Hockey is Minnesota's game (Login: yuppieskum; Password: makis1)
10 suggestions for the NHL to improve its game
In northern Minnesota, this is how it is: You're born, you go to school and you play hockey. You have to do it. Dad built a rink in the back yard, and we all went out there with our hand-me-down skates. Hockey was just part of our daily lives.
- Joe Micheletti
Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows how much I adore the game of hockey. I grew up in Minnesota, where it's the national sport, and a state that refers to itself with some justification as "The State of Hockey". The National Hockey League, the aribiter of the highest level of the sport, finds itself at a crossroad. In many respects, it is still a second-tier sport in the country, more akin to soccer in terms of popularity, the NBA or the NFL.
Of course, the NHL could take a page from Minnesota, where the most popular brand of hockey is played at the HIGH SCHOOL level. If the NHL could figure out a way to duplicate this sort of passion, they would be set for life.
It's been that way since the children of Iron Range and St. Paul immigrants first tied Saturday Evening Posts around their shins to play pond hockey until suppertime. Those areas served as the Petri dishes of Minnesota hockey, incubating the remarkable players -- and unforgettable characters -- who would cement our state's devotion to the game.
At home, those boys spoke Italian, Croatian, Polish, Slavic. On the rink, they spoke hockey. The sport molded those diverse cultures into one -- Minnesotan -- and spawned a legion of American puck pioneers.
Eveleth alone sent out goaltenders Frank Brimsek and Mike Karakas, who blazed trails in the NHL; John Mayasich, who lifted the Gophers to national prominence while perfecting the slapshot; and Mariucci, whose 30-minute fight with "Black Jack" Stewart remains an NHL legend. Their exploits inspired boys to emulate them and sparked Minnesota's reputation as a home base for American hockey.
The state tournament set it aflame. From the moment it began in 1945, at the old St. Paul Auditorium, it became the touchstone for our collective puck passion. If you didn't play, you went. You probably hoped for the little schools -- Roseau or Warroad or Greenway -- to beat the smug big-city boys. Texas had football. Indiana had basketball. Hockey belonged to us, and nothing felt so Minnesotan as cheering and crying for our boys on those March nights in St. Paul.
So what can be done to improve the product? What will make hockey a more attractive and interesting game for the masses, while still keeping it accessible and recognizable for traditionalists like myself? There are a bunch of people out there with a bunch of ideas, some quite practical, some rather off the wall. Here are some ideas that I would like to see implemented:
- Reduce the schedule from 82 to 70 games. Rested players make for better games and fewer injuries. This would be a good thing.
- Let the players without the puck skate. Stop the clutching and grabbing. No one wants to watch a wrestling match on skates.
- Teams that win in regulation get three points. What is so wrong with rewarding teams that play to win?
- Players should serve the full two minutes on power plays. Players will either stop taking stupid penalties, or their team will be giving up more power play goals.
- Widen the ice surface from the current 85' to the European standard of 92'-94'. This will give skaters more of an opportunity to showcase their talents. Let's face it, no one pays $40 to see the likes of Gino Odjick do his imitation of the Human Roadblock.
- Eliminate the red line for offsides calls. This will open up the game, and besides, does anyone REALLY want to watch a 2-0 neutral trap-fest?? I didn't think so.
- Allow unlimited curves on sticks. What is so bad about watching goalies trying to catch a shot that looks like a 100MPH Phil Niekro knuckle ball? Much hilarity will ensue, to be sure.
- Move the end lines back to where they used to be. There is just too much extracurricular crap taking place behind the net.
- Get rid of fighting. NOW. I know that I'm a pronounced minority in this quest, but does Major League Baseball allow fighting? The NFL? The NBA? Why does the NHL continue to allow this sort of barbarism to occur on a nightly basis? The NCAA does not allow fighting, and yet the game survives. The NHL could learn something from the amateurs on this one.
- Use shootouts to settle ties. If 65 minutes of hockey don't settle the issue, do what the old International Hockey League used to do- have each team pick five shooters, and go to penalty shots. It's a lot more exciting than you might think.
Of course, not all of these changes will be implemented. Hell, if they were, Clarence Campbell would likely be spinning furiously in his grave. Nonetheless, the NHL brand of hockey is in dire need of some tweaking. The game once famous for its grace, beauty, and speed has now become a 60-minute clutch and grabfest. Imagine the NFL allowing offensive lineman to hold on every play, and you'd be close to what a typical NHL game is like these days.
If Gary Bettman and the Powers That Be in the NHL want to grow the game in the US, and I have to believe that they do, they need to get serious about finding ways to open things up. Otherwise, the game that I adore will wither and die- and deservedly so.
Don't even get me started on the lockout looming later this year. I fear for the future of hockey generally, and the NHL specifically, if this becomes a reality. Players and owners can't be THAT stupid...can they??
