Alex Ovechkin, Andrei Markov, Evgeni Malkin, Sergei Gonchar, Ilya Kovalalchuk , Marc Savard  and Jonathan Towes. Sounds like a list of NHL All -stars right, wrong, it’s a list of NHL injuries so far this year. Its hard to understand why a group of owners who rely heavily on such stars to attract fans to the games are not smart enough businessmen to realize they need to do whatever it takes to keep them on the ice and not “on ice “ due to injuries. Yes hockey is a fast game with big, strong men who wear equipment made of hard plastic ( I think NASA uses the same material on their space shuttles ) but can the NHL not take a look at another fast , hard hitting sport with big guys called the NFL and see how they have come to realize that they need to protect their stars. Its called changing the rules to protect stars such as the quarterbacks, rules such as not leading with the helmet, no chop blocking and no horse-collaring tackles. Yes these were rules that were implemented to minimize injuries and the players over time have come to accept them and understand why they are there. What has also been a key to these rules being effective is that they are enforced with a zero tolerance approach, unlike the NHL which even if they have the rules, completley ignore them during the playoffs showing that their is no consistancy in their approach.

Its time that the NHL governors did the same along with Gary Bettman, who should start worrying more about the injuries than worrying about keeping teams that are losing money in cities that don’t care about the sport. Maybe Bettman doesn’t realize that while the packaging on products and advertising is important, nothing will matter if the package is empty or full of damaged goods. Hockey fans are not going to dish out $100 a ticket to watch 3rd and 4th line players, unless of coarse they live in Toronto. That would be equivalant to watching movies such as, Oceans 11,12,and 13 without George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

Counting on the players to solve this problem themselves is a long shot since they cannot even get themselves and their NHLPA properly organized, so how can they fix the game they play. It’s really a mess and if it keeps up we will be talking about the NHL in the same context that we talk about UFL or WNBA, second rate leagues that no body cares about.

SDG