Talking Heads

Our frank and colorful conversation with two of the most informed, articulate men in hockey broadcasting

AS THE NHL WINDS DOWN ITS first regular season of the new millennium, one could summate that on the ice, in the stands, and in the front office, the 1990s has been the most dramatic period of change for the NHL since the league's inception.

From rule modifications to expansion into non-traditional markets to Canada losing its coveted teams to the European invasion to the retirement of two of hockey's brightest stars, the NHL has had a busy 10 years.

So what is the status of the game now? Who's going to carry the torch after the retirements of Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky? Will Canada continue to lose franchises? Have the NHL's powers-that-be finally stopped tinkering with the rule book? Will 30 teams be too much for the NHL to handle?

Right now, many topics that could either pose as a dark cloud or a dark horse for the league are at the NHL's doorstep. The hierarchy of the NHL receives a plethora of different complaints a season from GM's and coaches from around the league who have their own agendas. With so many opinions within the hockey community, it's difficult to sift through and differentiate real dilemmas from petty arguments.

To help us with that task, HOCKEY DIGEST recently caught up with ESPN and ABC NHL color commentators, Barry Melrose and Bill Clement, and asked for their thoughts and theories on the consequential topics and issues of today's NHL.

HOCKEY DIGEST: Over the past three years, if a player's toe of his skate was infringing on the opposite side of the crease from where a goal was scored, the goal was disallowed. Now that video replay has been negated, giving the referee full discretion, it appears the goalies are being run into and interfered with again. What should the NHL be doing?

BILL CLEMENT: There are such high stakes out there. With every tweaking of every rule, every team and every player tries to push that rule to the limit. Right now they're trying to find that gray area between the way it used to be with the video replay and a complete disregard for any rules. As soon as they stopped video replay everybody went a little overboard trying to get at the goalie. I think the new rule makes sense. You still have to protect the goaltender--especially from incidental contact in the crease because goalies are fair game again. So, I think we're settling into something that will work.

BARRY MELROSE: First of all, I don't think there's any problem with running into the goalie. The game of hockey is going to the net. We teach our kids beginning from the age of five years old that you have to go to the net to score goals. The goalies are well-protected. If a player catches a goalie in the crease it'll be a penalty and the goal will be disallowed. A goalie getting run into because his defenseman drove a forward into him is part of the game. I was a believer in that before they went to the crease rule.

Goalies are going to get hurt sometimes just like defensemen are going to get hurt. I really think the NHL realizes made a mistake because the league down on offense a lot. It took away so much excitement and the NHL realized it was wrong. They got back on track, and I'm glad that they did. Right now I think the rule is fine. Goals are up and there is a lot of action in front of the net, and that's the way the game was meant to be played.

HD: Do you view players "taking a dive" in order to draw a penalty a big problem in the NHL?

BM: Yes, diving is a big problem. Every game, somebody lays a stick on a player and that player jumps in the air and falls on his back. Another thing that's really killing me this year are players pretending that they're hurt. This really puts the referees in a tough situation.

BC: There is so much diving in the league; the refs have to start calling it. If more guys got called for diving it would be eliminated immediately. It's the most embarrassing penalty and it would become the most senseless penalty to receive if it were called. It's in the rule book, it's supposed to be called. That is the one rule that I wished was enforced to the letter of the law.

HD: Is there a way to get players to quit embellishing this?

BC: I would guarantee you that if the NHL was to send out a memo to every team that stated that diving was going to be called to the letter of the law, within two weeks diving would be eliminated from the sport. If a guy went down, he would have to be hauled down. Either that or he would be one of the 20 or 30 players that really wants to roll the dice and thinks he's a good enough actor to get away with it. One way or the other it would be eliminated. I'd love to see it eliminated.

BM: I would also like to see refs calling the diving penalty. There are times when you can tell that a guys dives --and that should be a minor penalty.

This would be my rule: If a player gets hurt and he lays there and a trainer has to come on the ice, my rule would be that that player cannot play again that period. If he is hurt enough for the trainer to come onto the ice, maybe it's better for health reasons that he doesn't play the rest of that period. If he was faking and the trainer had to come on the ice, the team should be penalized for his pretending that he was hurt. That would do away with the diving, players would get to the bench if they're only hurt a little bit, and it would really help the referees. So that would be one of my rules if I was commissioner for a day.