LMIRT Installed as High Ruler of all Hockey

So it’s the NHL All-Star break and talking heads will be scrambling all over one another during the next few days to talk about how archaic and needless the All-Star Game is. And that may be true-- for anyone over the age of, say 16. The All-Star Game isn’t meant for grumpy 40-year olds, it’s meant for pie-eyed youngsters just learning all the stars, and it’s meant for outsiders to tune in to see what all the fuss is about. So let’s do away with any notion that the game is out of touch and irrelevant. It’s vitally important (though admittedly less-so now with 24-hour highlight channels that lets us see every star’s every move), and still a lot of fun to watch. That said, the format is a little stale. In the early days a team of All Stars played against the defending champs. That would never happen in today’s game, and doesn’t need to. With all due respect to the defending-champion Red Wings, there’s no way I want to watch Darren Helm more than I want to watch any of the All Stars. Thinking back to the late-80’s and early-90’s, when divisional rivalries meant more, the Campbell-versus-Wales games often were played with more intensity and a high level of competition. Because division rivalries were all-but-killed by conference-based playoff scheduling, seeing those kinds of games again won’t happen, and is why the current East-versus-West format also seems a little stale. The North America-versus-The World format was plainly, awful. So how to spice things up? I have an idea that will never see the light of day in NHL offices, and most certainly will never come to fruition. But I’ll share anyway. First things first, every player is voted in by fans, not just the starters. The format, for both the All-Star Game and YoungStars Game: NHL All Stars versus World Champions. It’s a little tricky, but I’ll try to show you the way starting with the main ASG. Let’s assume the format were to start next season-- when there will be no All-Star Game because of the Olympic shut-down. Since the league is already shut down, why not have a team of All Stars take on the gold medal-winning team from the Olympics, in prime time, at an NHL rink, two days after the gold medal game? Let’s say Canada wins gold, all the players on the Canadian roster would be taken out of the voting, and the top 12 forwards, six defensemen and two goalies remaining make up their opposition for the All-Star Game. It guarantees two marquee events for the league on set dates. In 2011, the NHL All Stars could take on the winner of the 2010 World Championships. In 2012, the All Stars could take on the winner of the World Cup that looks certain to happen in August 2011. And in 2013 the All Stars take on the 2012 World Champions again before the format returns to NHL All Stars versus Olympic gold medallists in 2014 (this assumes the IIHF isn’t bluffing when they say the NHL has to commit to the Olympics to continue having the World Cup), say three days after the gold medal game. The YoungStars Game will often have to deal with Hockey Canada, which should make it a little easier, but the idea there is simple: a full team of NHL YoungStars (defined by the league as players on entry-level contracts) taking on the recently-crowned World Junior Champions. Admittedly, when European teams win, it would be a major headache to get the players back three weeks later (aside from the fact most of them are playing in the CHL), but when Canadian or American teams win, it would be a thing of beauty for the league. And while Hockey Canada is very protective of their image and logo (see: tangent, below), it’s in the league’s best interests if the players from the winning team wear the dark jersey of the NHL team that holds their rights (and undrafted players will wear their junior team jerseys), while the YoungStars would wear All Star jerseys. It would be an absolute nightmare to actually make this format work every year, but the NHL makes the Winter Classic work, and they make the European tours to start the season work. If they wanted to, they could make this format work. Tangent: I never gave this Canadian Olympic Committee-Hockey Canada logo flap a whole lot of thought before, because it seemed so silly. But it looks like this thing is for real, and I can honestly see both sides of it. So there are two solutions I see. The hard way: we create one governing body for all of Canada’s national teams, sort of like the COC but less ceremonial and more… effectual. The easy way: for the white jerseys/uni set, think New York Rangers white jerseys/uni set, swap the locations of the red and the blue, replace the blue with black, replace the Rangers wordmark with a Canada wordmark; for the dark jersey, think Rangers dark jerseys/uni set, swap the locations of the red and the blue, replace the blue with black, replace the Rangers wordmark with a Canada wordmark. Slap a Hockey Canada logo on the shoulders and it’s done. This whole garbage is over.

