THE SAME OLD CLOSED MINDS IN THE NHL

Some quick-hit hockey notes this p.m.:

If the NHL general managers didn't want three-point wins, that's fine, but their so-called reasoning -- as quoted to CP's Pierre LeBrun -- indicates the league has reverted toward the same groupthink that got their game into the mess it's in. Basically, it's a resistance to deliberate change founded on the belief that hockey will always evolve perfectly -- along with a like-it-or-lump-it attitude toward the paying public.

If you remember two years ago, there was this great show of being open to change, to adapting reforms when needed -- just as they do in other sports from time to time. Now it's the same closed-minded claptrap. From Anaheim GM Brian Burke: "I think our points system is good, our fans are just finally learning to understand it."

Wow, way to give credit to the fans' intelligence. Tomorrow, are you going to explain the blueline to us?

Then there's this get from New Jersey's "Loophole Lou" Lamoriello, as he shall henceforth be known after a brilliant James Mirtle post yesterday: "I think we've had too much change of late." Lou, if the NHL has had too much change, let the record show that every one that was for the worse had your fingerprints on it: The neutral zone trap, games between U.S. teams that had 76 people watching on TV and the league's slow slide into becoming a bus league since for all the New Jersey Devils' playoff success, nearly no one wants to watch their boring style of play.

Whether or not a 3-2-1 points system would make for more exciting hockey in the NHL is unknowable; evolution has no foresight. The point is other sports -- the NBA, the NFL, U.S. college basketball and football -- change rules or their interpretations nearly every off-season, and while there surely is opposition, it doesn't seem to be anywhere near as deep-seated.

If you went by the glowing press reviews in the summer and fall of 2005, the new NHL was supposed to do away with the notion that "we've always done it this way" could pass as a justification for anything. To a fan who honestly wanted to believe that, it's disappointing -- albeit predictable -- to see everyone so quickly revert to form.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Hockey Canada has announced its lineup for the 2007 women's world championship: The new names to learn defenceman Tessa Bonhomme (a Sudbury native who plays at Ohio State) and forward Katie Weatherston, who's from Thunder Bay and plays her college hockey at Dartmouth. A spot had opened up on the blueline since Becky Kellar, a stalwart on all three Olympic teams, is having her second child.
• Hey, how come the QMJHL can realize its unbalanced schedule didn't work, but the NHL can? (Via Junior Hockey Blog.) Love Halifax Mooseheads president Bobby Smith's line: "It's the season ticket holders we're responding to." That's why the former 67's star is in junior hockey -- he actually thinks season ticket holders should be responded to.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.