An Homage

I don’t comment on the NHL anymore. For one thing, I haven’t watched sixty minutes of any game all year. I also freely admit I am one of the fans that left after the last strike, returned to graze at the new product- and chose to not return. But I really like hockey- and more importantly, I love to point out things the strike me as relevant- and regardless: no one fires away more effectively at the near worthless new NHL than my man Larry Brooks. Although this guy might object. Anyway, the quote below in from Sunday's NY Post:

Omission of Kerry Fraser from the roster of playoff referees at the expense of people like unqualified Mick McGeough and Brad Watson, to name just two, is an indication, indeed, that Gary Bettman's and Stephen Walkom's NHL has no place for officials who call the game on feel and instinct. The league wants officials who are robotic, who will call phantom fouls that lead to a parade of power plays and an interruption of flow.

Beyond that, we're told Fraser, the league's senior referee who has worked nearly 1,600 regular-season games and more than 250 playoff games since joining the NHL full-time in 1979, may not have a job next year.

Look, I hate the NHL product. It is vapid- increasingly NBA regular season like- progressively more effeminate. They have dared to turn a great game into a Czech Beer League- but with even less hitting. And if collecting faceless Euros and Russians and Simon Gagne types to skate, play devoid of passion, featuring penalties for touching people, and seen only by people with continuously more obscure premium pay sites on American cable (the “VS” channel?) is the new game… well, I opt out.

For generations, the NHL has been the world standard for professional hockey- all of sudden our product isn’t good enough?- and instead the Swedish Elite League is imported. How did that ever happen?

My homage to the man with the mane.
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