You never will find me criticizing the NHL for trying a Big Idea, and that’s what planning six outdoor games for next season represents.
But there is risk along with reward here for the league and their newly chummy partners in the NHLPA, and by the way, remember when the bitterness across the table was going to poison the league for a generation? Neither do I.
This Winter Carnival has nothing to do with romance, unless you’re talking about falling in love with the ca-ching of the cash register. The snow globe effect that distinguished the inaugural Winter Classic in Buffalo isn’t likely to be reproduced at Dodger Stadium next Jan. 25.
It is, rather, about capturing dollars and the imagination of the sports fans who spend them. It is about expanding the reach of this sport that for far too long has operated in a creative time warp. Again: good on Gary Bettman, good on John Collins and good on Don Fehr.
The two games at Yankee Stadium the week before the Super Bowl at Met Life should be a home run for the NHL. The whole sports world will be here and watching. The NHL presumably will have an open-door policy for the assembled media to attend the open-air matches between the Rangers and Devils, then the Rangers and Islanders three days (or nights) later.
But the party must be conducted in the same first-class manner that has marked the Winter Classic.
The six parties, that means: the Jan. 1 event at Ann Arbor, the game in Los Angeles, the pair in The Bronx, and the two in Chicago and Vancouver scheduled for the first week of March that will follow the anticipated break for the Olympics.
The ice must be as pristine and safe as possible. The weather conditions must merit a go. In other words, no games in the slush. The operations must run seamlessly. The NHL always shines when presenting special events. Next year, the league will be obligated to shine six times.
This series can provide hockey with an entrance onto The Big Stage. The NHL and NHLPA will rake in considerable cash from these endeavors, but neither party can afford to have the league look the slightest bit amateurish.
Because if that happens, the Big Idea will become a Bad Idea.
* Maybe John Tortorella just has a compulsion to be a contrarian. Maybe the Rangers coach can’t help himself. Or maybe he glories in marching to the beat of a different drum, no matter the cadence.
Maybe that explains his, “I’m not buying the rivalry,” remark about Rangers-Islanders following last Saturday’s match at the Coliseum in which the Blueshirts prevailed 1-0 in overtime in the first meaningful late-season Battle of New York in years.
Or maybe that simply was a reflection of Tortorella’s ignorance regarding franchise history. The rivalry, muted through too many seasons when one or the other of our teams was not competitive, courses through the veins of every Rangers and Islanders fan.
Tortorella cited the absence of recent playoff series between the clubs in dismissing the notion of a rivalry. This would indicate the coach doesn’t believe Rangers-Flyers to be a rivalry, or Montreal-Toronto, or Calgary-Edmonton or Chicago-Detroit.
Interesting.
People long have known Tortorella has tunnel vision. But we now know that it not a vision of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel.
* Yes, of course, Jonathan Toews of the Blackhawks and Sidney Crosby of the Penguins are candidates, but it is becoming more difficult to suggest anyone is more deserving of the Hart Trophy than John Tavares of the Islanders.
How did that triangulation between Shea Weber, the Flyers and the Predators wind up working out for the parties — other than the $110 million coming to the defenseman?
P.A. Parenteau, there’s one that got away from the Rangers for no apparent reason
Nashville, Philadelphia and the Devils — the NHL’s hat trick of 2012-13 disappointments, wouldn’t you say?
Boy, that Kevin Lowe sure likes to remind everyone of how much of a winner he used to be.
Finally, with the Lou Lamoriello signings of free agent defensemen including Vladimir Malakhov, Dan McGillis, Karel Rachunek, Henrik Tallinder and Anton Volchenkov, I’m quite frankly just wondering how the Devils’ general manager missed out on Dave Karpa.