from Cam Cole of the Vancouver Sun,

Not to be a contrarian here, but all the gnashing of teeth over the National Hockey League’s reported intention to cancel the Bridgestone Winter Classic later this week is completely misplaced.

If the league does it, it won’t be despite the fact that it was Toronto versus Detroit, two storied franchises, a first inclusion of a Canadian team, in all ways a potential bonanza.

It will be precisely because Gary Bettman and his soulless owners — and their crisis management team and the lockout specialists at the law firm of Proskauer Rose and whoever else is advising the NHL on acceptable risks — have concluded that in those two hockey markets, the game is bulletproof, backlash-proof.

Torontonians return to the ticket windows like trained pigs every year, no matter how terrible the Maple Leafs are, how much they charge for a seat and a beer and a hotdog, how many generations go by without any real sense of something good in the offing.

Detroit is Hockeytown, USA. The Red Wings, at the opposite end of the performance scale from the sorry Leafs, consistently reward their intensely loyal fan base with excellent ownership, management, players and prospects.

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