The New Hockey League

Here we are, just over a month into the 2006-07 hockey season and I must say, I couldn't be happier...for several reasons. First, my beloved Sabres are arguably the best team in NHL. Second, Gary Bettman and pals have actually succeeded in getting the higher tempo, lower fighting game they wanted, but this time without sacrificing the actual games. The league was suffering. Hockey fans hated The Bettster, and with good reason. Two labor disputes in 10 years ('94-'95 & '04-'05), TV ratings in the toilet, 3 teams relocating (4 if you count Dallas, although that was really negotiated before G-Bet stepped in) and 4 declaring bankruptcy!

But all that changed after The Great Salary Cap of Aught-Five (well not all that - TV ratings are still crap). But the NHL returned with an assload of new rule changes that would reshape the landscape of professional hockey in North America. No more will you find teams of 250+ pound goons loping around the ice, destroying everything in their path like a pack of bully's at recess (i.e. D2: The Mighty Ducks or the Philadelphia Flyers of the 1970s). Gone are the luberjackian prize fighters let out of the cage to provide a team with the kind of emotional uplift that comes from watching one prove that he is indeed, hell with his fists. Now we see what can only be termed the love child of North American and European hockey...faster, more skilled players and horrible spine-shattering body checks. It's fun and exciting, and because the fights are fewer and farther between, they're SO much sweeter when they happen.

So kudos to you Gar-bear. Also, don't you think it's ironic that a NYC Jew could be compared to a character of Egyptian antiquity...a magical pyre-born eagle, flying the old NHL to Heliopolis in an egg of myrrh.

Go Sabres!

rock.
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