Off Wing Opinion: In Defense Of A Golden Age That Never Was

Off Wing Opinion: In Defense Of A Golden Age That Never Was:

Which begs the question: What is it that Tom wants?

Check that, as I should put it more directly: Tom, what do you want? Because as it stands right now, other than the right to complain about anything and everything you want to address (which after all is your right), I’m not sure what it could be.

So lay it out for us. If you could replace the Gary Bettman Hockey League (GBHL) with the Tom Benjamin Hockey League (TBHL), what would it look like? And what are the realistic chances of it existing anywhere but inside your own brain case?

Here’s your chance, Tom. Let it all out.

I’m going to jump in here, also….

What the NHL needs most right now is a little patience and time — from itself, from its fans, from the media. A chance to see how well the changes it’s made have worked, and give it all a chance to settle out. We all have to stop over-analyzing and expecting instant success. It’s a process, it takes time. Some decisions will work better than others, but we need to give them a chance to find out which ones.

The media’s the worst about this — but then, the media’s job is to get people to read, and good news doesn’t sell newspapers (or click ads); so it’s easy to get into the “raise hell” mode, but it’s a slippery slope. Fans tend to follow the media, and that generates noise and criticism.

And the league doesn’t have the backbone to ignore it all and see it through. Look at the noise about making the net bigger: it’s WAY too soon to consider something that radical (and make no mistake, it sounds simple, it’s radical). That feeds back to the folks criticizing, because it makes it look like the league also thinks things are broken.

Reality: they aren’t broken. they’re just not perfect. never will be. And the world won’t end if we just watch for a season or two to see how the tweaks work before starting the next set of tweaks (except for the schedule; we know it’s broken. unfortunately, the league won’t admit it)

Expansion: no.

Moving teams: if Pittsburgh doesn’t come across in two weeks, the penguins go to K.C. We’ll agree to offer Pittsburgh a new franchise once the building is actually built (it worked in MInnesota!). Others? we’ll wait and see. I don’t think any of them are more than 50-50.

Schedule: every team plays home and home. Balanced conference schedule to the greatest extent possible. I’d love to cut the schedule to 74-76 games, and perhaps add another playoff round, first two rounds 3 of 5 instead of 4 of 7.

I want to see the entire league committed to making ALL NHL markets “traditional hockey markets”, rather than having this current hockey caste system; Just look at the current schedule disaster — could it be that some of these so-called “nontraditional markets” that are considered struggling are that way because the successful teams aren’t interested in helping the league succeed — they only care about their team.

I want to see good management in ALL of the NHL cities, but especially the major ones. And yes, that means regime change in Chicago.

(and honestly? I’d love to see a team back in Winnipeg — but I think Kingston is a much more viable market).

You might also want to read:

  1. Off Wing Opinion: Grappling With “The Code” Off Wing Opinion: Grappling With “The Code”: Eric responds to my comments on “the code” with some good questions: What about Major League Baseball? Didn’t...
  2. Off Wing Opinion: The Raffi Torres Hit On Jason Williams Off Wing Opinion: The Raffi Torres Hit On Jason Williams: Club spokesman John Hahn said later that Williams was “fine.” Hahn said X rays and...
  3. Off Wing Opinion: The Trouble With Mick McGeough Off Wing Opinion: The Trouble With Mick McGeough: I don’t know what’s left to say about Mick McGeough’s blown call on Friday night that cost...
  4. Off Wing Opinion: Capitals Notebook Off Wing Opinion: Capitals Notebook: Funny, but that sounds a lot like what you might expect to hear from the head coach of an NFL...
  5. Off Wing Opinion: Does Gary Bettman Need Some Help? Off Wing Opinion: Does Gary Bettman Need Some Help?: Here is some silliness wandering the sports bloggers: An experienced NHL person would know something is...