Lord Stanley Rocks My World

God I love hockey! This year, the Carolina Hurricanes are in the Stanley Cup Finals! I don’t know how I lived without hockey last year. The league taking a year off last year did not sit well with me. But now hockey is back, and it’s here to stay. Just so you know how much I love hockey, consider the fact that I would be willing to pass up sex with a supermodel just for a ticket to the Stanley Cup Finals. Wait a minute... did I really just say that?

For those of you who don’t follow hockey much, let me give you a brief synopsis of what happened and why there was a one year lockout in the NHL. First, the players were getting paid way too much, and that’s the players and the owners’ faults. If you look at the salaries in the NHL, it won’t seem that out of place. But you have to remember, hockey doesn’t pull in as much money as the big three (NBA, NFL, and MLB), so there’s less money to go around for these big time contracts.

To make it simple: players wanted more money, but the owners wanted to pay them less. They whined and complained like six year olds for a whole year about it. No one seemed to care that at the rate the players were getting paid, the owners wouldn’t be able to afford to fly them across country for a game. And that is not good. In fact, it’s rather bad. If Carolina cannot afford to fly to Edmonton to play, then I don’t have anything to watch on TV. And that, my friend, is a travesty. And that’s why we have a salary cap today in the NHL.

Now let’s figure out why, after a whole year of vehemently opposing a salary cap, the players union agreed to it. Well, it has to do with making money. See, professional athletes tend to buy expensive cars, live in really big houses, and typically spend a lot of money. This is because they have a lot of money to spend. Now suddenly, they don’t play for a year, and they don’t have any more money. The fancy cars are gone and it’s hard to pay the mortgage bill on the palatial estate. I mean, wouldn’t you be willing to take a small cut in pay if you were still making over a million dollars a year?

Now we have a lot of rule changes in the “new” NHL. Once again, I don’t want you non-hockey fans to get bogged down here, so I will simplify. The best change they made was eliminating the two line pass rule. Simply put, the rule stated: “You may not pass the puck up the ice to another player. You may pass it sideways, or backwards. But under no circumstances are you allowed to pass the puck forwards to another player on your team.” Ok, so maybe that isn’t a direct quote, but it’s close enough. The two line pass rule sucked.

The worst rule change, however, is the trapezoid rule. Basically, there’s this trapezoid shape behind the net that the goalie is allowed to play the puck in, but he is very limited on where he can play the puck outside that area. Now, there’s a very good reason to have this rule in there, the goalie is so protected in hockey that if you were to give him the middle finger in the middle of the game, the ref would throw you into the penalty box for two minutes. Luckily, it’s near impossible to “flip the bird” while wearing hockey gloves. Trust me, I’ve tried. Now, my problem with this new rule is that it’s a trapezoid. I mean, why would you want to put a trapezoid on any playing surface? It just doesn’t make sense. Even saying the word out loud makes me feel funny. I guess if they really wanted to put a trapezoid in cricket they could, because really, who cares about cricket?

The rule changes have had their desired effect this year. Scoring has gone up as the pace of the game has quickened. One interesting side effect in the faster skating NHL has been the checking. Think about it, the faster someone is skating, the harder they fall when they get hit. So now the open ice hits are getting more frequent, and getting much more devastating. And all I have to say about this is: Hell yeah! Watching someone getting forced into a back flip on skates and then falling to the ice in a crumpled lump of pain and sorrow is one of the most exciting things to watch, ever.

Although the league coming back this year has seen some positive results with the higher scores, more exciting hits, and Carolina making it to the finals, there have been some drawbacks. ESPN and network television has almost completely shunned the NHL. Even during the playoffs I think only one game (that I know of) was on network TV. The majority of games have been on the Outdoor Life Network (OLN) with some on Fox Sports Net as well.

Honestly, I don’t have a problem with OLN. I get the channel with my current cable package and their commentators are pretty decent, so I’m pretty happy. But the commercials that are on during the breaks are a little bit… (what’s the word I’m looking for?) …out of the ordinary for sports games. You have your usual mass merchandising commercials with annoying cell phone personas and whatnot on there. But then there are the ads for all terrain vehicles, tractor supplies, hunting gear, and who knows what else. Well, it is the network for outdoor life.

But it has got me thinking. I don’t actually own a hunting gun. I have absolutely no need for one since I don’t go hunting. But what if I’m really hungry and the grocery store is closed? Wouldn’t I need a hunting rifle to go bag some nearby game? Although I’m pretty sure there’s nothing more than squirrels and the occasional opossum in my neighborhood, but that’s enough meat for one meal. At least I could make a rodent soup, right? Well, I think there might be some deer nearby... See this is why you shouldn’t show me pictures of high powered weaponry while I’m drinking and very excited. It just will end up badly.

Well, besides the small chance of me discharging a high powered rifle in a heavy populated area, I think OLN is doing a pretty good job. The NHL is doing a good job too. If you aren’t big on watching professional hockey, now would be a good time to check it out. The game tonight (Wednesday) is on at 8pm eastern time. If it’s even half as exciting as the first game, it’ll be well worth the watch. And we’ll get to see if Edmonton’s back-up goalie can make up for his big time screwball mistake which completely lost the game for his team in game one. Wow, sucks to be him.