Twenty years later, it's become crystal-clear why Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off wore a Detroit Red Wings sweater.
The NHL is a little like Ferris Bueller's best pal in one respect: a complete and total lack of acknowledgement that it's played a part in its own trials and tribulations. Cameron's dilemma, which of course has to be solved by the film's end, is that he is miserable and depressed, because his parents are miserable and depressed, and believes "there's nothing I can do about it."
That's much like the NHL and its refusal to accept that there's no good reason to still be playing hockey in the middle of June. This goes whether the Carolina Hurricanes finish off the Edmonton Oilers tonight, Saturday, or in the unlikelihood the series goes the full seven games, in which case it would end June 19.
The NHL's knee-jerk dismissal over questions about the length of the season essentially boils down to: Oh, this was an Olympic year. Well, dummy, who signed off on NHLers participating in the 2006 Olympics? You did. That's beside the point. (Yours truly supports the NHLers being at the Olympics, by the way.)
It's not that the league had to shut down for three weeks in February to accommodate the Olympics. It's that the league doesn't see its own complicity. One of the biggest hypocrisies of the "new NHL" is that aside from cosmetic changes which have made the game better, we're still stuck with the same bloated, overly long season. The NHL still persists in having its calendar bump up against that of every major sport in North America, and a few of the minor ones too.
Look around. CBC lost nearly a million viewers from Game 1 to Game 2 of the final. Even the most dedicated hockey bloggers seem to be keeping their posts shorter as the series has dragged on.
With the World Cup underway, it's even more obvious that the NHL is on the wrong path. I live in Ottawa, where the Senators were eliminated a month ago. For all the talk about the Oilers having captured Canadians' imagination, an informal, admittedly highly unscientific glance around suggests otherwise. While waiting to catch the bus to work these days, I see all sorts of flags flapping from passing vehicles, people showing the colours of their country: the flags of Italy, Germany, Portugal, England, Brazil. How many Oilers flags have I seen? One -- and it was flying from the delivery van of a popular chain of sports bars, so for all I know, it's only being flown on the say-so of some corporate drone.
It's one thing to worry about a dwindling audience in the States -- a disinterested audience in Canada is another matter entirely. The NHL should take notice of the front page of the Ottawa Sun (my day job) from Tuesday, the day after Game 4 of the final. Hockey didn't get the front-page photo -- soccer did. Had the Oilers won, it likely would have been a different story, but just the fact that at a major metropolitan market, hockey can no longer be assured of its place in the Great Canadian Sportscape.
To reiterate what I've said earlier, there's no reason why the NHL couldn't start the regular season around Sept. 15, cut the regular season down to about 72 games, and award the Stanley Cup some time before the May two-four weekend. No reason at all.
At the end of that movie, Cameron realizes he can change his path, saying, " I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I'm going to take a stand."
The NHL could do the same. It can do it gradually -- phase in the chance by shaving two games off each team's schedule each season until gets down to about 72 games. Or it can wait until the next CBA (which it would probably have to).
This space aims to be less about "Why?" and more about "Why not?" There's no good reason why the season can't be shorter.
Just now, a colleague walked by my desk carrying a press release announcing a NHL pre-season game, commenting, "September 23rd? God, is it that soon?"
Which begs the question: is that really the way a sports league wants people to talk about its upcoming season? No.
Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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2 comments:
As a Bay Area dweller and hockey fan, I have mixed feelings about this idea. I agree that the season extends too long and the idea of taking the Stanley Cup into 90-degree weather is just insane.
But at the same time, if the NHL season were 72 games this year, the Sharks might not have been in the playoffs at all. I do not have a day-by-day account of their standings, but I know they made up a lot of ground in the last 3 weeks of the season.
Plus, the loss of 10 games would reduce team income by 10-15%, which would lower team payroll. The players would never go for that.
Well, the players already gave up 24%, so why not another 10%?
There are some ways that the league could increase the interest in (and relevancy thereof) of the regular season. I've been meaning to talk about it for a while — there were some good ideas in the book "Saving the Game" that was written by Steve Moore's brother.
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