The Hockey Stop

It seems like a decade ago Tim Thomas and the Boston Bruins raised the Stanley Cup after winning Game 7 against the Canucks in Vancouver. The off-season has been tragic. The headlines have been filled with one untimely death after another. So this season comes with more anticipation than most because of the simply awful summer hockey fans had to endure.

So as I play the newly unwrapped EA Sports NHL 12 for Xbox 360 and watch the Toronto Maple Leafs play the Ottawa Senators in the second preseason game of the year on NHL Network (the Predators beat the Panthers earlier today), it feels different than past seasons. It feels great.

Tuesday night the Washington Capitals face off against Nashville in the inaugural Baltimore Hockey Classic at 1st Mariner Arena. The Caps have a lot of fans in Balmore so it is nice to see owner Ted Leonsis and the team paying respect to their fan base in Charm City with this preseason game. Plus, the Preds are a potential new Southeast Division rival next season because the former Atlanta Thrashers and now Winnipeg Jets will likely be moved to the Central Division in 2012-2013, leaving a spot open in the Southeast. And geographically and culturally Nashville makes the most sense to replace Atlanta/Winnipeg in the division, although the Columbus Blue Jackets and Detroit Red Wings are two other teams that could switch from the Central to the Southeast.

There is so much parity in the National Hockey League that any team can beat any other team on any night. That is what makes professional ice hockey in North America so exciting.

There are also new rules in place thanks to NHL Senior Vice President of Player Safety and Hockey Operations Brendan Shanahan and NHLPA Special Advisor Mathieu Schneider. The two biggest rule changes concern Rule 48 -- illegal checks to the head and Rule 41 - boarding. Also, spring-loaded curved glass will be in place next to the team benches instead of the padded stanchions that were in place during Zdeno Chara's hit on Max Pacioretty last season. Other minor changes include testing shallower nets in preseason games and implementing a new policy on social media outlets like Twitter. Here is the video explanation of the rules changes:



Here's to a great season no matter what team you are rooting for.

Game on!

The Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine Center held a summit in Rochester, Minnesota this week titled "Ice Hockey Summit: Action on Concussion." The event was bound to garner media attention given the recent crackdown by both the NFL and NHL on hits to the head after a slew of incredibly violent incidents.

The general conclusion? Helmets aren't the answer. The league must ban all hits to the head. Period.

So the bottom line in hockey and football seems to be that if they are really serious about eliminating serious brain injuries then everyone from the parents to the players to the referees to the executives to the fans must relearn what is considered a proper part of the body to make physical contact with. And just as a player would never think of whacking an opponent in the groin area, with new tough rules in place never again will we have to see a player carted off the ice or the football field on a stretcher because of a hit to the head.

Here is an excellent video report on head shots in hockey from a local Vancouver news station.

Brendan Shanahan is shunning the hockey purists and that is a good thing for the future of the National Hockey League.

The NHL's new VP of hockey and business affairs wrapped up the league's first Research, Development and Orientation Camp on Thursday at the Toronto Maple Leafs' nearly one-year-old practice facility -- the state-of-the-art Mastercard Centre for Hockey Excellence.

The past week featured 33 top-rated 17-year-old junior hockey players hitting the ice to test a series of potential new rules in front of NHL coaches, general managers and executives.

Some of the rules will likely never see the light of day, such as during the overtime session reducing the number of players on the ice by a man every three minutes until it is two on two. However, there are some rules that fans could see in the next few years.

Right now icing the puck is incredibly dangerous, even by hockey standards, because it creates an intense race to touch the puck first (see picture above) and one little nick in the ice surface can send a player barreling into the boards head first and cause a serious injury.

That is why, in my opinion, automatic icing like they have in international competition is what the NHL needs. And no-touch icing is on the table and was tested this past week. But also tested was "hybrid icing," which would allow the linesman to rule an icing if it is clear that the defender would have touched the puck first. But this rule does nothing to mitigate the close races for the puck and would do nothing to prevent serious injuries. In my view, while hybrid icing would be a step in the right direction, why not just go full throttle and write no-touch icing into the rulebook. After all, if it could save one player from a serious and possibly career-ending injury then it is worth it.

There were plenty of other rules tested including a referee sitting on the sideline above the ice to get a better view of the action and any infractions (the coaches don't like this one because it is harder to yell at the ref), but the bigger picture here is a promising one. The RDO Camp is a reminder that over five years after the lost season due to the lockout, the NHL is still working hard to win back fans by making the game more dynamic and exciting then it has ever been.

The danger in so many new rules is that it will water down the game so much it will become a joke and that these are simply gimmicks to attract non-hockey fans in an era of sports entertainment overload where a guy on a couch can just as easily watch the Lingerie Football League on his 500-channel cable package than the nightly pro hockey game.

But if done in a careful and thoughtful way as the past week's testing proves, then it can really correct some outdated rules and make the game of hockey more exciting without detracting from the purity of the sport. Otherwise if nothing is done, then you have Major League Baseball, where managers still get ejected for arguing calls when video replay would have saved time and lowered the blood pressure of managers and umpires across professional baseball.

So kudos to Gary Bettman, Shanny and the National Hockey League for holding the Research, Development and Orientation Camp. By thinking outside of the box they are assuring a promising future for the fastest sport in the world.

