It might be a long time before Joe Louis Arena will be filled to the brim with Red Wings fans.NHL's problems go far beyond labor
The game has been deteriorating, and economics has had little to do with it
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There's a reason the NHL sits where it sits today, on the edge of nowhere, reduced to secret meetings and final gasps, plagued by a malady it never seems to shake.
On the ice and off, hockey can't figure out what it wants to be. Sadly, it now knows what it can't be -- a major player in much of the United States.
Painfully, despite Wednesday's positive meeting between NHL Players Association President Trevor Linden and Calgary Flames owner Harley Hotchkiss, the league is undergoing unprecedented upheaval. For all this turmoil, when the lockout ends, the NHL had better return a changed game, including a more entertaining on-ice product.
I still contend it's important to piece together some semblance of a season, even if it's only 30 games, but that opinion isn't shared by all.
"It's not hard to look at the calendar and understand the season is done," said Jimmy Devellano, the Red Wings' senior vice president / alternate governor.
"No, I don't see any hope. I know Trevor wanted to make one last run at it, but the reason there's no hope is because the union made it clear it won't talk about a salary cap or cost-certainty, so there's nothing to talk about."
Oh, there's still something to talk about, something the league should have addressed long ago. All the wrangling now is about economics, and those problems are real. But they wouldn't be so real if the NHL hadn't tried to be so many things to so many people.
The league is on the brink of a one-year -- or perhaps two-year -- shutdown, primarily because of a series of blunders by Commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners. Yes, players should have spoken up sooner, too. No one was quick enough to recognize a deteriorating product, and everyone reacted slowly to lower scoring and lower interest.
Bettman deserves the most blame only because he's the front man. The sport is in financial peril partly because the players make too much money, although Bettman and the owners agreed to the system. Now they're demanding an overhaul, and that's where it has gotten nasty.
It would be easier to trust them if they showed they had any clue how to sell the sport. Note to Bettman: The game wasn't damaged by overpaid stars. The game was damaged because stars were rendered irrelevant by rules and defense-minded coaches.
We joke about the New York Rangers and all their wasted, high-priced talent, but you know what? That the Rangers, with the most money in the largest market, couldn't win is one of the reasons the league is in so much trouble.
Too much mucking, too much grinding, not enough scoring, not enough fighting. For most of a decade, the Wings were the most popular team not just because they won, but also because they won with flair, with speedy Russians and legendary leaders and the occasional willing fighter.
In Bettman's quest to sanitize hockey for southern and western outposts, he dumbed it down. The instigator rule reduced benches-clearing brawls but hampered on-ice policing by players. Boring, trapping teams such as New Jersey and Florida had success, spawning boring, trapping teams such as Anaheim and Carolina. Goalie pads grew so large, they created fake stars such as Anaheim's Jean-Sebastien Giguere. By the time Bettman admitted the problem, it was too late.
"Yes, that was something we missed," Devellano said Wednesday. "We have to improve the game. But first, we've got to get the economic model straightened out because 20 of 30 teams are losing money. The game itself has not been forgotten by the owners, but change is going to be gradual. What the Red Wings and Colorado and Dallas did, and what the Rangers tried, was good. But in order to have scoring and excitement, you have to sign stars, and stars cost money. So the poor teams had to win another way."
A boring way, frankly. The NHL has been a disaster on TV for a simple reason: There are too many stretches in a game in which nothing happens. Not nothing to the avid hockey fan, but nothing to the average viewer.
The playoffs are great, but you can tout just so many overstuffed goalies and bearded defensemen. The league swears interest will grow with HDTV, but I don't need to see neutral-zone traffic any clearer.
Bettman has failed as much for his balky recognition of the game's flaws as for his faulty stewardship of the economics, and for overexpansion (which was pushed by owners).
"That's easy to say in hindsight, and I don't disagree," Devellano said. "But (expansion) was done with the very best of intentions, to spread the footprint across the U.S., to grow the game, to get TV interested. And it did work, to a degree. Unfortunately, we didn't get the ratings."
Many have recognized this for a long time. The Wings' Brendan Shanahan held a hockey summit last fall and his group discussed ways to pump up interest, ways that have been bandied about for years. Player input can help, so it's a start.
"I don't think we have a bad game," Shanahan said. "But there are many ways we can improve, by highlighting skill and scoring. If the game was better, with a better TV deal, we wouldn't be in this position."
The NHL has established a competition committee, and new rules are being tested in the American Hockey League. That Bettman and others didn't see the difficulties coming is the crime. They can arrogantly suggest a salary cap as the only way to fix anything, but that doesn't address the on-ice product. And I'd suggest a yearlong absence would damage it in ways no one can fathom.
"I see no way you could put together a credible schedule now," Devellano said. "I think we've run out of time. This is a great sport and a great league, and it's going to be back. It's going through a very painful time, but it needs to be done."
It needed to be done sooner. The NHL needed better foresight, especially from its leader, Bettman. Yes, both sides have to fix the economics. It won't be a long-term solution if they don't fix the game, too.
Bob Wojnowski's column appears regularly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. You can reach him at wojofan@aol.com.
Please see WOJO, Page 7E
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