from Daryl Reaugh at the Dallas Stars website,

Going forward, the NHL and NHLPA ‘partnership’ can only sell so many more tickets, jerseys, hats, key chains, etc. The biggest potential growth area for them is eyeballs -television. But you can’t grow something if you don’t water it and allow it to flourish. Leave it in the same small pot, give it just enough water to survive, always keep it partially shaded and that growth will be, well, disappointing.

As long as ‘leaders’ shrug their shoulders and give in to that tired, generations-old maxim that ‘hockey is the best sport to see live but just doesn’t translate to television’, nothing will change. (I wish they’d ask me for suggestions)

And as long as the people with a big say in how the game is presented on television are the same people who are managing the sport, who are busy ‘trying not to lose’ both the game at hand and their own jobs, and are often hiding behind the skirt of ‘competitive disadvantage’, then sadly nothing will change.

Remember this: The National Hockey League is - at its core - the steward of the 30 franchises that comprise it, and the National Hockey League Players Association has the best interests of the 800+ players it represents as its reason for being. (Both caretakers of what they should be caretaking.) That said, they are rather myopic in their views of what is most important ‘for the game’.

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