As the National Hockey League skates into the second decade of the new millenium, a recap of the Oughts is in order -- both the highlights and lowlights.

Overall the NHL is on a positive track as profits are up, the game has never been more exciting to watch and technological innovations are changing the way fans view and interact with their favorite teams. But there are also some financially failing franchises, injuries are on the rise and professional hockey is still a distant fourth behind the NFL, NBA and MLB in Americans' sporting passions.

Just some of the many trends and moments worth examining.

WHAT RECESSION? Despite the global financial crisis, the NHL had its most profitable year in 2008-2009 and team values rose $3 million with revivals in Chicago, Washington and Pittsburgh leading the charge and new deals with companies such as Honda and Cisco providing a boost.

LOCKOUT LOW POINT Remember the 2004-2005 lockout? I know, it has faded from memory as fast as a Joe Thornton slap shot. But this was no doubt the lowest point for the league in the past decade. The NHL earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first North American professional sports league to cancel an entire season. It is nothing short of a miracle the NHL was able to survive and now thrive after the devastating "lost season."

NEW RULES: THE GOOD In an effort to woo back disaffected fans following the lockout, the NHL instituted new rules to make the game more exciting to watch. Perhaps the most significant change was cracking down on the neutral zone trap defense, which was made famous by the New Jersey Devils. While the Devils had much success with this style of play, they were widely criticized for making the game boring. New rules that opened up the neutral zone took effect such as doubling the width of the blue and red lines, lifting the prohibition on two-line passes and vigorously enforcing obstruction penalties such as hooking and holding.

Another significant rule change was instituting the shootout if an overtime regular season game ends in a tie. While some argue that the shootout is a cheap gimmick, I would argue that it has made the game more exciting by showcasing the skills of shooters and goalies and preventing teams from settling for a tie because there is always two points on the line.

NEW RULES: THE BAD Automatic "no-touch" icing was initially going to be part of the new rules but it wasn't adopted. Bad decision. Injuries due to players racing for the puck is a major concern that could be alleviated by automatic icing. Also, that funny-looking trapezoid zone area behind the net should be eliminated. Restricting the area where a goalie can play the puck is unfair and unnecessary.

THE RISE OF THE EUROS The influx of European talent has enhanced the NHL's international appeal and made the game more fun to watch. The Detroit Red Wings and Washington Capitals are prime examples. In 2008 Nicklas Lidstrom became the first European captain to win a Stanley Cup when Detroit downed Pittsburgh. The Caps are bursting with European talent such as Alex Ovechkin, Alex Semin, Nicklas Backstrom, Tomas Fleischmann and Simeon Varlamov just to name a few. Plus, the NHL has moved some of their regular-season openers to Europe. This season games were played in the Czech Republic and Sweden. Expect many more games played overseas in the next decade.

WINTER CLASSIC The now annual New Year's Day outdoor game has been a great success by turning historic venues such as Wrigley Field and this year Fenway Park into ice hockey rinks and airing the game to a national TV audience on NBC. The inaugural game in 2008 at Buffalo's Ralph Wilson Stadium broke the NHL attendance record (71,217) and the Wings-Hawks game at Wrigley last January had the highest TV ratings of any hockey game in 33 years.

VANCOUVER OLYMPICS The upcoming Winter Olympics in Vancouver is going to be an amazing showcase for the NHL's best players representing their countries. The fact that it is in North America is a huge bonus because the games will be shown in prime time. Could Team Canada and Sidney Crosby play Team Russia and Alex Ovechkin for the gold medal?

THE COYOTES CONUNDRUM The fate of the Phoenix Coyotes was one of the biggest question marks heading toward the end of the decade and was a black eye for the league. The saga in Arizona started when the Coyotes filed for bankruptcy on May 5. Since then, there have been a circus of potential owners -- some wanting to keep the team in Phoenix and others wanting to move the team to Hamilton, Ontario. On Dec. 18, Ice Edge Holdings purchased the team and are expected to keep the franchise in Phoenix.

AN UP AND DOWN DECADE ON TV The decade started on ABC and ESPN and is ending on NBC and Versus. While many fans including myself have been critical of the NHL's contract with Versus, there appears to be light at the end of the tunnel because of the NBC Universal-Comcast deal.

The reason I believed the NHL should have stayed on ESPN, despite its anti-hockey bias, had to do with leveraging matchups such as Pens-Caps from last year's playoffs in order to reach the maximum audience. Versus (formerly the Outdoor Life Network) has always been a niche channel with limited reach. Thus, one of the greatest playoff series in recent memory was not hyped as it should have been.

But Comcast owns Versus and the hope is that there will be more cross-coverage and promotion with NBC and that Versus and its hockey coverage will benefit from the power of NBC. So while the past decade has been mixed on television, the future certainly looks bright. Also, the NHL Network, NHL GameCenter Live on NHL.com and the NHL Center Ice package have given more options to watch out-of-market games.

NHL BECOMING MORE DIVERSE Despite the stereotype of NHL players being as white as the ice they play on, the NHL has quietly become more colorful as the decade has progressed. There are currently 26 blacks, nine Asians, six Hispanics and eight Jews playing in the National Hockey League.