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Adam has written another classic in his latest,
and final installment of Puckin' Around of the season,
The Cream Of The Crop. I urge
all of you who have not yet had a chance to read it to do so before
reading this. A job very well done my friend, especially the rant
at the end ( The Game Behind The Game ). Adam had warned us a rant
was coming for a while now, and I was not disappointed when I read his
views on the state of the game. I've been thinking about it for a
while too; it's hard not to, as it comes up after almost every single
game. Like Adam, I have come to a few conclusions of my own.
The main one is that there must be two trains of
thought up there in the higher echelons of the NHL. One that wants
the Don Cherry "Let the players decide it" old school system, and a new
school of thinking: "Let the Stars Shine, call it every time you see
it". Thinking that way has led me to a harsh & scary realization:
Could Bettman be THE GOOD GUY HERE ? WHAT ? Did I say BETTMAN & GOOD GUY
in the same sentence ? Before dismissing me as a joke columnist,
consider this:
It's already a known fact that Bettman
wants to sell hockey, especially to the US, and mostly to the southern
States. I don't have to prove this, expansion & relocation has (
Tampa-Bay, Anaheim, San Jose, Florida, Dallas, Phoenix ). Bettman
wants better TV deals, so it's in his best interest to let the stars
shine & have the scoring go up in the NHL. More scoring = more
ratings, or so we think, since the low-scoring affairs we are currently
privy to have not. One way to achieve this is to call obstructions
& interference penalties to either deter players from doing it, or to
force Power Play opportunities which should result in more scoring
chances. I'll leave it there, because I'm convinced the goalies are
better now than they have ever been. Just because more Power Plays
are awarded, doesn't mean more goals are scored. As a matter of
fact, I am prepared to say that more goals are scored 4 on 4 than with
the man advantage, but that's an opinion, not a fact. Long gone
are the 8-7 Oilers vs. Islanders games of the early 80's ! Even the
All-Star games are low-scoring now !
So in comes the Big Cheese of
officiating, Andy Van Hellemond. This guy IS old school. He's part of
the Don Cherry era of "Let the players decide it, put the whistles away
when the game is on the line". Traditionalists agree with this.
It was them that we heard screaming this year when Anaheim went up 3-1
in the Anaheim-Dallas series when in Game 4, Mike Leclerc would score
the winning goal on a Power Play awarded to the Ducks with less than 5
minutes to go in a 0-0 game. Be it as it may, the call did
decide the game, but can we complain ? The old school sure did,
and are sure to hold this as an example of why referees should let the
marginal infractions go late in the game. Factor in the "old
school GM's", the Drydens, Burkes & Quinns, and you can kind of see why
the changing of the guard hasn't yet happened as far as the rulebook is
concerned. But I am a believer that it's only a matter of time.
I am actually starting to belie in
Bettman. The man is trying. Although frustrating at times, I
prefer watching the game slowly transforming, than staying years behind.
As frustrating as it may be, I also believe that for every call ( or
non-call ) that comes one way, the same call will go ( or not go ) the
other way. Maybe not in the same game, but all in all, things even
out by season's end. Why ? Because referees are always
rotated & aren't assigned to specific teams. Sure, there's
confusion, and a definite lack of consistency, but it's exactly that
lack of consistency that is showing a promise of change. You can't
go from one extreme to the other overnight. Slowly, but
surely, you can get there. Hey, it is a transition game, isn't it
? The game has changed so much. It's faster, and simply
better. It's the Coolest Game on Earth, and it only became that
way because of one thing. The NHL is consistent. Consistent
at being inconsistent.
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