Five Ways to Improve the NHL
The National Hockey League is great, but it isn’t flawless. After the passing of the 2010 season, here are the top five ways the NHL could improve:
Get Rid of the All-Star Game: The NHL All-Star Game is a useless event. It does not increase new viewership and the apathy of the players involved makes it unappealing to seasoned viewers.
For instance, several years ago All-Stars Pavel Datsuk and Nik Lidstrom opted to not show up to the game under the pretences of ‘injury.’ Both players then returned to club play immediately afterwards and seemed in perfect health.
If the NHL wants to have some sort of midseason event to draw viewers, they should organize a game between NHL talent and players from Russian-based competitor the Kontinental Hockey League. Both sides would be encouraged to play in order to prove the supremacy of their respective leagues. Viewers would tune in because most North Americans are unable to see KHL players in action.
Get Rid of the Shootout Point: The shootout itself is a pretty controversial topic, but is also a dynamic way to avoid ties. The NHL’s real problem lies in giving the losing team of a shootout or overtime a single point.
It’s against competitive play to reward a team with a one-point standings boost for simply taking a game to overtime. In the grand scheme of sports there is no difference between an overtime loss and a regulation loss. A loss is a loss. The artificial addition of a point encourages teams with anemic offences to play painfully defensively at ends of games in order to secure at least a point rather than nothing.
The NHL needs to realize that the removal of the tie should have meant the removal of the one point result.
Give Canada More Teams: This point must be read with a thousand exclamation marks behind it. The NHL has 6 of its 30 teams in Canada yet 31% of League revenue is derived from the Canadian market. Also, according to recent figures, around 52% of the NHL’s players are Canadian-born.
If the League added a new franchise to Canada, especially returning franchises to either Winnipeg or Quebec City, there would be immense monetary gains. Both cities are fairly ready to accept a franchise and have historic fan bases for the Jets and Nordiques, respectively.
The NHL has wasted its money and time trying to force franchises on cities that simply can’t support them, like Phoenix and Tampa Bay. Why not give back to the nation that does the most for the NHL?
Start the Season Earlier: The NHL tries to start its season as late as possible in order to avoid competing with opening of the National Football League season or the end of the Major League Baseball pennant race. Unfortunately, the NHL is always going to compete against something, such as this year’s National Basketball Association finals.
If the NHL season started earlier, it would earlier. This would mean that everything would essentially be pushed up by two weeks. In such a system, the free agency announcements would become mid-June rather than July 1, which is a poor date due to national holidays in both the United States and Canada.
Make the World Cup of Hockey More Prominent: Olympic ice hockey is easily the best team sport in all of the Olympics, summer and winter. The competitiveness and international rivalries are extremely exciting and provide hockey with continuous good exposure.
The World Cup of Hockey would allow for fans to see international play more often and with players facing each other more often would increase competitiveness. The current annual World Hockey Championships interfere with the NHL playoffs and thus are lacking in talent. The World Cup of Hockey is NHL sanctioned and takes place outside the season. Additionally, the World Cup of Hockey is played with NHL rules rather than modified IIHF ones, which is better since most elite international players are in the NHL anyway.
The World Cup has taken place in 1996, 2004, and is set for another run at 2011. This irregularity is unfair and the Cup should be held every four years, so fans only have to wait two years between high-level international hockey.
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