With about a quarter of the season remaining the NHL finds itself collectively playing only .500 hockey. As of games played through Tuesday, February 29 the league was a collective 766 wins and 766 losses. In fact, the league has been unable to pull itself beyond the .500 playing level for many years now.
The NHL has taken on an aggressive expansion during the nineties and into the new century, adding teams in such non-traditional hockey cities as Nashville, Atlanta, Miami, Anaheim, and Charlotte. But while expansion tends to dilute the quality, at the same time the league has seen a rapid rise in the influx of talented players from Europe and the United States. Whereas, in the early eighties upwards of 80 percent of the players were from Canada, now that number stands at little over 50. Players from Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Finland have added considerably to the NHL talent pool.
It is these two offsetting factors, expansion and the influx of European players, that have managed to keep the league from attaining elite status. According quickly aging league veteran Ray Bourque of the Boston Bruins, "It seems like it has always been that way, as far as I can remember. We have just never been able to reach that next level."
In an even more astounding illustration of the league mediocrity is the fact that the league has scored, collectively, 4851 goals, while allowing an identical number, 4851, of goals scored against. That remarkable average-ness is what many believe keeps the NHL from attaining the popularity of the NBA or the NFL.
Although well aware of this problem, the NHL currently has no plans to improve the situation. "If we had an easy way to improve our mediocre product, we would do it," said Average Commissioner Gary Bettman. "We don't want to do anything drastic that might truly hurt the game that many of us enjoy so much."
©2000 Copyright David Oliver
DISCLAIMER: These stories are not true. No really. It's all just a joke, you know for fun.
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