The NHL is back, do you care? (New Poll 7-28-05)

[slickdtc]

First off, I'm actually pretty surprised with the results. Currently, 75 people say they are ready to see the NHL come back, while 53 wouldn't care if it stayed away. At one point it was 17-17, and that disappointed me. I'm glad the "Yes!" is up.

And to address KBomber and Troller's comments. There are bad seeds in all sports. There are Yashin's in the NHL, just the same as their are Dampier's in the NBA. Guys who seem to play only for the money.

But to say that the majority of the players in the NHL (or any other sport for that matter) do it only for the money is downright bogus. These guys have worked their way up the ranks of hockey; from pee wees, to juniors to college or Elite Leagues in Europe, to the NHL. You can't be playing hockey that long just to get to the top to give up your passion and only play for the money.

It's not fair at all to label the majority of professional athletes money hungry jerks.

[Stu]

I'm with Sully. I didn't realize how much I missed it. I can't wait for the season and am excited to see who the Bruins can sign.

[Hellfish76]

As if my Avatar wasn't enough of an answer, yes!


I can't wait to see them fight for the right to hoist this trophy again!

[Eski33]

Although the teams will be losing key players due to the new salary cap system, I am ready for some hockey. It will be odd to see McCarty in a uniform other than the Wings'....

[Jistic]

I live in Chicago, so I didn't even realize Hockey was gone for a year.

[spacefunk]

I have no other choice but to care because we in the Burgh are getting a player that's better than Gretsky, Lemieux, and Jesus Christ combined. According to the so called experts around here.

[kennyacid]

Heck nah i dont care. I dont like the concept of a stick hitting a "black" puck














nah Im glad it back, i miss the fights. Thats the only reason why i played hockey.

[DrJones]

Quote: Originally Posted by KBomber

THe NHL used to be about players who had a quiet nobility about them. If you know anything about the game, you understand that it is likely one of the most physically demanding and that the Stanley Cup Playoffs are more akin to a war of attrition than anything else found in pro sports. Hockey players were the good guys. The nice guys who would fight like hell on the ice and then go for a beer together afterwards. They were the kinds of guys that you showed your kids and said, "That's a good way to be" Something unpalatable started happening to pro hockey and the players that played it in around 10 to 15 years ago. They started to change. Oh sure, it wasn't immediately apparent, but if you blinked you could see it when you re-focused that something about the game was changing in a way that wasn't very good. There are a lot of reasons, some blamed the ice surface, some blamed the rules, some blamed expansion, some blamed the owners. There was blame, everywhere, to go around. As the game changed and became a whole lot more ugly, the players seemed to also reflect that self-same quality. Suddenly, hockey players weren't the noble "warrior-poets" that, at least, I remembered. Suddenly they were guys like Alexei Yashin, playing when it suited him. Suddenly, they were guys like Chris Pronger and Jeremy Roenick, mouthing off like the fans somehow owed them and were beneath them. Suddenly the face of hockey was Todd Bertuzzi, doing things in the name of "The Code" that were beneath honour and used the mystical ambiguities of that term to, somehow, try to rationalize a brutality that, at its core, was not about sportsmanship or the game, but about agenda and heinous violence. I played hockey for a good portion of my life. Hockey is core to Canada as a pursuit. It defines Canadians and is intricately woven through the fabric of the Canadian experiences of culture and identity. My family was involved with the NHL Oldtimers when guys from the Golden Age were fighting with the NHL and the NHLPA to have something other than memories to see them through their retirements. I've met a great many players from yesteryear and today and, as such, have some basis for comparing those generations. The new guys just don't cut it for me. I turned off Gary Bettman's and Bob Goodenow's NHL in 2002. The game was hideous. The organization was hideous. The spirit was hideous. And the players were hideous. Sure there may be some good guys in the bunch, found in any of the camps responsible for the NHL and its product, but they are few and far between. Many of them will soon be retired. The NHL won't be back on my radar for any time that I can foresee. I have been successfully disenfranchised from the product and the personalities. To me, it is all a crappy mess. They have a long way to go to prove that it is anything but that to me, and I have other things to do. Maybe if more "fans" were less like robotic drones and more like an enlightened market of consumers, then they would then be able to convey to the NHL that the brand needs rework through the only media that the NHL and NHLPA understands -- through their profits and losses. Maybe then, realistic and compelling change in the game could occur. But from the comments I see here, I only sense relief amongst the "drones", so happy to to receive whatever scraps he NHL offers from its table, as long as it means that Ron and Don can be seen on Coach's Corner in around 8:15 PM every Saturday night Just because the NHL says it's the best game of hockey in town, doesn't mean that they're right. Have fun.............

True, the NHL has been a mess for the last 10 years following the golden era of 1979-94. That's why most Canadians supported the lockout. The league needed to be rebuilt -- salaries needed to be reduced to sane levels, rule changes needed to be implemented that would promote offensive skills and punish conservative hockey, competitive balance needed to be restored. To me, the NHL has gone a long way towards accomplishing this. I wish they had chopped 4-6 teams (Carolina, Atlanta, Nashville, Florida, Anaheim, Phoenix, I'm looking at you), but it's a start.