The trouble with hockey
Daniel Gross has an interesting take on the NHL's current trouble. Last week Bain Capital in conjunction with Game Plan International offered to buy the entire NHL for a few billion buckaroos. The upshot is that hockey currently is behaving like a classic distressed industry so that it's ripe for a leveraged buyout (LBO). Gross prognosticates that if this scheme goes through, Bain/GPI will manage to save hockey by doing what LBO firms do - in this case cutting a third of the teams and imposing strict salary caps. Fair enough - I agree that hockey has overextended itself by aggressively expanding into uproven markets (Florida? The Carolinas?). However, Gross undercuts the attractiveness of his proposal at the end by admitting that hockey's new corporate overlords would nix teams in failing and shrinking markets, e.g. Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
That's the problem. The National Hockey League is not the National Hockey League without the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins. I also happen to think it's not a National Hockey League without the Hartford Whalers or the Minnesota North Stars, but that's milk long since spilt. The downside of corporate maneuvers like LBOs (or even outright sales) is that institutional memory and identity is devalued to the vanishing point. One reason so many mergers fail is because the two cultures do not mix and the wrong people (mid-level menial drones with long memories) are let go, leaving the company identity (and filing system!) adrift and floundering. A major part of sport is sentiment, and I cannot expect that a league run by Bain Capital - even if they are based in hockey-mad Boston - will pay any attention whatsoever to the noble and hereditary fan bases for the Pittsburgh Penguins or Buffalo Sabres, or even small-market/perpetual loser teams from the Original Six like the Red Wings or the Blackhawks.
on
| § 5
§ 5 Comments
[ You're too late, comments are closed ]
Um.
Um.
So, this gets to the heart of what a friend of mine and I have been saying for some time, namely that the NHL needs to contract, and bigtime. Ditch a bunch of the loser franchises, and deepen the talent pool so that teams have fewer AAA/AAAA players on their current rosters, and see how that flies.
As we see it, the following franchises would pretty much stay:
This will get you all the Original 6, plus the franchises that seem the most stable. You could also add in St. Louis and Calgary, if you really wanted. Start with two conferences of 6 or 7 teams each, and go from there.
By hook or by crook, get back in ESPN's good graces, and get a television deal with them. No more of this screwing around with goofball TV stations (like SCNA, or whomever it was that the NHL picked over ESPN all those years ago). Financially, set the league up along the lines of the NFL -- team salary minima and maxima, etc.
Set up a dispersal draft, where the franchises that remain get to keep three forwards, two defensemen and a goaltender, and then everyone else's up for grabs. You can pull back a player from the draft, or pick from the available players, until all teams have their rosters filled.
And Gary Bettman and Bob Goodenow get replaced, and their replacements get to watch as they're both sodomized by rabid baboons, and then told "If you allow things to degenerate to this state under your watch, this will be your fate."
While we're at it, we might
While we're at it, we might want to consider shortening the season and the playoffs. Having a hockey tournament championship series in July just doesn't seem right.
But you gotta keep Pittsburgh
But you gotta keep Pittsburgh. The fans are rabid, the franchise has a rich history, and the city would literally fall to pieces without the Penguins' uniting influence.
Also, I'm a Pens fan.
Mike - right on.
Mike - right on.
Buckethead - But what else are you going to watch in July? Football season is still eight weeks away! Baseball? I predict baseball will be the next sport to go all wonky. Besides - my local team sucks donkey butt.
Johno - I'll swap you Pittsburgh for Vancouver straight up. Buncha thugs. And you can add Todd Bertuzzi to Mike's short list for Wild Baboon Lovin'!
EDog
Thugs? Mario Lemieux, the
Thugs? Mario Lemieux, the greatest of all time, a thug!
Sir, now you go to far! I demand satisfaction! Pistols at dawn!