How to fix the NHL

[curt4074]

1) Play the game.... there has to be a season next year, or the NHL will remain in Europe for good

2) Restrict Pads, the obvious, yet simplest Solution, Make it a porportion to your body size... so it's fair to all... Making the nets bigger would be retarded.... no comment should be neccisary

3) Move some teams/Contract some teams, boo freakin hooo to the 12 fans of the predators and hurricanes.... The NHL Needs to focus on a specific market.... 2 Teams from Florida??? BAD INVESTMENT, try one.... Focus on the Northeast, and the Midwest, there is a HUGE untapped market in these 2 areas..moving the Predators to wisconsin, and the Hurricans to hartford would be a start

4) Remove the 2 line pass, college doesn't use it, and it DOES NOT creat a cherry picking game, yes, longer passes happen...but the defense just plays stronger, it would increase scoring, and creat a faster paced game.

5) Tag up Offsides, Offsides the way it is now, slows down the game, and restricts the flow of the game.... changing this would increase the marketablity of hockey

6) EDUCATE THE CASUAL FAN! on the video screens during breaks, instead of advertising, teach the fans the basic rules and concepts of the game, many people going to their first game, don't like the sport because they don't understand the rules. Another way to achieve this, is in every seat, or with every ticket, a short pamphlet filled with pictures and the Most basic and key rules of hockey printed on them....

7) Continous OT in the regular season, with a OT Loss worth the same as a tie, teams would open up their game in overtime realizing that a loss is worth a point anyway, and with a guarunteed winner, there would be very few games that last beyond 2 overtimes.

And now we have a drastically improved game/fanbase your thoughts?

[TStewart#20fan]

shortening the season
have 2 nights where hockey is the focus, like football, sort of

less teams, Nashville, Florida, California & TExas don t care that much about hockey

[Baseball Guru]

Not so sure you can say Florida doesnt care much about hockey..

It would be hard to take away hockey from Florida, especially Tampa at this point seeing how they are the defending champs..

[Teddy Ballgame]

- I'VE BEEN WRACKING MY BRAIN as to how to end this lockout of the hockey players by the NHL owners and get a settlement to the management-union dispute and get hockey back on the ice instead of just in the boardrooms. FINALLY, I HAVE THE ANSWER!!!

- YOU SEE, the big issue in dispute is that the players now consume betwen 73 and 75% of the total revenue that the owners derive from NHL hockey and the owners claim that no competitive private enterprise can possibly afford to exist in the long run if 73% or more of its revenues go to labour. If you think about it, what they are really saying is that they are not able to manage their operations with so little left over after they pay the players their 73% cut.

- THIS IS WHERE OUR SOCIALIST TORONTO MAYOR and long time NDP member David Miller comes in! You see, fully 84% of Mayor Miller's Toronto budget revenues go to the pay, perks and pensions of the municipal labour force. SO DAVE CAN DO IT with his socialist managerial approach! In fact, Miller would be thrilled to have 27% to play with instead of the 16% after labour costs he now has at his discretion.

- So let Miller manage the league, starting with the Toronto Maple Leafs, in exactly the same socialist way he now manages the city of Toronto. There will be some changes, of course, but it will get hockey back on the ice and the tube. Some of the changes are:

1/ Miller favours city jobs for life after ten years of service so this means that Leaf players who get their ten years in as NHL puckmeisters will be able to continue playing until they are age 65. Think of it! Some of the players from the Leafs last Stanley Cup in 1967 will now be able to come back and play again and you'll be able to finally see these fabled stars on ice. There'll need to be some associated changes made such as getting a trainer just for treating varicose veins, having shorter line shifts (about 15 seconds) and a bathroom break for every player in every period but Miller will work around this as he does now with city workers. And sure, some of the guys still playing at over 60 may need extra time off to rest but the same generous municipal workers' benefits package that allows sanitation workers to be absent on 25% of their normal work days will apply to these players.

2/ Just as currently at City Hall where Miller allows the homeless to sleep all over the property, the homeless will expect a place of their own at the Air Canada Center and Mayor Miller will, of course, comply. But this will not get out of hand! The homeless will now be limited to just the first 5 rows of the platinum seating down near the ice level and the paying fans will be allowed to occupy the higher level seats away from the ice. No revenue problem there because Miller will simply repaint the seating and raise the ticket prices for those lucky fans who can afford seats at the ACC.

3/ As a good socialist and in the spirit of his no fighting, no violence leadership in the city of Toronto, Mayor Miller will take a hard line on hockey fighting and violence. First of all, all NHL hockey sticks will be registered by their owners which is certain to crack down on the NHL violence. Secondly, when two or more players start to make threatening gestures at each other or otherwise signal an intent to fight, special anger management counsellers hired by Miller at $150,000 each plus benefits will slide out onto the ice and calmly discuss with the players the nature of the dispute and develop coping mechanisms and face saving strategies to turn a potentially violent situation into a good old fashioned group hug session. Between these incidents and all the bathroom breaks and shift changes for the older players, games will now take about six hours each but hey, who worries about time at a time like this?

4/ Mayor Miller will be creative in his revenue raising strategies to meet the payroll and make a profit for the Leafs. Sure, he'll raise ticket prices just like the current ownership does. But he'll also impose an annual general levy on the population of Toronto as a whole and spend a lot of time *****ing, carping and whining to the provincial and federal governments for more and more millions to blow (oops, make that bestow not blow) on the players and the managers.

5/ Finally, no more being at loggerheads with the hockey players' union because Mayor Miller never met a union he didn't like and never faced a union demand he didn't cave into and never saw a worker he didn't want to unionize. So Goodenough and the players association are just going to love Mayor Miller.

