The Mounting Snore Threat

First off, for anyone who ever came here to read my little blog, sorry for no posts in 2 months. University is harder than a Volchenkov hip-check, and I've only now found time to think about taking a side pause.

When I do pause to think of the NHL, I look at the headlines and statements from high-ranking officials and hear that growth is the name of the game. We want to reach more homes in the US, so we should be on ESPN. We want to generate excitement abroad, so we should start more seasons with more games and teams playing overseas, and play for the IIHF's Victoria Cup.

But when I look behind them at the game we're peddling, I see it slowly being eroded. Hockey is by far the fastest paced sport in North America, and one of the top major sports worldwide. This is starting to change though. Fans in Toronto cheered earlier in the season, when their Leafs were finally able to beat the Sens, 3-0, in their fourth matchup this season. Despite the win, though, one would have to wonder what there was to cheer about, or even to show up and watch.

The game was highlighted by a tight trap by Toronto, leading to most of the game being puck, sometimes with player, enters Leaf territory, puck gets sent back out. On the other end would be puck goes into Sens territory, occasionally followed by a single Leaf, and eventually maybe a second. While it worked, it was about the dullest hockey around. Leafs management knows that fans want wins, and they are rabid and carefree enough to not care how they come.

Is that so wise though? The Isles beat the Sens later on in their losing stretch using a similarly tight and dull trap game. Looking into the stands, the announced 9,000 or so for attendance was all but an admitted farce. Even the Devils - who have captured the Cup and contended very well for many years, and who feature great veterans, exciting youngsters, and one of the game's greatest goaltenders - could not manage to fill their new arena just one game into its hockey lifetime, getting just over 13,000 fans for a 6-1 win in October over the Lightning.

The sportswriters are quick to suggest that lower scoring is what's taking the game down. However most would agree that 3-0 for the Leafs should have been exciting... only it was a snore. The most exciting game I've seen this season, and perhaps ever, was a 3-1 Sens victory over Montreal. Countless scoring chances, hard hits, end-to-end rushes, it was an edge of your seat thriller. All that excitement despite the fact that it only featured one goal in the first 55 minutes (interestingly coming at 11:11 of the first on the day before Remembrance Day), and the last goal being an empty-netter.

This goes to show you that exciting hockey is about just that - exciting hockey. The trap is not that, nor are the now ever-expanding teams who allow scant few shots on goal per game because of blocking, shooting lane sabotage, and crafty sticks. Not all bad things, but when it means that you only see just north of 20 shots in a game, and most of them being poor chances affected by the brick wall defensive play, it just destroys the game. The surprising Isles pay for it with their poor support. New Jersey is only now paying penance for their style, despite their success with it. Sadly, should Toronto push it even further, it will destroy the league even more.

Should Toronto take up the game of bore and trap hockey, it will sadly go unpunished. Their legions of fans clamor only for victory. That may suit Toronto well now, but what of the rest of the League? When a less-than-rabid fan tunes in for or attends a game featuring the Leafs 'playing' this kind of hockey - or worse, attempts to turn others onto the game by treating them to a game against the 'pinnacle of popularity in the league' - you will never win a fan over, and instead just turn them away. It would be the same in UFC or football. Nobody would be turned onto the sports if fighters only used a single-blow to end the match, and it became a trial of luck to see who would land it first. Nobody would tune into the Superbowl either, if the teams mounted a strategy that merely pushed the line forward 10 yards each down, holding back their opponents, and then on the last down attempted a field goal.

That is the problem facing us today, the real threat of boring hockey. Toronto may think that winning at any cost is what is best, but even they will feel it eventually. Boring hockey could cause league shrinkage, which would likely lead to fewer games for them to make money off of, or seasons of 10 visits from the Sens, which fans are saying even now is not what they want.

This is no easy problem though. Most fixes suggested so far don't tackle the heart of the issue. Decreasing goalie equipment or increasing net size only makes more of those badly blocked poor shots go in, and the latter would upset countless dedicated to the purity of the game. Tackling the boring play requires more than that, and simple rule changes would have difficulty in tackling the snore-fest slowly inching across the league. Real answers are needed, or else we may lose our game forever, Leafs fans be damned.