It should be starting this week: Red Wings vs. Avalanche in the NHL’s Western Conference finals.
The highlights of past rivalry mayhem should be cued up and rolling, even if they already have been shown on cable more times than the Keith Hernandez “Seinfeld” episode.
Avalanche defenseman Adam Foote’s nose should have been scarred, bloodied and flattened about six times. In the past three days.
Captain Joe Sakic should have gone through about his 19th playoff interview, said nothing remotely interesting about the Red Wings, smiled and walked away – then cracked up his teammates with caustic repartee the second he stepped through the door to the players’ private area.
The boos should be music to Detroit winger Darren McCarty’s ears.
There should be eight fights a night between guys in Avalanche and Red Wing jerseys. On the concourses.
The Avalanche playoff bandwagon should be getting crowded, perhaps even with some instant fans who not so long ago asked: If this guy Milan Hejduk is so good, how come he isn’t on the ice all the time?
Colorado had won one playoff series in the two seasons before the lockout, but assuming that the Avalanche would be playing now – in the conference finals – isn’t a “homer” view. The Avs and Detroit both operated in the summer as if the season was going to be salvaged, even if significantly curtailed, and they would have been the top two seeds and marched through to the conference finals. Even if an October settlement that saved the season included a salary cap, it almost certainly would have included enough 2004-05 grandfathering provisions to allow the Avs and Red Wings to reap the benefits of their contractual commitments for at least this season.
The rivalry would have been rekindled.
But instead of playing host to part of one of the top playoff rivalries in sports this week, the Pepsi Center is dark.
After the Nuggets’ playoff exit and pending the Colorado Crush’s playoff fate, there is only one ticketed event scheduled for the Pepsi Center for the rest of the month. One. And that’s the Crush’s Friday game against the Nashville Kats.
There aren’t even showbiz alternatives, because Elton John’s appearance last week was the only concert on the May calendar.
Of course, springtime relief for major-league sports withdrawal is available at nearby Coors Field.
No, I take that back.
Alas, there is no relief at Coors Field – unless it comes out of the opposing bullpen.
For all of this, we have the NHL and the players’ association to thank. Think the Three Stooges on one side of the table, the Marx Brothers on the other. (With Harpo as the spokesman, for all the good he’s accomplishing.)
Granted, the two sides are meeting regularly again, but that seems of little significance. They meet for hours, emerge and announce they’re making no progress, then issue missives accusing each other of bad-faith bargaining, inflexibility, misrepresenting the other side’s stands and eating more than their fair share of the bagels in the meeting room.
Even that capsule collective bargaining update is, as far as I’m concerned, overkill. I don’t want to write about the ongoing labor mess, which scrubbed the entire 2004-05 season, much less read about it. And I cover the sport. If that’s a confession of malfeasance or dereliction of duty, so be it. Guilty. I’m sick of it, bored by it, disdainful of it all – and virtually everyone involved.
Hey, guys.
Just tell us when it’s over.
In the meantime, we can only wonder about what might have been. And hope that the eventual salary cap settlement doesn’t reward inertia and prevent ambitious ownerships, such as those in Detroit and Colorado, from separating themselves from the pack. In recent seasons, evidence has mounted that high payrolls don’t guarantee success, but if the settlement turns the NHL into too democratic of an enterprise, the Detroit-Colorado playoff rivalry – the one we didn’t get to see this spring – might never be the same again.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
Terry Frei is the author of “Horns, Hogs and Nixon Coming” (hardback 2002, trade paperback August 2004) and “Third Down and a War to Go” (hardback September 2004).
