The Debriefing: I'm Ready to be Seduced, Hockey

The Debriefing is a column that runs every weekday at 9:00 a.m. here on FanHouse. It goes deep into one issue and then bounces around to a plethora of smaller ones ... and does it all in a way that will make you feel like the prettiest girl at the cotillion. Bookmark this page, and visit daily.

If you're familiar with my writing at all, you probably know that I'm not the biggest NHL fan. But most people don't know that that wasn't always the case. Once upon a time, I worshipped Wayne Gretzky ... I own six classic Gretzky games on VHS (which have probably rotted by now) and I even have one of those little stuffed bears in a Gretzky jersey. Don't tell anyone about the stuffed bear.

Because of Gretzky, I once watched 77 games of emotionless, sad, pitiful New York Rangers hockey. In fact, those Rangers teams might be the reason I don't like hockey anymore. I could probably make a good case to sue Peter Popovich and Rumun Ndur for emotional distress for what they did to me that year.

But I've been thinking about what could get me back into hockey, and I've come up with five suggestions. It's kind of a shame that I'm putting this post into FanHouse's NHL section ... the people there already love their game, they don't need me to sell them on it, and I hope this isn't taken as an outsider telling hockey fans what's wrong with their sport.

That's not the intention here. I think hockey's a solid and entertaining game to watch, and nothing would please me more than if the NHL could re-sink that hook into my mouth and reel me back in. Here are a few places they can start.

Someone, Somewhere in the NHL, Is Going to Have to Develop a Personality.

If Tim Duncan was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers tomorrow, he'd immediately become the most dynamic and outrageous personality in the NHL. That's not good.

Everyone in the media always says that hockey players are the most normal, down-to-earth, accessible people in sports. And that's fine ... if you're looking for an athlete to babysit your kitten, by all means, ask a hockey player. But I'm looking for someone to entertain me. When's the last time a hockey player said something even mildly interesting?

If I want down-to-earth, I'll call pretty much anyone I know. I get enough of normal. What I can never get enough of, however, is guys showing up to press conferences dressed like this. Guys at practice who do this. I know that Clinton Portis and Gilbert Arenas set the bar pretty high, but give me something. Would it kill you, Sidney Crosby, to deny the existence of dinosaurs? Would it be too much to ask, Alex Ovechkin, for you to admit that you're into the she-male, muscular type?

I'm sure there are a lot of NHL players who do have great personalities, we just need to get them out there. For some reason, everyone in hockey goes for the "Aw, shucks, I just really tried to help my team out there, eh, and work hard, because that's what we're all a-boot" attitude. Enough. No one cares, farm boy. You might as well be the teacher in Charlie Brown.

Even a guy like Terrell Owens ... you might hate him, I might hate him (in fact, I do hate him), but he's good for the NFL. He commands attention. People watch the Cowboys because they want to see someone rupture T.O.'s kidneys. As a league, you're looking for guys who get a response, even if that response isn't positive. It's better to be hated than to be boring.

The NBA and the NFL have their rookie symposiums, to help teach young players how to adjust to the league, protect themselves, stay out of trouble, etc. The NHL needs to have a rookie symposium to teach personality and attention-seeking behavior. "Gentlemen, we're not telling you that you should beat up prostitutes, but if you do, here's how to make sure the media notices it."

And speaking of the media, this extends to them, too. If you stop and think about an American media personality that really sells hockey and gets people excited about it, who comes to mind? Literally, the only name I can think of is Barry Melrose ... and even when I loved hockey, I wasn't into Melrose. I never found him particularly funny or entertaining, and I don't recall him ever saying anything about the game that couldn't have been said by any random guy who watched the game. He sounded like that drunk in Slap Shot who came up to Paul Newman in the bar and said, "You guys gotta stop losin'! Get the power play together, man." Yeah, we're workin' on it.

The NHL needs a Charles Barkley. They need a man of wit and insight, a man who can't be contained by any teleprompter, producer, or studio host. This man would serve as a public conduit to hockey, highlighting the best of the game, and skewering the worst of it. This man currently doesn't exist (nor will he ever, if he has to exist on Versus).

I'm Afraid I'm Going to Need HD.

This one isn't negotiable. I've seen hockey in standard definition, and I've seen hockey in high definition. It's like the difference between watching a Jenna Jameson DVD and trying to watch the Spice channel through a scrambled signal. Someone might get me to watch hockey again, but it won't be on standard definition.

HD shows more of the ice, the puck is much easier to follow (someone should really consider putting a lighted tail on that thing), and the mullets cascade much more gracefully behind the players.

Embrace the Fighting.

I'm anti-fighting in hockey. I believe that hockey can be a pretty good game on its own, and it doesn't need fighting to sell itself. Plenty of other sports exist without allowing bare-knuckle brawls, and so could hockey. You allow fighting, and you allow a culture of violence into the game, and ultimately, you end up with people doing things like this.

However, since I can't talk anyone out of fighting in hockey ... we might as well wrap our arms around this thing. If people will get excited about Chuck Liddell and Rampage Jackson whaling on each other, they'll get excited about Eric Cairns and Georges Laraque smashing each others' faces in.

Here's what I'm proposing: If a game's tied, and it goes to a shoot-out, we incorporate the fighting. A normal shootout consists of five rounds, each round allowing a player from each team to take a shot on goal. Under the new MJD system, the 2nd and 4th rounds would be replaced by fights.

