from Mark Whicker of the LA Daily News,

The immediate result of Lazarus’ comments was the roar of 35 million hyenas from the north.

Canadians think Americans are idiots for ... well, for lots of reasons, but particularly when it comes to hockey. In their minds Americans were responsible for Peter Puck, the digitally-enhanced puck, the shootout and the idea of a team named after a movie.

When Gary Bettman came over from the NBA to run the NHL, and when he said, “Well, it’s time to go to the skatearound,” during the 1993 Finals in L.A., you could hear Mike Myers and Martin Short regurgitating.

It has been hard for our northern friends, and even some of us, to reconcile the fact that the NHL is better than it has ever been, from every standpoint, with Bettman at the top.

Fighting has disappeared completely from the playoffs and is leaving the game altogether. The post-2005 rules have sped up the game and let the players shine; you would not have seen Victor Hedman’s brilliant Game 3 stretch pass to Ryan Callahan in the pre-lockout days.

The lockout itself was the most bitter and yet the most effective laxative the game could have swallowed, because the hard salary cap has rewarded the savvy executives instead of the spendthrifts.

The main NBC crew, with the nonpareil Doc Emrick and Ed Olcyzk in the booth and Pierre McGuire at ice level, has used its awesome array of camera angles to educate the great unwashed.

So what is Mark Lazarus’ problem?

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