To Hell With The NHL – Canadians Should Take The Game Of Hockey Back!

By David Boese

Because of the STUPID NHL lockout, I think it’s time to re-think how we manage and view the game of hockey.

If I had the power, I would drop out of the NHL and create an All Canadian Hockey League, with 10 or 12 teams. It could be patterned after the very successful Canadian Football League and players would be playing more for their fans, than for the money. I would create an atmosphere, where there would never be another lockout! It is after all Canada’s game and it belongs just as much to the fans, as it does to the owners of these teams.

It’s time that we, as Canadians, stop subsidizing the small U.S. market teams, trying to keep their owners from dropping out of the “billionaires” club. Presently, we have the tail wagging the dog, because there are more U.S. teams than Canadian teams. Our players would still make a reasonable income, while keeping the cost of tickets at an affordable price.

I actually prefer watching the women’s game and men’s juniors play, than the many second class players and goons, in the diluted NHL players. I also miss knowing and following, all the players by name!

At the end of the season we could have a super game made up of different countries championship teams.

Let’s get our act together and take charge of the game we love!

 David Boese is a resident of Niagara, Ontario and a hockey fan who has obviously had it with the NHL.

 (A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper – As a kid growing up in the 1960s when the Toronto Maple Leafs had an awesome line-up of players that could still win Stanley Cups and not have fans of the team wear bags over their heads, I too loved hockey and enjoyed playing it on backyard ponds in my neighbourhood.

 But as aggressive as NHL hockey was even then, the skill of handling a puck and the sport dominated the odd fight on the ice. For too long now, the fighting part has come to dominate the sport to a point where we are not too far away from the blood bathes in the arenas of ancient Rome.

 Then of course there is the greed of the team owners and, oh yes, the players, where however millions of dollars to them means nothing in a world where many of the rest of us are being forced to live with wages that make it harder and harder to put decent food on a table and a comfortable roof over our heads. Few mortals can afford to pay the gate prices to take their kids to an NHL game anymore.

 I’ve heard and read the words of some people saying hockey, as a sport, could be finished as a result of the NHL pig fest. But there is nothing wrong with the game, when engaged in by players who want to play hockey and not by millionaire thugs in an NHL that feeds into the Don Cherry thesis that fans would rather see blood on the ice than good stick handling.

 As David Boese suggests in his commentary above and what the now-running World Junior Championships and Olympic hockey has shown, it doesn’t have to be greedy, thuggish game the NHL has turned it into. In fact, the game would be better off without the NHL and the thieves engaged in it now. Why not focus on new leagues, say to hell with the NHL, and take the game back?)

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