Hockey Season Starts Tonight
by KevinOctober 4th, 2006
The NHL is back tonight. I have no predictions beyond one: the Blackhawks will stink. I suspect the new rules will continue to be enforced, since the league and the referees ar eboth happy with the results from last year. I suspect that we will see a bunch of coaches fired. Coaches and GMs have had one year to adjust to the requirments of the new NHL — more finesses, more speed, more toughness without fighting — and some are just not going to be able to. Coaches who continued to sing the praises of defense first and the primacy of systems are probably not going to be long for the coaching ranks. There will be no more patience for coaches who cannot adjust. I suspect that TV ratings will continue to stink on the Versus or whatever the heck OLN is calling itself this week. Getting away from ESPN has to be the worst decision in a long line of awful decisiosns that Bettman has made. Hopefully, the NBC ratings will continue their small climb from last year and the NHL has the brains to go back to ESPN. They have a great product now and they need exposure more than anything else.
Off ice issues aside, the league is better than ever and if they keep up last years’ rate of improvement …
What?
No, hockey. Played on ice, you know, frozen water? Big guys with sticks and names with no vowels? Wayne Gretzky? No, that was Wayne’s World …
Oh, never mind. Enjoy the baseball playoffs.
Go Minnesota Wild. w00t.
One game in the books, and the Leafs have already lost to Ottawa. Would’ve been a shutout, too, if not for a penalty shot that shouldn’t have been a penalty shot.
In case no one noticed, Wild are 4-0.