A new perspective

[DrMolotov 0]

From todays Toronto Star

Season's end offers new hope

DAMIEN COX

The NHL as we knew it is dead.

And this is a good thing.

If you were one of those people desperately hoping for a shard of a season to begin later this month or early next month, my condolences.

But it would have been a sham, an insulting season of convenience that would have been made possible by a hurried agreement that would have probably contained a virus that would eventually infect and disable the industry.

Is it shocking that the NHL and the players union couldn't get a deal done yesterday?

Yes.

But will it ruin the industry or damage the sport?

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Blowing up the whole damn thing, this entire blighted, corrupt hockey structure at least has the potential of delivering far more to the average fan than the old one.

Until now, you could have split the NHL into a pre-1967 era, the time dominated by the Original Six, and the post-1967 era that included the establishment of the NHL Players' Association and the ballooning of the league to 30 franchises.

After 38 years, the post-'67 era ended yesterday.

Now begins the post-meltdown era, or the post-Armageddon era.

Whatever you want to call it, something ended with Gary Bettman's sombre announcement in Manhattan yesterday, and yet something new and promising is now in the offing despite the dire predictions that we have been launched into some kind of nuclear shinny winter.

That old order was so screwed up in so many ways a last-ditch deal would have simply postponed major surgery to another day.

All we know now is that when it restarts, the league will probably, if not certainly, still have 30 teams.

Everything else is up for grabs. Economics. Players. Rules.

Given how sick many were of what the league had become in the past six to seven years, the promise of new possibilities couldn't have come soon enough.

The world's fastest game appeared to be stuck in permanent slow motion, while the league found itself unable to market a new generation of interesting players because the game had been reduced to a crawl.

The economics were fouled up and a constant source of irritation, so much so that good organizations in wonderful markets couldn't make a go of it and players who couldn't sell a ticket if they were assigned to Junior C were making $2 million per season.

"The system was insatiable," said Edmonton Oilers president Patrick LaForge. "It continued to swallow up all our good efforts."

There was no direction, particularly internationally, and television, particularly south of the border, had become a vast wasteland. The league and the union had become such bitter enemies that even well-meaning initiatives became snarled in red tape.

This wreckage, of course, will continue to smoulder for a while. Expect more nasty words and accusations in the coming days.

But there were also good things that emerged over the past months that could grow into great things in the new, post-meltdown era.

For starters, while Bettman and Bob Goodenow have outlived their usefulness as labour negotiators because both are so thoroughly despised by the enemy, NHL vice-president Bill Daly and union president Trevor Linden emerged as true statesmen.

Bettman and Goodenow don't necessarily have to be fired, although there's not a fan in North America who would shed a tear if both were.

It's just time to let others, like Daly and Linden, assume leadership of the effort to reach a new CBA.

Whenever a new deal is produced, it will likely be one that addresses the league's real economic problems, includes a mutually agreeable manner to tabulate league revenues and will generate a longer lasting peace than if the two sides had produced an 11th-hour agreement.

As well, there is near total agreement across the board that the game must be fixed. If this season had been "saved," the NHL would have returned with a shootout, a new tag-up offside rule and other subtle changes.

Now, you may get the cancellation of the red line, streamlined goalie gear, perhaps a larger ice surface and any number of radical concepts that could never have seen the light of day under the new order and will result in a faster, more exciting game.

It would be foolish to foresee cheaper tickets. But in many markets, teams are going to have to woo fans in a way they have never had to and probably could have tried to avoid with the phony excitement of a shortened season.

"We are going to have to re-earn our place in our fans' world," said Bettman.

The drama of the past 48 hours temporarily made us all forget how sick we'd become of the posturing of the past six months and created a short-lived sense of urgency that overwhelmed the sentiment, particularly in Canada, that we really didn't like the NHL much any more.

Now that drama and urgency has vanished. What was is gone for good.

Be happy about it.

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I hope he's right. It is so nice to read something bright and refreshing.

The league and PA have a lot of work to do, and I hope the end result of their work creates a beautiful game.

[MDE3 0]

He must have read my post from yesterday in "NHLPA Counters...."