Puckin' Around

Being the hockey aficionado I’d like to think I am, I’ve often taken the Forrest Gump approach – hockey is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get.  Think of a bad hockey game like a bad pizza – even if it’s bad, it’s still pretty darn good.  Where else can you watch twelve guys on skates try to pulverize each other trying to get a round piece of vulcanized rubber into the other team’s net more times than the other – with a stick?  Fun – right?  Always has been for me.

But, I digress, and I’m sorry to say this, folks, but this season I’m just not feeling it.   Certainly, like every year, there have been those stand still moments – like Martin Brodeur beating and continuing to set the all time record for shutouts, or the site of Bobby Orr taking a warm up skate on the outdoor rink at Fenway Park in Boston – I mean, sure, how could you not get goose bumps seeing that?  I’ll tell you what, though, and I’m embarrassed to admit this, but my top three favorite games so far this season were all Junior Hockey games – all of them played in the past couple of weeks in a little town called Saskatoon.  Thank God for the IIHF and the annual World Junior Championships!

Even though I’m a heartbroken Canadian in the wake of a Team USA overtime victory and the dreams of a sixth straight gold medal shattered – I still have my pride.  Any American who follows our great frozen sport should hold their head up high – those young men put on one hell of a show and were full marks for their Gold Medal performance – and nine of those young men can return to defend their title in 2011 in Buffalo NY.  What are you doing New Year’s Eve?  Well, if I have my way – I’ll be (again) right in front of my TV with my Rickard’s Red and chicken wings, hopefully watching yet another Canada-USA classic.  For those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about, let me just say you don’t know what you’re missing.

So, while the future of our game is so bright, I have to wear shades, the debate on whether or not the NHL could, should or would participate in the Olympics moving forward needs to end now.

It shouldn’t happen ever again.

Wh-wh-what!?!

But I just finished saying how much I enjoyed the World Juniors, and there’s another big tournament coming up in just over a month in Vancouver?!

You heard me correctly.

The NHL, after Vancouver 2010, needs to end their association with the Olympics once and for all.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I have thoroughly enjoyed the previous three Olympic Games where NHL players were involved, especially Salt Lake City 2002.  Vancouver 2010 should be a good tournament, yet again.  But, at the expense of a mediocre NHL season?  No way, San Jose.

Having to endure a schedule where teams are playing at least every second night, and often three games in four nights was supposed to give a playoff aura every night.  It hasn’t happened.  In fact, what it has done is open up the injury can of worms.  Alright, I’m not naïve.  I know injuries are going to happen no matter what – I get it.  But just look at the long list of the walking wounded on any given day, and it’s a wonder the NHL can still manage to put games on the ice.  Sure, the players are in better shape and conditioned far beyond what I can ever hope for.  But let’s be honest folks – unless you’re Robocop (or unless your name is Chris Chelios), there’s no way anybody’s body can put up with a schedule like what the NHL puts forth during every Olympic year.  They refuse to make amendments to the training camp schedule.  The regular season starts a week early and ends a week late, which means it’s almost July before we see the Stanley Cup.  Perhaps our saving grace is we don’t have to watch Gary Bettman give a yearly recycled state of affairs address at the yearly popularity contest, um, I mean, All Star Game.  More than likely, however, “The Count” himself will be somewhere in Vancouver taking it all in like a kid at Walt Disney World.

Let’s be 100% fair here – the whole point behind going to the Olympics in the first place was to watch the World’s best players.  But I ask you – how can we watch the world’s best players on the world’s biggest stage, when a good portion of them are hurt?  The number of man games lost to injury this year for many of the NHL’s top players is staggering at best.  Some teams are even missing their entire top scoring line!  It will be a miracle if the players who have been named to go to Vancouver actually get there in one piece.  Then, when the dust settles at the end of February, we still have the final third of the season to play!  Just to give you an idea of how bad it is?  Jeff Marek on Hockey Night In Canada Radio plays the “Theme from M.A.S.H.” every day when he goes over the injury lists, and most days ends up having to play it twice.

As Forrest Gump would say – “And that’s all I have to say about that”.