Days are numbered
Bully has received emails and feedback fromfans and NHLers and former NHLers who agree that if the NHL keeps calling games this way, the league will die. (And Bully believes it is already near its death bed.) Fans are pissed, players and coaches too. Every damn thing is a penalty. 21 penalties in one game this weekend with no majors. All minor calls. WTF?
The refs no longer manage games based on time, place and score. They are just robots and call penalties absent discretion. They could soon be replaced by drones because that is what they have become. Gobots.
The new Men’s Hockey League: the new MHL.
WHA, where are you when we need you most?
December 20th, 2005 at 4:32 pm
The new NHL looks like beer league hockey. Soon players will be penalized for taking slapshots. When I was finished with college and minor league hockey, I thought I would play in a men’s league with a few of the guys I was attending grad school with. In the first game I played, I lifted a guys stick (with a little authority) and the guy lost his balance and fell. Tweet, two minutes tripping. My stick was nowhere near his feet.
Well, now the NHL has moved in this direction as well. If a defensmen’s stick leaves the ice while playing the man, the donkey with the orange bands on his sleeve immediately raises his arm. One word, brutal! And the instigator rule, two words, f-ing brutal. Where is Grapes when you need him.
I hope the Ken Dryden posse is happy that hockey continues to take a nose dive even after the fallout from the lockout.
January 6th, 2006 at 2:15 am
I’m telling you, the instigator rule and the “fighting-in-the-last-5-minutes-suspension” rule are just the foot in the door. They are waiting for Grapes to die, then they will make moves to eventually outlaw fighting altogether. ONLY a guy like Cherry has the audience and the charisma to polarize fan outrage against the outlawing of fighting. Imagine … if Cherry suggested to “Coaches Corner” viewers that they should email Bettman and tell him his anti-fighting rules stink … the NHL would probably receive a half a million of emails over the next week.
There is no one waiting in the wings to replace him. He is one of a kind.