As the G.M.s talk, the fans walk

Sporting News, The, May 20, 2002 by Tim Wharnsby

When it comes to the NHL, there are more talkers than thinkers and more thinkers than doers.

But there is a glimmer of hope. Recently, league executive vice president and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell acknowledged the need for the crackdown of all crackdowns. Referees need to start calling the game strictly by the rulebook, he said, and the rules need to be enforced late in the season and in the playoffs. Hopefully, Campbell is a doer rather than a thinker.

"We've eroded away at the rules," Campbell told the Buffalo News. "It's like speeding. What's the speed limit? It's 65 miles per hour. Well, you can go 74 at night, but you better keep it down to about 70 during the day. It's more or less the same in our game. We have to take the game back. We have to take the playoffs back."

What would the game be like if it was taken back? Cue the dream sequence. Like it was in the Olympics? Um, that's too much to ask. Like it was in the 1980s? Now we're talking. How about good, clean, hard-hitting hockey that displays skill, speed and finesse? Right on.

Something needs to be done. The signs are there that the game is at an all-time low. Expansion to 30 teams came too quickly, and defensive hockey has become too prominent.

During the season the game is played in the corners with so much cycling it's less appealing than a Demi Moore movie. Then there is the interference, the cheap and dirty play, the charging, the boarding, the blows to the head. There is so little excitement and so little respect among the players for one another it is easy to see why the fans are starting to lose respect for the game.

Then the playoffs arrive. The drama of the moment overrides and, for the most part, disguises the ills. When there is a crucial game, the players' discipline makes watching hockey a splendid experience. All past crimes are forgotten.

But when the league raises the curtain on the 2002-03 season in October, it will be the playoffs that have been forgotten.

Simply put, the league's general managers, who can make the necessary changes, twice missed a chance to show they are serious about improving the game.

The first came in September when league consultant Dave Dryden, older brother of Maple Leafs president Ken Dryden, completed a yearlong study of the game with a committee that consisted of players Trevor Linden, Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, Pat Verbeek, Todd Marchant, NHL Players' Association executives Mike Gartner and Ian Pulver, Capitals G.M. George McPhee, Senators coach Jacques Martin, Campbell and Mike Murphy from the league office, referee Bill McCreary and linesman Scott Driscoll, two club physicians and an equipment manager.

What Dave Dryden, a former NHL goalie, and his merry men concluded was there is a need for the league to "strictly and consistently" enforce rules on boarding, butt-ending, charging and cross-checking and ban blows to the head.

The committee also brought forth a plan for each of the 30 rinks to produce and maintain better ice. The body also gave ideas on providing safer conditions for the players, including setting standard sizes for equipment and guidelines on how to properly wear it and making the boards and glass less rigid.

The general managers were said to be receptive to the committee's ideas. Nine months later, however, their inaction indicates otherwise.

The second chance for action was at the annual general managers' meeting two weeks after the Winter Olympics. New Fans had been attracted to hockey and old fans were rejuvenated with the spectacular play. The trick was keeping the hockey buzz alive. The general managers had the chance to at least look at no center-line hockey, no-touch icing and the hurry-up faceoff--or experiment with those rules.

Instead, they said the league's hockey operations department would refine definitions of the hurry-up faceoff, the tag-up offside rule and the standard of enforcement regarding obstruction. That did not sound promising.

Another change the general managers should consider is dropping the instigator rule, which was implemented for the 1992-93 season. (The rule states that if a player drops his gloves first, he gets a two-minute minor, a five-minute major and a 10-minute misconduct.) Now, players who step over the line are less fearful of reprisals from opponents. The resulting lack of accountability for a player's actions has dangerously raised sticks, especially in the playoffs when there is little or no fighting.

"Personally, I think they created a monster with the instigator penalty," says retired referee Run Fournier, now a radio commentator in Montreal. "We all know why they did that, for the image of the league. They didn't want two or three fights at the same time.

"But I feel (losing the rule) would reduce the instances when a guy gets a stick in the face or hit from behind. In the late 1980s if you did something disrespectful to an opposing player, three guys would jump you. There was that scary part of trying to cheap shot the opponent because you knew someone would come back at you."