10 Steps for Fixing the NHL

After skating with Kurt Browning tonight, I caught the start of the Leafs/Canucks game, surrounded by hockey fans. Browning, the four-time world figure skating champion, and I were skating at Legends on Hockey Day In Canada.

I watched the game surrounded by hockey fans and five ice pads at the Legends Rec Centre in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Browning was skating as a special event fundraiser for for the local branch of the Humane Society.

A tragic fire took place here in December, killing nearly 200 animals and destroying the dog shelter building they were in.

Oshaw is the hockey town famous for giving the world Bobby Orr, after starring with the Jr. A Generals for years. For the past few years, the Oshawa Generals have been the home team for the Next One: John Tavares, who is expected to be the No. 1 draft pick this year and the rookie of the year next year.

The Leafs game featured Mats Sundin and his new team, the Canucks, playing his old team, and it was big news here. It upstaged the first visit to Canada by the new American President Barack Obama.

Driving home in another white-out, CBC Radio news was all about NHL teams in the American Sunbelt struggling while Canadian teams sold out every night and made lots of money.

When I got home, I checked the Bleacher Report and saw a new piece about how to fix the NHL. Adam, from Texas, writing for the Bleacher Report, suggests five easy steps for fixing the NHL.

1. Send Bettman on a permanent vacation to Madagascar.

2. Contraction.

3. Schedule every team to play each other twice during the season.

4. Get the league back on ESPN.

5. Reduce the number of division games to four at most.

And then it hit me like a snowplow in a blizzard: Here's my plan for fixing the NHL.

1. Movie Phoenix to Winnipeg, Tampa Bay to Quebec City, Atlanta to Hamilton, Miami to Waterloo, Carolina to Regina, and the Islanders to Halifax.

2. Change the name of the NHL to the IHL. It's an international hockey league. Nationalism is out. The global village is in. The International Hockey League should merge with the KHL.

The new league would have a division in Canada, one in the USA, and one in Scandinavia/Europe/the former CCCP. There should be a team in the IHL for the capital cities of Europe and Scandinavia, and a few in Moscow.

3. Plan for expansion with an Asian division in the not-too-distant-future.

4. To make Americans love hockey like Canadians and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere, make American IHL teams more American. President Obama is a little bit of a protectionist, so he might like the idea of having an import quota on professional hockey players for American teams.

Pro hockey is a regional niche market in the USA and the way to take it to the next level is to give America what it loves: American athletes starring on American teams.

5. Remove the salary cap and lower salaries to realistic levels. All those millions paid to the top NHL players should be split between people who deserve them, especially teachers and nurses, and a fund to fight global warming—the NHL could use some good PR like that.

6. Encourage regional representation in all divisions so, for instance, more Toronto hockey players play for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

7. Either allow fighting or end it completely by expelling hockey players who fight.

8. Either end on-ice violence or promote it as boxing on ice.

9. Send the NHL to anger management.

10. Give me the Nobel Prize for Peace and for Environmental Protection.