LET THIS SHOW to those doubting thomases that there's nothing like the kind of skilled, focused, efficient, disciplined public sector management and union practices as championed by David Miller to get the NHL back on the ice again.

YOU'RE WELCOME

PS. THIS MESSAGE NOT ENDORSED BY DON CHERRY

[Baseball Guru]

Great post TB:thumbsup:

[Teddy Ballgame]

- BG - Glad you enjoyed the insanity of it all ... Toronto really is run as I described it by Mayor Miller and so I merely described how the Maple Leafs and the league at large would be run if our left wing whackjob was at the controls ...

On a more serious note, the new TV contract signed by the NFL will give it annual television revenues of $3.735 BILLION while the NHL - which has been pressured successfully until this past (non) season by the players' union to pay salaries on par with the NFL players' compensation - would have received $60 MILLION (i.e. less than 1/60th of the NFL deal) had there been a season this year. The players need to understand this reality when they claim that their compensation should be on par with the NFL, the NBA, MBL, etc.

On another serious and somewhat hopeful note, the NHL owners blinked or at least squinted on Tuesday by stating that they would not use substitute players to start the new season on time but would delay the start of the new season by several weeks into 2006 if this proved necessary to reach an agreement with the players' association/union. This is positive because unlike using substitute or scab labour to replace assembly line workers, for example, using substitutes in the NHL would have created huge legal and attendance and revenue problems and been more trouble than it was worth as well as forever poisoning relations between the owners and the players.

Therefore, the owners seem to have singalled that they are prepared to accept not total victory but merely 95% success and the final settlement will save some face (maybe an eyebrow or a nostril) among the players and will include some traces of the elements of the deal they proposed back in March.

Look for a new deal in the next six weeks that includes a salary cap, a salary floor, a luxury tax, significant revenue sharing, and some kind of a link between these numbers and league revenues. Certainly, it will be mainly an owners' deal and will enable the league to servive long term but it will be slightly less punative for the players than the hawks among the owners had been touting.

Bottom line, I may not live to see another Toronto Maple Leaf Stanley Cup (my life expectancy is only another 22 years) but it seems I will live to see NHL hockey again.

[Royce]

Bottom line, I may not live to see another Toronto Maple Leaf Stanley Cup (my life expectancy is only another 22 years) but it seems I will live to see NHL hockey again.


You'd have to live another 60 years to see another Rangers Stanley Cup. I'd say after Glen Sather and Dolan are gone, they might have a shot...if Jagr is still around.

[Teddy Ballgame]

You'd have to live another 60 years to see another Rangers Stanley Cup. I'd say after Glen Sather and Dolan are gone, they might have a shot...if Jagr is still around.

- R - Yes, it is truly amazing how little Sather has accomplished with the NY Rangers considering that he has so much money to work with (usually, I think, the biggest payroll in the league) and that it is a whole lot easier to attract top players to the New York market than to the smaller, more remote markets.

- I always thought that Glen Sather was over rated during his time with the Edmonton Oilers, made to look good because even Forrest Gump after a frontal lobotomy and suffering from alzheimers could have coached Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, Fuhr, Tikanen and the other Oiler superstars in the 1980s in their absolute primes to Stanley Cup rings.

- The real test of a hockey coach is how well he does when he has a good but not great team and Sather failed this test in NY. The test of a general manager (other than the bottom line test each year) is how successful he is in building a cohesive, focused, competitive team with an effective balance of ambitious young players and cagey cool headed veterans. Again, Sather in his GM role failed this test in NY.

- Rangers and Leafs - the two most underachieving franchises in the NHL although at least your team has a Stanley Cup from 11 years ago rather than from 38 years ago! Now that the top price for a platinum level (ice level) ticket at Toronto's ACC for a Leafs game is $250 (one ticket, I'm not making this up), I demand a top flight team before shelling out any more loot. I don;t think this makes me unreasonable.

[imgreat95]

dont have too much time to comment on this yet, but i think that the OT rule is good in that there would not be ties... but i think that giving a point for loss of ANY kind is one of the most riduclous things I have ever heard of in my entire life. The day that the NHL started doinmg that was a joke.

[Durango53]

A shootout at the end of OT Playoffs and reguler season

Bigger ice surface. Get more room for the players to skate so there isnt as much cluching and grabbing. Make it exciting again.

Make the pad smaller on the goalies. Guys are bigger today than years ago and make the pads smaller to where it will open up the shots more. If not smaller pads then a bigger goal. I dont like that as much but something has to be done to get the skating and speed of the game up. We dont see guys like the Great one behind the net and the guys skating around setting up for a play anymore.

[imgreat95]

no shootout. Would you settle a basketball game by shooting free throws??? A baseball game by a home run contest?? A football game by possessions starting at the 25?? Oh wait... nevermind...

[curt4074]

A shootout at the end of OT Playoffs and reguler season

Bigger ice surface. Get more room for the players to skate so there isnt as much cluching and grabbing. Make it exciting again.

Make the pad smaller on the goalies. Guys are bigger today than years ago and make the pads smaller to where it will open up the shots more. If not smaller pads then a bigger goal. I dont like that as much but something has to be done to get the skating and speed of the game up. We dont see guys like the Great one behind the net and the guys skating around setting up for a play anymore.


I just thought of another one


Eliminate the "Instigator" rule

Why? In the Days of Gretzky, Bobby Hull Etc.... You go after stars with hooks, slashes, cheap shots....you are basically putting a target on yourself for a fight.... I say let it happen.... This would free up the Ice for star players, and it would allow NHL players to police themselves

[Royce]

Have mandatory fights after the 1st and 2nd periods, winner awarded a goal.

[curt4074]

Have mandatory fights after the 1st and 2nd periods, winner awarded a goal.


I hope you're joking...cuz if you're serious a response isn't worth my time