, he's just another empty suit reading from the cue cards, and his knowledge, insight, and personality will be muted and rendered ineffective. If he's as usual, it is almost guaranteed that something will pass his lips that someone will take umbrage with, because a distinguishing mark of his shtick is to play to the heart of the secretly angry and bigoted fan, invert it, and turn those words into a can't-miss-moment.
If this comes to pass, there's no doubt that America's 24-hour news machine will eat him up and spit him out, endlessly parsing the wrong word or phrase that strikes at the heart of our PC sensibilities. Then, the floodgates will be opened to just how backward and floundering the NHL is, letting this doddering, bellicose old fool loose on the airwaves. Who knows? Maybe Cherry would make the circuit with Don Imus as his fervent supporter creating a double act unrivalled in a network talk show producer's dream.
NBC has arranged a shotgun marriage by bringing Cherry down here and exposing him to a bigger audience. Let's hope he doesn't say something which allows the itchy man behind the gun to pull the trigger.
