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Thank you very much.
Thank you for bringing back hockey. After watching the World Championships, the World Junior Championships, the World Under-17 championships, the Telus Cup, the Royal Bank Cup, the Memorial Cup, the Allan Cup, the Spengler Cup, the Ontario Hockey League, the Western Hockey League, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, the NCAA Frozen Four tournament, the International Hockey League, the East Coast Hockey League, the United Hockey League, the Swedish, Swiss, German and Russian Elite Leagues, most of us had almost forgotten there was such a game called hockey that we used to watch. Thank you, NHL, for bringing it back to us after taking it away. We missed it so much.
Thank you, NHL, for taking a year off. Thank you for taking all that time to decide who gets billions of dollars and who gets just millions. Thank you for not apologizing to all the sub-industries that depend on your existence. All the arena attendants, concession clerks, merchandising stores, local pubs and sports bars, the undercarriage and handlers and gophers of the thirty franchises given their outright release when there was no work to be done--you know, the millions and millions of support staff in all the cities who have six less zeros on their paychecks than you do. Thank you for ruining their lives. They really appreciate it. A simple sorry at your press conference could have been sufficient.
Speaking of which, thank you, NHL, and an extra special thank you, Mr. Gary Bettman, for when actually given the opportunity by the media to make such a gracious gesture, responded with the words "It's time for us to move forward." You know, in my experience, every time someone says that they've "moved on" or they want to "move forward", it means they screwed up and they're trying to sweep the problem under the rug. Thank you, Bettman, for being the Omarosa of professional sports. Thank you for not acknowledging your mistakes and faults and quite possibly being the better man for it. So yes, let's move on, shall we.
I want to thank you, NHL. Really, I do.
I want to thank you for the new CBA agreement, and for introducing those magical words "cost certainty" into the public domain. You know, in regular business, if you make a bad decision or deal, you fail. Your business goes under, you go bankrupt, you pack up and leave. That's it. It's what the free market is all about. But thanks to "cost certainty", safeguards have been put in place to prevent failure. Now an owner can replace his organization with retarded monkeys jumping about firing rocket launchers, he won't go under. His business can't fold. Thank you for installing this "cost certainty", NHL. Thank you for teaching us that no matter how many times you screw up or how many mistakes you make or how many ill-begotten franchises you stuff into desert communities that care little for ice and even less for hockey, it's not your fault. Thank you for blaming the players for all the bad business decisions you've made in the past decade. It's always easy to be a business failure when it's at someone elses expense, and now with "cost certainty", you won't be one anymore. Thank you for getting someone else to pay for your inability to understand or market the game properly.
Ah yes, marketing. A personal and special thank you NHL for trying to sell the game to the mythological "casual fan", and in doing so alienating the hardcore fan, so now you've got little of one and neither of the other. That sure went over well. Clearly, you still know how to market this game, which is renowned far and wide. Like earlier in the week when you weren't planning on televising the most important draft in recent memory until the media came to YOU wanting to televise it. Boy, it's a good thing they reminded you how important this draft was. Thank you for listening to them instead of coming up with an independent idea yourselves with regards on how to sell your own game.
Thank you, NHL, for the individual stipulations in the CBA. For instance, the 24% rollback in salaries. That's great. Their salaries are too high anyway. So now that that's taken care of, all tickets across the board for every team will rollback 24% too, right? No, they won't? Oh.
Thank you, NHL, for the bargain-basement bin rookie salary cap clause. That will really attract new players to the game. Thank you also for almost chasing Sidney Crosby away because of it. Oh, he will play next year, but it's not because of his contract or because of the allure of the NHL, but mostly because his endorsements--which are worth far more--are here. But he was really close to agreeing to play in Switzerland for five times more money. Now, understand this part, because this is very important. When baseball almost went under because of the Black Sox scandal in 1919, it took a man, a hero of the people--Babe Ruth--to bring it back from oblivion. And again, when baseball met with ill favor because of the dispute in 1994, it took the magical homerun derbies of the late 90s to get the fans to fall in love with the sport again. The NHL is in this position now, the lowest it has ever been in history. Sidney Crosby is the golden goose, the defibrillator who could shock this game back to life. Already touted as 'The Next One', Crosby could very well be hockey's version of Babe Ruth, the superstar who puts the fans back in the seats and the game back to its alluring heights. And you, NHL, almost chased him away! Thank you, NHL, for letting him play here next year, though it's not really through anything that you have done.
As a corollary to the above, thank you NHL for making yourself a less attractive league to play hockey. In the year that you've been away, some consolidation has occurred in rival leagues around the world, vying to replace the void you have left. Now there is parity. And in a few years, there will arise a European super league that will be backed by more franchises, higher salaries, more money, and supported by more fans and new arenas and new facilities. With American disinterest at an all-time high, soon we may see a great exodus of European talent to return to their homes to play for more money. Draft picks often mentioned in the same breath as Crosby, like Malkin and Ovechkin, may simply not bother coming over here, and decide to play their careers closer to home. And, in all likelihood, a great deal many Canadians and even Americans will go with them. Thank you, NHL, for this parity. Thank you for taking a year off and cutting down costs, reducing yourself to a second tier professional sports league.
Thank you NHL for the enourmous amount of luck you've been bestowed on this lottery draft day! Wow, the Pittsburgh Penguins, with 1-16 odds, landing the number one pick (ie: Crosby). How convenient, that the poorest franchise in the league gets the most potentially lethal player in the next ten years. A little too convenient, perhaps? Hey, remember that NBA draft in '85 when the Knicks got Patrick Ewing? Remember how fair that was? Thank you, NHL, for these fortunate events. Truly someone is smiling on hockey this day.
Thank you also, NHL, for the new rule changes. No, I DO mean that part. I really like them. Except the shootout. Reducing every sporting contest to a trivial abstraction to determine a victor is an abomination of the sport altogether. But thank you for this bold new approach, NHL. Imagine: no more ties! Next, let's decide tie basketball games with a slam dunk contest, or a tie baseball game with a homerun derby. Oh, and let's decide tie NFL games with a coin toss. Oh wait, they already do that.
Thank you, NHL, for your wealth of contradictions in these rule stipulations. I like the more stringent penalties for players who fight, like the fighting in the last 5 minutes gets a game misconduct AND a game suspension. Because cleaning up this game and its violent "Adults Only" reputation is the only way you can market it to families. Is that also why you want to do things like mic every player and locker room so you can hear the flurry of four-letter words that deluge every battle in the corners or second intermission gut check? I bet families will love to hear how the players really talk when the camera is not in front of their faces. It'll be like watching Slap Shot every night!
Yes, thank you for all these things, NHL.
Thank you so very god damn much.
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