We could do this one of two ways. Option 1: The first fighter to draw blood wins. This could get a little messy, though, as some fights would last forever, and guys would start doing things to make their knuckles harder and scratchier. Or, Option 2: A knockdown wins it. If we do this, we'd have to make a "punching only" rule, because you don't want guys going for Greco-Roman takedowns. So we pick one of these systems, and the winner of the fight gets the shootout point for his team.

This idea could be extended to every fight that occurs throughout the game, too. The winner of the fight gets 3:00 in the box, and the loser gets 5:00, giving the winning team a power play. Fighters could become heroes. And this might help solve the personality problem, too, as some team would get desperate enough to offer Mike Tyson a contract for this sole purpose.

We'd keep won/loss records, and give a trophy for the fighter with the best winning percentage at the end of the year. It would be like the Lady Byng Award, except the exact opposite. It would be called the Lady Byng Is A Dirty Whore Award, because them is fighting words. And it would be the most coveted individual trophy in team sports.

Cement the Goal Into the Ice.

You know how when someone goes crashing into the net, it slides of its moorings and gives way, so no one gets hurt? No more of that. Cement that thing down like a damn tetherball post. You'll move Stonehenge before you move that thing.

Then we'll find out who's tough. You want to go crashing into the net? Fine. But you're probably going to suffer a few broken ribs. Bring it on, tough guy.

Goalies Dress Like Everyone Else.

Maybe my biggest problem with hockey is that so many goals seem to be happenstance. A guy takes a shot, it bounces off someone's skate, stick, or ass, and the change of direction sends it wobbling past the goalie. And I know that sometimes this is the result of screening the goalie, keeping the puck in the zone, getting it on net, etc. ... things that are fundamental hockey plays. That's great.

But still, every goal that's scored this way looks like it's the product of luck, not to mention that it's about the least exciting way to score in any professional sport. No one even knows when the puck crosses the line, they just scream when the goalie gets mad and that pretty red light goes on.

Why does this happen? Because the goalies are so damn good that sometimes that's the only way to score. Unless you feel like forcing every goalie in the league to down a couple of quaaludes before every start, there's no way to make goalies actually worse. And you wouldn't want to, anyway. You want the best athletes out there that you can possibility have.

What you could do, though, is make them dress like everyone else.

I don't want to hear anything about goalies needing the extra padding, either. If a defenseman can drop to his knees and block a shot with just what he's wearing, so can a goalie. Hockey players are freaking crazy anyway ... since when has the threat of physical pain ever stopped a toothless, mulleted Canadian from doing anything? If you told any NHL player that it would get him closer to the Stanley Cup, he'd gladly take 46 paper cuts to his perineum and then go swimming in salt water.

That padding that goalies have isn't for protection, it's for stopping pucks. Get rid of it. I know the NHL has taken steps in recent years to reduce the size of goalie equipment, but they're still as big as Dodge Neons out there. Make goalies dress like everyone else, except for the mask and a first baseman's mitt. I'd take it a step farther and suggest nude goalies, but America's just not ready for that. Give it 10 years.

This won't stop the accidental deflection goals, but it will make them less necessary. When there's more open net, teams won't need to just fire it at the net and hope something good happens, there'll be more incentive to use actual skilled hockey plays.

That's my list. Gary Bettman, feel free to pick and choose as you like, and if you implement some of them, I might start watching. As long as it's in HD.





It's one thing to believe that it's perfectly okay to get hammered, steal a golf cart, and drive it on a public roadway ... it's quite another to share this view with an officer of the law, and expect him to agree with you.

That said, if I'm lucky enough to be married one day, you are hereby invited to the ceremony if you show up hammered and in a golf cart. Anyone who shows up that drunk in a stolen golf cart will not be turned away, I promise.





The All Blacks, New Zealand's national rugby union team, prepares to take on France. I don't know who won, but I'd bet on these guys. I don't want any part of what's happening here. If I was standing across from them with a loaded AK-47, and they were looking at me like that, I'd probably surrender and beg for mercy.

Note: I just looked it up, and the All Blacks did win, 42-11.





"If we come back with the same mentality, it ain't going to work," McDyess said. "But if we come back with the mentality of being ready to work, ready to win, we'll be OK."

- Detroit Pistons forward Antonio McDyess, who might as well have said, "I read The Debriefing yesterday, and MJD was exactly right."



Wily Mo Peña. Wily Mo woke up yesterday and thought to himself, "I'm going to do whatever I can today to get Mark Ellis a cycle. As expertly outlined here by our own Tom Fornelli, Peña misplayed an Ellis shot to the gap, allowing him to stretch it into a double. He did the same thing later and allowed Ellis to push a single to a double. Then Peña drove in the run that forced the game to extra innings, where Mark Ellis got his cycle-completing broken-bat single.



Taryne Mowatt. Arizona's pitcher gave up a couple of home runs last night to a Tennessee team that doesn't hit a lot of home runs (or so it says here, and I'm taking Graham Hays' word for this one). This prompted me to sell all of my Taryne Mowatt cards immediately. The Lady Vols won Game 1 of the Women's College World Series, 3-0. Meanwhile, Mowatt's counterpart, Tennessee Pitcher Monica Abbott, has thrown over 33 consecutive scoreless innings.

Honestly, I don't care about any of this. But ESPN keeps plugging it like TNT did Heartland and House of Payne, so someone out there must care about it.



8:00, ESPN2. College Softball. NCAA Tournament Championship, Game 2.
8:00, Fox Socer. International Friendly. Chile vs. Jamaica.
9:00, FOX. House.
10:00, TNT. The Closer.
10:30, ESPN2. WNBA. Minnesota Lynx @ Phoenix Mercury.
Yikes. In other words, go see a movie.

Oh, and happy birthday, dad.