The Debate Continues

It sometimes seems as though anyone within reach of a keyboard, within shouting distance of a microphone, or with access to a soapbox has an opinion regarding fighting’s place in hockey. In the wake of the Don Sanderson tragedy there has been no shortage of people climbing onto their soap boxes-- something I often try to avoid when the issue of fighting in hockey surfaces. And with the Ontario Hockey League’s newly enacted rules about fighting, local soapboxes are once again full. On fighting itself, there’s no denying its strange and intricate place in the game of hockey. Whether a good or bad thing can be-- and in many places is-- debated until all participants are blue in the face. For now, though, it’s a part of the game. On the OHL’s new rules, so-called hockey purists and so-called experts are raking OHL commissioner David Branch over the coals, saying the new rules will effectively remove fighting from the OHL altogether. They say the new rules will ruin the game and rob fans of what they want to see. I think that sentiment is a disservice to hockey fans everywhere. In European leagues, fighting is rare, but fans flocked to the new Champions League tournament. Demand for hockey in Europe is higher than ever as the game becomes more and more global. As Canadians embrace ever more international competition, events find themselves in brighter and broader spotlights than ever before. The event now being called the biggest date in the NHL calendar-- the soon-to-be annual Winter Classic outdoor game drew enormous television audiences without a single scrap. And so long as temperatures stay below freezing, it’s doubtful many pugilists will want to change that. But back to the OHL. Last I checked, the OHL, as a member of the Canadian Hockey League is billed as Canada’s premiere development league for junior-aged players. That reputation holds-- the first four players drafted in June’s draft were OHL products-- and none of those players were drafted for their fighting ability. If the pro-fighting crowd, and rabid fight lovers are to believed, there’s nothing in hockey more important than a fight. Explain to me, then, why players like Minnesota’s Derek Boogaard are drafted toward the end of the draft, and others like Edmonton’s Steve MacIntyre aren’t drafted at all. No matter what these new rules mean for fighting, the OHL is right to enforce rules that will encourage the continued development of top-end talent. If OHL rosters aren’t going to include a designated “goon,” that just means there will be more room for another potential star. The more room this game has for skill, the better the game is.

Reflections on gold, Part One

Oh, the beauty of hindsight coupled with the beauty of sparkling gold. It makes this one of the easier blog entries I’ve ever had to write up. Congratulations to Canada’s junior team for winning their fifth-consecutive championship. Before the tournament started head coach Pat Quinn said this team would not be able to rely on one line to win gold. Quinn, and a lot of talking heads, believed a tournament win would require a 22-man effort. Mission accomplished. So with the gold in the bag, the Loudest Man in the Room takes a look back at the performances we saw-- in two parts. In goal, we’ll start with Chet Pickard. Pickard is in the midst of a superlative season with the Tri-Cities Americans, following his CHL goalie of the year award last season. That didn’t get him into very many games in this tournament though. To Pickard’s credit, he played well when called upon, and was professional in putting the team ahead of himself. A controversy between the pipes can kill a team’s chances and chemistry in a heartbeat. Pickard made sure that didn’t happen. The man of the hour Monday night was Canada’s number-one goalie Dustin Tokarski. The talk leading up to the final was that Tokarski is a big-game goalie. He showed his mettle at the Memorial Cup last May, and showed it again Monday night. There’s no doubt Tokarski struggled at times in this tournament, but he came through when his team needed him most. Looking back at the top defence pairing’s performance, I showered Colten Teubert and Thomas Hickey with praise in the early part of the tournament, but they didn’t seem to find another level in the later stages. Against the Russians in the semi final, and against the Swedes in the final, Hickey showed a propensity to being knocked off the puck and making bad decisions with it. Teubert showed a lack of footspeed, and was often beaten to the outside. These two young men still have very bright futures in hockey and will make the LA Kings very proud in the future. I just didn’t see them take their game to the next level. I also showered Cody Golobeuf with praise in the early days of this tournament, only to see Golobeuf’s ice time cut dramatically as the games got more important. I still feel Golobeuf played well, and certainly beyond my expectations and his reputation would have thought. His partner PK Subban had a superlative tournament. Subban showed incredible skating and puck-handling abilities. Heading into this tournament I wondered if Subban would ever be good enough defensively to play every day in the NHL. Turns out Subban’s got some game. His end-to-end rushes energized the Canadian offence and provided a spark whenever he went for one. His defensive play was more than good enough to be named to the tournament all star team. His unwillingness to lose banged home the puck that put Canada ahead in the gold medal game. Hickey was the captain of this team, but nobody led the way Subban did. Canada’s unorthodox decision to bring eight defensemen led to this team using two different power play specialists. Both Alex Pietrangelo and draft-eligible Ryan Ellis played big roles in Canada’s tournament best power play. Pietrangelo struggled at times, but overall played a strong game when put in the quarterback role. Ellis meanwhile, was nothing short of amazing. Looking ahead, he will need to get stronger and meaner to become an elite defender, but his work on the power play was some of the finest work I’ve ever seen. He was calm and patient and almost always made the right play with the puck. His work at the line was the catalyst for the work the forwards did down low, and allowed Canada to run the one-three-one power play they did. And I lost count of how many times he made great plays to keep the puck in the zone. I can’t find Ellis’ ceiling as a player. All of which brings us to the defence pair I was critical of earlier in the tournament. I wrote that I’d need to see another level from Tyler Myers and Keith Aulie-- and they showed it. Aulie didn’t crank it up quite the way Myers did, but he was part of the best pairing on the ice during the final. Myers was the other half of that pairing and was lights-out. Save for Tokarski, Myers was undoubtedly the best player on either side of the ice in the final. You’ve got to appreciate a big, strong defenseman that can skate, makes great passes and clears the front of his crease with tenacity. I’m a Myers believer after that final, and I look forward to watching him in Buffalo in short time. Tomorrow we look at the forwards.