A year ago at this time, the HP Pavilion ice was the center of
the Bay Area sporting universe. Packed with a raucous crowd, the
Shark Tank positively quivered with excitement as the hometown team
powered past the perennial power Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley
Cup playoffs, assuring the team of its first appearance in the
Western Conference finals. A season after the franchise had sunk to
the depths of despair, dumping the best coach in Sharks history
– Daryl Sutter – and floundering into the second division, the
team had captured the Bay Area’s imagination with its inspired play
and foray deep into the playoffs. And, as disappointing as San
Jose’s subsequent loss to the Calgary Flames – and Sutter – in the
Western Conference finals
was, hopes were high for the organization’s future. After more
than a decade, there was real hope for a triumphant draught from
the Cup in the near future. But that’s all gone now.
A year ago at this time, the HP Pavilion ice was the center of the Bay Area sporting universe.
Packed with a raucous crowd, the Shark Tank positively quivered with excitement as the hometown team powered past the perennial power Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley Cup playoffs, assuring the team of its first appearance in the Western Conference finals. A season after the franchise had sunk to the depths of despair, dumping the best coach in Sharks history – Daryl Sutter – and floundering into the second division, the team had captured the Bay Area’s imagination with its inspired play and foray deep into the playoffs.
And, as disappointing as San Jose’s subsequent loss to the Calgary Flames – and Sutter – in the Western Conference finals was, hopes were high for the organization’s future. After more than a decade, there was real hope for a triumphant draught from the Cup in the near future.
But that’s all gone now.
There’s been no ice, nor rabid fans, at the Shark Tank this season at all, let alone in the high-intensity glare of the postseason. In fact, there’s now a very real feeling that the Sharks’ ice is melting into the sands of time.
First, the National Hockey League allowed itself to become the first American sport to lose an entire season to a strike or lockout after failing, very publicly, to reach any kind of collective bargaining agreement. Worse yet, there’s no real sense of why the battlelines were drawn in the first place because the owners and players ended up just a few million dollars apart. It’s bad enough when they bicker over the spoils of a vast treasure collected through burgeoning success. It’s completely mystifying when the passengers battle over seat cushions on an already foundering ship. (Nobody was watching the NHL on TV even before this debacle.)
And, there’s apparently little indication that a new agreement is soon to be reached as the summer off-season approaches. If the NHL loses another season, partial or whole, to strike or lockout, it will take the sport decades to recover.
In fact, the NHL is being left so completely out of the news that the last time the league got any publicity was early last month during a lame attempt at considering rules changes aimed at increasing scoring.
(Reducing the size of goalies’ equipment, banning the goalie from handling the puck behind the net, allowing off-sides players to clear themselves out behind the blue line during an offensive attack, and moving the nets closer to the end boards, were all considered, among other proposals.)
Rules changes? For a sport that, for all intents and purposes, doesn’t exist and may not for who knows how long?
Talk about fiddling while Rome burns. (Okay, so the NHL was never Rome, but it’s definitely burning, baby.)
On the bright side, the NHL has a real opportunity to position itself at the forefront of the most important issue facing the world of sports in nearly a century – steroids.
With Congress extending its review of performance-enhancing drugs to all major sports, the NHL has a chance to get out in front of the issue in a way other sports have failed to do.
So far, NHL officials and spokespeople have reacted to the steroids issue by pointing to the apparent dearth of use in their sport, the implication being that no major changes to the league’s nearly non-existent testing policy is necessary. The argument seems to be that because size isn’t as crucial in hockey as it is in other sports, there’s less incentive for players to use steroids.
Simply put, that’s an entirely backward approach to becoming part of the solution. Rather, the NHL should take the high road, and grab much-needed headlines in the process, by agreeing to the most stringent and sweeping testing program in the history of sports.
First of all, the sport should take care in relying too much on its “hockey players don’t need steroids” argument. As the sport becomes increasingly competitive, the pressure on current and prospective players to get bigger, faster and tougher rises exponentially. Just like any other sport, the short-sighted allure of steroids is seductive. And, NHL players are as susceptible to the potential short-term recuperative benefits of steroids as athletes in any other sport.
Besides, if the NHL is as free of steroid use as it claims, that’s any even better argument for keeping it thusly unsullied through extensive testing. If there’s very little steroid use now, then there should be little risk of destroying the sport’s reputation through an embarassing revelation regarding widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs. (Several other sports probably wish they had the same luxury.)
Of course, the ubiquitous argument against extensive steroids testing always seems to be that neither the owners, who are apparently scared about what the potential bad public relations, nor the athletes, who profess concerns about the presumption of guilt presented by regular testing, really want it.
This might seem to make it more difficult for the NHL and its poor negotiative track record to reach a consensus between owners and athletes. But no matter what differences they have, both sides should set them aside in the quest to take the lead in steroids testing.
It may very well be their sport’s salvation.
Times readers are always welcome to respond to all sports columns and other articles.
Jim Johnson is the Morgan Hill Times Sports Editor. He can be reached by calling (408) 779-4106 (ext. 203) or by email at
jj******@mo*************.com
