NHL should lop 10 games off the season
The marathon 10-month NHL season finally ended Monday.
Starting last September with the waste-of-time World Cup, it concluded as fans walked out into summer heat on a June night after seeing the Stanley Cup raised. Even the Major League Baseball season, which seems never-ending, doesn’t last this long.
The root cause of the ever extending NHL season is simply money. The owners of the now 31 teams, welcome aboard Las Vegas Golden Knights, delight in extended television revenue and the inflated playoff gate receipts.
As seems to be the case each playoff season, the best, most exciting, interesting hockey happens in the 16-team first round. In each succeeding round, as the number of teams half, the calibre and quality of hockey seems to diminish. By the time the Stanley Cup final rolls around in June, you have two leg-weary teams, a distracted television audience and fan interest waning.
Games starting at 8 p.m. in the Eastern time zone, the bread-and-butter geographical area for television ratings, the better weather, more outdoor activities available and just the feeling of being hockeyed out after the long season, kills the interest for many fans.
There have been as many suggestions on playoff format changes but it always comes down to money for the owners. Since most of the teams do not make it deep into the playoffs, the more they extend the later rounds, the more general television revenue is generated for the owners. The players who are put through this wringer, well compensated for their regular season play, receive a mere pittance of the playoff revenue.
The first obvious solution is to reduce the playoff schedule. Leave the first round of eight best-ofseven series the same. It gives the best hockey, involves more fans and the timing is right for two weeks of intense hockey.
The next two succeeding rounds should be best-of-five affairs. By the time the teams are whittled down to two, an exciting sevengame Stanley Cup final starting in mid-May, will be more appealing. The players will be somewhat fresher and with the potential of an NHL title, as focused.
Obviously that will never happen. It will never be initiated by the owners and as long as the NHL Players Association remains as compliant as it is now, the NHLPA either. The players association folded like a cheap tent in the wind in the recent Olympic dispute.
The players and their fans definitely wanted NHLers at the Olympics. The owners didn’t; no money for them in it. It was disappointing that NHLPA head Donald Fehr didn’t take a stronger position on the issue. What if the players just said, “We are going to the Olympics.” With the fans behind them, any legal battle would lead to even more hostility between the owners and their money base, the fans.
With the attrition rate of the games stars more and more becoming a concern, even to the owners, fewer, better quality games is something that should be considered.
Lop 10 games off the regular season schedule, cut pre-season games in-half, shorten the playoff, allow for Olympic play every four years and deep-six that money– grabbing World Cup.
The National Football League limit their product and even with their playoff format, create a much better prospect the best two teams will emerge, relatively intact, for their showcase event, the Super Bowl.
In hockey, with the speed of the game today, the growing injury rate emphasized by the greater awareness of concussions, the evermore complicated travel schedules, something needs to be done to protect the health of the players and the integrity of the game from the owners’ pursuit of the mighty dollar.