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Sporting News, The, March 4, 2002 by Scott Morrison

Now that the dream hockey final has become a golden moment for Canada, the big top is down and the five-ring winter circus has left town for another four years. But a few questions linger like the aroma from Sweden's quarterfinals loss to Belarus.

It is widely acknowledged, of course, that the NHL's participation in the Winter Games was a resounding success, especially given the two teams that wound up in the gold-medal game. Four years ago in Nagano, Japan, remember, Team Canada finished fourth and Team USA took the fifth--at least when it came to explaining how the furniture in the athletes' village got trashed.

So an all-North American, all-NHL final, without incident along the way, was a gift from the hockey gods.

But for the NHL, for all the good vibes and grand reviews, the Olympics were still a lot like borrowing a very expensive, splashy sports car from a friend for a few weeks: It's great while it lasts, the attention from the neighbors is gratifying, but eventually you have to get back to driving that reliable old sedan you've had for years.

Everyone who cares about sticks and pucks is wondering what that will mean when the NHL returns to action. How will the Olympics change the game in terms of its impact on the remainder of the regular season, the overall quality of play and the playoff races? And, in a much bigger picture, will the game truly benefit from being under the bright lights on the world stage--or will it wilt under the heat?

If the NHL holds onto a portion of the Olympics TV audience, the temperature will be warmer than usual. The first Team USA-Russia game, for example--which started at 11:30 p.m. ET on a Saturday--garnered a 7.2 overnight rating, second for hockey in the U.S. only to the 1980 gold-medal game, which brought in a whopping 23.2 rating. The rating for Sunday's gold-medal game was expected to be equally high, especially in hockey-mad Canada: An early estimate said the number of Canadians watching the game would be in the neighborhood of 7 million, roughly a quarter of the country's population.

The NHL is not the Olympics, in either style or circumstance. So will the converts be sold on the coolest game, or will they be disappointed the regular thing doesn't bear much resemblance to what was being played in Salt Lake City?

Let's face it, Olympics hockey is considerably different than the regular bill of fare served up in the NHL. For starters, the Olympics showcase the absolute best players on a handful of teams. And the rules have been changed: The center red line has been taken away; there are no television timeouts; the faceoffs are completed in 15 seconds, and there is automatic icing. As a result, the games are shorter--by as much as an hour--the skill level is higher, the entertainment is quite good, the tournament is short and the stakes are huge.

As a sales model for hockey, the Olympics are perfect. Except, of course, that the NHL does not measure up quite the same way every day--at least not until the heart of the playoffs, and sometimes not even then. So while commissioner Gary Bettman and his governors assumed a very prominent position (and a far more comfortable one than in 1998) on the world stage, one that could have staggering benefits, it also might have come with a price.

"This is a special tournament," Bettman said to reporters during the Olympics. "It's not typical hockey."

That is true. The good news, though, is the spectacle in Salt Lake might prompt changes in the NHL. Bettman says the league will look at instituting the hurry-up faceoffs. No-touch icing also will be considered by the league's G.M.s at a meeting in March. Discarding the red line isn't likely to happen, though, because the G.M.s don't think it would open up the game on the smaller ice surface. But if changes are made and the game becomes more entertaining, then the Olympic exercise will have been worth it.

No matter what happened at the Games, however, one key element has to fall into place.

"It's all about attitude," Team USA winger Brett Hull told reporters. "The owners, the general managers, the coaches all have to change the attitude on how they want the game played."

That eventually could be a by-product of the Olympic experience: a change in attitude. Some folks just might like what they've seen so much that they'll fight hard to bring it to the NHL.

That makes sense--you don't want to try to attract people to a game played one way by selling them on a game being played another way.

This is not to dis the NHL. The hockey can be good, but no one is foolish enough to believe the Olympic experience can be replicated with a 30-team, 82-game regular season. But elements of what we saw can be adopted, which makes how the NHL debriefs from the Olympics crucial to the future of the game.

"We're constantly evaluating and we knew this would be a good laboratory," Bettman said. "Whenever we make changes, we get criticized for tinkering with the game. Whenever we don't make changes, we get criticized for not tinkering with the game. We will do what we think is right, long term."