Bill Jennings, US hockey visionary....

[puckhead103*]

I was reading Brian MacFarlane's book on the original six series, featuring the New York Rangers and I came across Bill Jennings's vision for the NHL...

If you haven't heard the name Bill Jennings before, he was the lawyer who persuaded the NHL owners in the 1960's to expand to 12 teams.

In 1971, ten years before his death, he made a prophetic six points on the future of the NHL.

Some of the points here may be very inflammatory toward Canadians...so beware...

1. Canada's largest non-NHL cities--Ottawa, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Quebec--are too small to support major league hockey

2. Hockey will someday surpass football, baseball, and basketball in popularity among American sports fans.

3. Canadian and American college hockey associations should adopt professional rules.

4. Hockey will boom in the southern states

5. The NHL will add a six-team European Division within 10 years.

6. The NHL should make greater use of the penalty shot.

Some of points have came true, like number 4 with the Stars winning the cup in '99, Tampa in '04, and Carolina in '06

Number 2 maybe the most unusual of all of them....So, don't blame Gary Bettman on this, however, I bet Gary probably read these points sometime in his life as commish.....

Number 6 was somewhat confusing. I think Jennings was probably thinking using a the penalty shot as way to end games......your shootout/which has came true...

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[Ted Hoffman]

1. If done properly, they could. I'd assume Jennings figured that things wouldn't be done properly.
2. Was this within 50 years, or around 2317?
3. I'd agree here, they generally should where possible.
4. Yep.
5. Nope, and I wouldn't look for it in the next 10 either.
6. I'd assume he meant this in terms of "during the game, the officials should make calls for more penalty shots instead of just going to the PP" because there are a lot of times where the shooter has a breakaway and gets fouled from behind, and for whatever reason he doesn't get the penalty shot unless he was unable to get a shot off when the rule book makes no provision for not calling the PS off if the shooter gets a shot off.

But if he meant this in terms of "the league should go to a shootout to end ties" - again, something I doubt he meant - then I want to know what his timeline was on #2.

 

[puckhead103*]

1. If done properly, they could. I'd assume Jennings figured that things wouldn't be done properly.
2. Was this within 50 years, or around 2317?
3. I'd agree here, they generally should where possible.
4. Yep.
5. Nope, and I wouldn't look for it in the next 10 either.
6. I'd assume he meant this in terms of "during the game, the officials should make calls for more penalty shots instead of just going to the PP" because there are a lot of times where the shooter has a breakaway and gets fouled from behind, and for whatever reason he doesn't get the penalty shot unless he was unable to get a shot off when the rule book makes no provision for not calling the PS off if the shooter gets a shot off.

But if he meant this in terms of "the league should go to a shootout to end ties" - again, something I doubt he meant - then I want to know what his timeline was on #2.

it was written in 1971....go read brian macfarlane's original six series featuring the new york rangers...