What I've Learned in 2006-2007

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.