Brought to you by the Western Hockey Network

   Contact    Home     AHL      ECHL   About Us    Radio   Josh's Column  Kevin Greenstein   Audio    Europe

LOS ANGELES - SEPT 18, 2005 -- Who could be anything but encouraged by NHL Director of Officiating Steven Walkom's comments during his conference call with the press last week?

Cynicism abounds around pro sports, and hockey is the most self-effacing of them all (unfortunately).  While previous seasons have yielded "crackdowns on obstruction" and promises from the league offices that things would be different this time, really, we mean it, the cynics were generally right about the NHL, in terms of what the product had devolved to from, say, 1994 to 2004.  Defense, stifling defense, and traps and obstruction and tackling and other practices abounded.

"It's not just the players’ culture and the coaches’ culture that needs to change. It's the officiating culture, as well, because what were accepted practices in the past will no longer be accepted practices in the future," said Walkom.

These are seminal days in hockey's history, as Gary Bettman noted when the rules changes were unveiled in July. Walkom is at the center of this changed game, the man responsible for standardizing the way hockey is played.

Walkom is offering a stern message, and judging by the action on the ice at Staples Center last night, we are in the process of an important dress rehearsal, otherwise known as training camp and the preseason. 

The Kings and Ducks enjoyed a penalty-filled affair, which despite the endless power plays on either side, was a welcome relief for anyone who wants to see the league raise the standard for obstruction and hooking and just generally calling the rule book.  This indeed seems to be the case in the "New" NHL, if what was on display last night holds firm, which was basically zero tolerance for any constraint of skaters who don't have the puck.  One after the other, they went to the box. 

Beautiful.

While the Kings and Ducks have a great deal of animosity between them, and while the George Parros and Kip Brennan types have their own battles to fight in the preseason in order to make the big club, many of these penalties were for hooking and holding and all the other garbage that ruined the NHL's product.  The change in officiating is evident and the focus here and now is a major "re-education" of the men who play NHL hockey.

While Andy Murray claims that his team always played the style that the NHL is looking for currently (and there's truth there, for sure), the players know they're in a totally different game.  It's evident, and as they shake the rust off and acquaint themselves with the absence of the center red line, tag-up offside and other long overdue changes to the game, fans will be delighted to know that there's room on the ice again, the likes of which have not been seen in years.

Here's to the new product.

And here's to Steven Walkom's efforts to date.

"I believe the players are going to be active in listening, because this is a big change in our hockey culture for everybody in the game. Because the accepted practices of the player continually cross-checking in front of the net for a player, wrapping a player and holding him along the boards, and for the puck carrier to be tugged, hooked and held and be poked all the way up the ice; if any of those penalties were called in the past, they would be looked upon as poor judgment or you don't know what you're calling. So that's a big change for the players, so they want to come to understand it."

Stay tuned for a vastly different league, a more watchable one, and a game more closely resembling traditional hockey than any in the past decade.

OTHER NOTES: I'll have more about this later, but Corey Perry of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks is going to win the Calder Trophy this year.  He'll lead the league's rookies in scoring from the opening faceoff until the end of the season, and you can hold me to this prediction.  The kid is right up there with Sidney Crosby, but he's a couple of years older and he led the London Knights to the Memorial Cup title this year, has been in the Ducks system for three years and is a breakthrough talent with a thirst for the front of the net.