The Gay NHL
Maximum Sports
by Cris"This game is gay now," said Philadelphia Flyers left winger Donald Brashear after being ejected from a game against the New York Rangers on March 2, 2006. I'm now sure if "gay" is the appropriate word to use in this situation, but Brashear certainly made a good point about a changed game.
"You can't even do anything anymore," he says "They changed the game to favor the superstars. You can't do anything anymore to set some respect out there."
Respect. That was Brashear's job before new rules and stricter penalties became part of the National Hockey League this year. If someone messed with a star player on his team, Brashear would let them know that this kind of behavior was not acceptable, usually by knocking them to the cold ice surface with his fist.
I'm not saying that the NHL needs to be a violent sport in order for it to succeed, I like a fast passed, high tempo hockey game, but what I don't like are ten penalties called on each team during a game. Without a doubt, some things needed to be done to draw more interest to NHL. The long time fourth major North American professional league has seen its ratings sink to all time lows getting beat out by Arena Football and Olympic Curling. Curling, ladies and gentleman. For all of you that are not familiar, it's like shuffle board on ice.
So what does the NHL do to make their game more attractive? They call a ton of penalties on marginal infractions, they open up the ice a bit by eliminating the red line, allowing two line passes. I like some of the new the rules, but what I don't like is taking away a role that has long since been a tradition in the NHL. That is the role of an enforcer. A guy like Brashear can set the tone of a game with a bone jarring hit or picking a fight with another team's tough guy, just to get a crowd back into a game. Every great team has had one. You go down the list from Marty McSorley to Tie Domi and Bob Probert. Every team needs a guy that can scrap and turn things around with just a couple of jabs.
Maybe Brashear went a little far with his "gay" comment, but here's a guy that finally said something about it. The physical play of the NHL has been missed. You rarely see a guy going hard at the net, giving goaltenders a nightmare of at time. Instead you see powerplay after powerplay and a ton of slapshots from a distance. Teams are afraid to cause traffic in front of the net, because of interference penalties and checking penalties that were never called before.
My solution? Go to a wider ice service. Keep the game the way it was, but make the ice surface the same size Olympic and European hockey is played. This way you can still have the physical play and the speedy superstar can still allude defenders because he has more room to work. You'll have a faster game, more open ice hits and a league that's not so ahem..."gay."
