NHL has taken its eye off puck
Scoring is down, the game is a grind, and that must change
In many ways, America is Canada’s favourite television show, but the favour is never returned. And when hockey fails in the United States, we scoff. They don’t get it, we say. We almost take it personally.
Well, U.S. TV ratings for the Pittsburgh-San Jose Stanley Cup final were down 28 per cent over Chicago-Tampa in 2015, even with Sidney Crosby involved this time. On the whole, playoff viewership was reportedly down about 12 per cent. America: Wrong on hockey.
Except in Canada, ratings weren’t gangbusters either. Yes, our teams were a half-empty buffet of sadness and disappointment. But Canadian TV ratings for the final have dropped by double digits in each of the past two years. And beyond all the other factors, we come back to the product. The players still work their hearts out. They still play through pain. But it’s the goals, stupid. “Do you go to a movie and hope you’re not entertained?” says TSN analyst Ray Ferraro, when I called to ask. “If the game is no fun — let me put it this way. An assistant general manager told me they should change the name of the game from ‘hockey’ to ‘work.’ ”
To be clear, the sharp-eyed Ferraro — who scored 408 NHL goals as an undersized winger from little Warfield, B.C., — is not opposed to work. He just thinks goals are fun. In the post-season, teams averaged 2.63 goals per game, a shade under the playoff average of the last 10 post-lockout years, 2.67. In the regular season it was 2.71 — all of this includes empty-net goals — which was the fifth-lowest scoring year since 1956. We said that exact thing in 2012 and 2013, too. Since expansion in 1968, the league had 25 seasons of teams averaging at least three goals per game. There has been one since 1996.
“I think the problem, if you want to say that, is so multi-layered that there’s not one fix to it,” says Ferraro.
“As the game has gotten faster, what I thought would happen was there would be more offence. But what I’ve learned is speed is the absolute detriment to offence, because there’s no time to make a play anymore. There just isn’t. You can be the most skilled guy in the world. There’s no time.”
Others around the game echo this, or offer other options: restore the red line, or Scotty Bowman’s ringette line, maybe some kind of illegal defence? Goaltending equipment is shrinking, and one NHL official recently said, “All we need to do next is ban the coaches.”
A smart front-office man echoed, “Hockey is not willing enough to realize that we’re in the entertainment business, and not willing enough to do something to get the coaches under control.” It’s like Wayne Gretzky told the New York Times last year: “All in all, it’s sort of a grinding game now.”
“The defence of our game by these old-time purists is ridiculous,” says Ferraro, who has become an outspoken voice on the subject. “Look at these other sports: none of them are the same. Hell, I’m watching Euro. You can’t pass the ball back to your goalie anymore. The NBA, the three-point line. The NFL, they basically put the defensive backs in bubble wrap. Well, too bad. It’s about offence. The best cornerbacks are still the best cornerbacks. Baseball, in 1968, Bob Gibson had a 1.12 earned run average. They lowered the mound. They said pitching is too dominant.
“There is nowhere to go. You have to fight for every, every inch. And that’s OK. But you should have the ability to make a play and score a goal. I know players are bigger, stronger, better, everything’s different, I get all that. But nobody can make me believe that it’s not more
“Nobody can make me believe that it’s not more fun when the game is 4-3 than when it’s 2-1.” RAY FERRARO ON NHL’S LACK OF SCORING
fun when the game is 4-3 than when it’s 2-1. Game 5 (of the Stanley Cup final, where four goals were scored in the first 5:06)? Oh my God, that was fantastic. When does the horn go off? It doesn’t go off when someone makes a save.”
Ferraro thinks the reduction in goaltending equipment size and the shape of the posts is a place to start, along with calling the rule book, that old chestnut. But this isn’t new. Coaches are conservative, and goalies are better, and players who have risk to their game keep organizations up at night. (Hello, P.K. Subban. Keep up the fight for creativity, pal.) The league seems willing to let the goalie equipment rules unfold and hope that creates goals, and maybe that will force teams to open up and chase the game. More chaos, more fun. Maybe.
At some point, though, there needs to be a little more vision to the game, rather than the same frozen smiles. Hockey could be more fun. But first, it would need to try.