What the NHL Should Change

With the Tigers out of the Frozen Four and the Avalanche battling down to the wire for the division title, I've been thinking a lot about the NHL: both good and bad. I've been formulating a list in my head about things I would love to see the league do to make it more entertaining, a la the WCHA. First, here are a few highlights of things I think they are doing right:

New Logo: I like the silver shield, it looks more modern, aggressive, and less like a construction sign.

4-on-4 OT: so much fun to watch the fastest 4 players from each team scream up and down the ice with the next goal being the game winner. The ice is more wide open, which alludes to a need-to-fix further down.

Shootouts: Nothing showed me the shootouts are entertaining more than at the West Regionals when hundreds of fans were clustered around a small TV to watch the Avs beat Edmonton, fun stuff and it adds uniqueness to the sport.

Things to change
1) UNIFORMS
I don't care what Reebok, sorry, RBK paid for these things, but they obviously didn't find professional designers to do most of them. Vertical stripes on hockey jerseys look ridiculous on most teams, Colorado and Edmonton to name a few. How come some teams like New Jersey and Detroit have almost no change, while other teams look stupid (some concepts were even worse!) The whole idea is dumb, hockey players aren't supposed to have tight uniforms and the whole concept of "new hip image" has made the NHL the laughing stock of the sports world. Even the AHL teams are victims.
On an Avalanche note: I wish the Avs would return to the more reddish color instead of flat maroon. The unis during the '96 season were a great color/shine combination. Of course, anything is better than the weird sleeve color combination now.

1.5) HOME TEAM IN WHITE/ALT.
Nothing can be good about the home team in dark if the reason was to sell more merchandise. NHL, fix this. We don't want to see the opponents in white every night, we want to see their colors. Plus, in a weird way, it looks like the home team is "highlighted" when in white. Whenever I play NHL '08 (with my custom Tigers team of course), I make sure to correct this problem.
If you want the home team to wear dark on occasion, bring back the 3rd jerseys. Those were fun

2) ICING
No-touch icing should be put in place immediately, like tomorrow. Something about seeing to grown men going full speed at a wall doesn't seem to safe to me. Plus, it wastes time and is boring to watch when one player casually skates after it. Think of how much extra time in the offensive zone a team would have if a clearing attempt was brought back as soon as it crossed the end-line?!

3) OLYMPIC ICE
For economic reasons this will never happen; all the new arenas are built for the smaller ice sheet. BUT, imagine how much more wide open it would be if there was that extra space on the ice? Look at CC play; more speed and more room to move at the World Arena. NHL players sometimes look like big kids playing in the sandbox on the NHL ice. The Olympics are always a ton of fun to watch because it's played on the bigger ice sheet.

4) RELOCATION
The NHL keeps whining about declining revenue. Well, quite putting teams where they don't belong! I know there are fans everywhere BUT, because of hockey's origins it would probably make sense to put teams where it actually snows once in a while! Here's my little plan

Teams to move or remove: Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa, Florida, Columbus and maybe a SoCal team

• Nashville has a cool logo, but can't sell tickets. Kansas City wants a team again so why not move a semi-established franchise into the new Sprint Center and see how they do. They would be a nice close rival to the Avalanche and provide the Midwest with an alternative to the pathetic Blues. If their fail, give em the axe
  
• Atlanta Thrashers: fold the team and call it a day. I would say relocate but the name and new uniform gets them the permanent axe.
• Tampa Lightning: had one good season and somehow won the Stanley Cup before the lockout, has quickly returned to the NHL basement. It might sound mean to do this to a warm-weather franchise but Canada needs more teams so off you go: either Quebec City or Winnipeg where hockey belongs.
• Florida Panthers: Are they still in the league? After Beezer in '96 they vanished, which they should. Expansion team didn't work out down there, see ya.
• Columbus Blue Jackets: Never understood why they put a team there, doesn't ring a bell as hockey land but they just appeared one day. BUT, if the NHL wants experiments, send em to Vegas where everyone claims a team is needed (the only exception to the "snow rule")
  
• Anaheim or LA: I know LA is big and can support two teams but it doesn't make sense for a struggling league to have two teams in one market. The Kings have the history and the name, the Ducks are a pretty good team now. So what do you do? Logic would say leave the tradition and send the newbies off to Canada (Quebec or Winnipeg, whoever didn't get one earlier) and risk betraying the fans. I'll go aggressive and send the Kings to Canada and leave the Los Angeles Ducks (or dare we say the Southern California Ducks)?
• Bonus-Phoenix Coyotes: They have the fan base, population, and facilities but remember this is a struggling league and Phoenix makes as much sense as Miami. We'll give Wayne a couple more years but he's been put on notice.

5) ORIGINAL CONFERENCE and DIVISION NAMES: Bring back names like the Norris Divsion and Prince of Whales Conference. Sounds kind of kooky but it adds a uniqueness and tradition to the sport and distinguishes it from all other U.S. sports that have geographic distinctions. Plus, you don't end up with weird division associations like Colorado and Minnesota in the Northwest and D.C. in the southeast.

There you go, axe two teams, move 2 back to the hockey homeland and try out hockey in Vegas and KC. Will any of this all happen? Nashville has the biggest chance, followed by Atlanta. The likely destination will be KC for the newest team and the Winnipeg area for the other.

There's my take, I'm sure I'll add to and tweak this throughout the week. If you want more "what should the NHL really be like"isms, check out ESPNHL that was dreamed up during the lockout.
~PCO