The cynic in me is like a player who jumps over the boards too early on a line change, always eager, if a little too quick on the draw.
I’ll risk the penalty for too many on the ice this time, though, because I don’t see the NHL getting any significant bounce out of the unbelievable gold-medal final in Olympic hockey on Sunday.
It has to be terribly gratifying to long-time hockey fans to hear how the game captured everyone’s attention and was the prime topic on most sports radio shows Monday morning.
But this won’t be the seminal moment in the NHL’s development. We won’t look back on Sunday’s game and point to it as the moment the NHL roped in a significant quota of new fans and moved itself into the front row of the American sports conversation.
That won’t happen because the NHL will not embrace the necessary changes to make it happen.
Olympic hockey is made compelling because it is free of the retribution that leads to gratuitous fighting and keeps guys like Cam Janssen and Colton Orr under contract and because it unfolds over a compact time period that helps ratchet up the drama.
But the NHL has not shown any inclination to tame its product, to steadily drum out the staged brawls that turn off the people who tuned in on Sunday. The NHL would also make its game more attractive by condensing its season, making it less of a tedious slog and perhaps allowing the league to stop holding its marquee event – the Stanley Cup final -- at a time of year when most viewers have already mowed their lawn a handful of times.
The other element that has made Olympic hockey must-see TV is the inclusion of NHL players. At this moment, the league has not consented to making its players available for the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia, and anything less than NHL participation at this point, reduces the quality of Olympic hockey considerably. For every 6-1 semifinal stinker such as the game between the United States and Finland, there is enormous payback such as was played out on Sunday.
Over to you, NHL. My shift is over.
