Setting the QMJHL aside, the reality is the game has been evolving now for a couple decades. The NHL had a very bad image. IT had seriously stunted growth. While the NBA, MLB and NFL grew in leaps and bounds through the 90’s and onward, the NHL stagnated.
Gary Bettman came in and grew the game. Expanded into new markets and exposed the game to more untraditional markets. Those markets also developed a tidy National TV market so larger networks could play national games and not feel certain markets would not be interested.
The key element to cleaning up the image was to get rid of needless fighting. I think most recognize that fighting may be an element never to have completely gone but staged fights and goonery needed to be a thing of the past if the NHL were going to sell the product as family friendly and capture a national audience in the USA.
Generally speaking, I think Bettman has done an admirable job. NHL hockey is now a $6bil annual revenue sport. There is still room to grow. The NBA is around $10bil annually. MLB is around $9.5bil annually.
The NHL is moving toward a skill game where that skill is on display. The players that sell the sport are the skilled players. The NHL will continue to focus on that.
Additionally, there are also areas of player protection to consider. Although fighting isn’t a major contributor to player hazard and injury, it is a low hanging fruit for people to focus on. IF you can’t handle the low hanging fruit, how can you handle the more complex changes required to enhance player safety? I think that is a reasonable question.
As much as fighting has a place in hockey, its emphasis has shrunk immensely. It will continue to shrink. Additionally, we see les violence from a collision perspective as well. We do see some bad hit from aggressive plays but even those incidents have been reduced. Gone are the days of Scott Stevens targeting heads, or other players blindsiding players. Players need to keep their head up for their own safety but it is now ont he agressor to ensure the hits they make are not blindside hits.
Within 10 years, we will rarely see a Fight. We will see tight checking but probably not thunderous hits. Defensive Systems have reduced the opportunities for thunderous hits anyway. The game will rely on skill and speed for scoring and strong team positional play for defence. That is where the game is going and that is what the surge in revenue has come from.
Worrying about fighting rules in the CHL is meaningless. IMO, it needs to be the same across all leagues. You can’t have interleague games where a team like Ottawa plays a team like Gatineau and have different rules for fighting.
Sports evolve and this is hockey’s evolution. Some may like it and some may not but the game is growing and as long as the game is growing,t he evolution will continue. For every one fan that stops waiting because of evolution, there are two that start Watching.
Sounds like a bit from This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
