Today’s Canucks-Avalanche game is the fifth of the season between the Northwest Division rivals, and a sixth is set for Wednesday at Vancouver. That’s an extreme example of front-loading under the new schedule format that calls for eight games between division opponents this season, and my theory remains that when the schedule was roughed out, the NHL was assuming Todd Bertuzzi’s suspension would last through at least the first 20 games of the season – maybe even longer.
(I also endorse the Grassy Knoll theory.)
Regardless, this has been a little too much.
At times, laments about the NHL’s power structure leaning to the East is paranoia, but this decisively unbalanced schedule – pushed by deservedly influential Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello – has more to do with the whims and box-office concerns of the East than fairness.
More than ever, players on Eastern seaboard teams can be back in their own beds by a reasonable hour after road games. Travel costs have been cut for teams in the Eastern time zone. And because the Atlantic seaboard cities tend to be both laughably provincial – New York is the most blinkered and provincial market in the county, in fact – and also far more regionally oriented than we are out here in the sticks, this is a boon for the NHL only in the East.
Especially because fans who don’t subscribe to the NHL’s Center Ice cable package of home-team broadcasts still aren’t stumbling on games on OLN, as used to happen when games were on ESPN or ESPN2, the lure of actually seeing all NHL teams in each city should be even more important.
This is one experiment in the New NHL order that should be junked. Six games against each divisional opponent should be the max.
Unmentionable
If I wasn’t sick of writing about Sean Avery and of Sean Avery’s antics, I’d do an item here about the Los Angeles winger’s latest histrionics, when his antics in a two-game set against the Predators goaded Nashville’s Darcy Hordichuk into completely losing it on Thanksgiving night, jumping him and drawing instigator, misconduct and game misconduct calls, in addition to the fighting major.
I’d also mention that Avery, perhaps the top diver in the league, and the only player who has been fined by the front office for multiple trips off the platform, accused the Thrashers’ Paul Kariya of being the top diver in the league.
And I’d say this all proves Avery is very good at what he does. But that would be playing right into his hands.
Hawks and zebras
When Chicago general manager Dale Tallon was the team’s radio analyst, he regularly complained about the officiating. (An aside: Even worse than cheerleading is when a basketball or hockey broadcaster, even if otherwise respected, turns a game into a relentless “oh-that’s-a-bad-call, oh-that’s-a-good-call” critique of the officiating. Not that we’d know anything about that in Denver.)
Now that he’s in the front office, the former defenseman is getting a little paranoid as well about the brain-lock Blackhawks’ tendency to take penalties. He has set up an overdue meeting between the team and officiating czar Stephen Walkom next week. It’s overdue because many other teams took the league up on an offer to hold sessions with officials during the exhibition season.
“It has to be fixed. We can’t keep doing it,” Tallon said.
Going into the weekend, Chicago had been on the short end of 5-on-3s 32 times and had the two-man advantage five times.
Reading between the lines
Every time Canada comes up short in international competition, whether in the World Cup or the Olympics, there is considerable hand-wringing over whether Canadian youth hockey is relying on archaic, Canadian-centric approaches that leave its nation’s players with more grit, but often less skill and finesse than players from the rest of the world.
And the legendary former Maple Leaf, Howie Meeker, says: “Told you so.”
The Literary Review of Canada last week listed the 20 most important Canadian books, and one was Meeker’s “Hockey Basics,” published in 1973. He emphasized developing skill, but it fell on many deaf ears among the hockey set that emphasizes gumption, grit and, at least implicitly, all elements of the often ineffable “Code.”
Meeker told the Ottawa Sun “none of (what is) in that book has got down to the (youth) hockey leagues in the country yet. If the game is going to be a game of speed, skill, and finesse, then we’re on the wrong page.”
Gretzky gets a pass
Phoenix’s Shane Doan drew an instigator penalty in the last five minutes of the chippy Coyotes-Anaheim game Tuesday, and that calls for an automatic $10,000 fine for the instigator’s coach.
Yet NHL disciplinarian Colin Campbell said the new rule will be assessed and applied on a case-by-case basis and said Phoenix coach – a fellow named Wayne Gretzky – wouldn’t be fined. Campbell noted Doan played the most minutes of any skater in the game, saying that he wasn’t a slug being sent out in the final minutes to deliver one of those ridiculous “messages.” That’s a defensible conclusion, but the rule is the rule.
Think the NHL would have come up with this case-by-case standard if Columbus’ Gerard Gallant, who would feel the pain of a $10,000 fine a lot more than Gretzky, were the first coach involved in a parallel situation? Or if former Colorado Rockies coach Barry Smith were on the Coyotes’ bench?
The fine should be automatic – no ifs, ands, buts or Gretzky exceptions.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
