NHL vs NHL

I do not remember the last time I had sat down and watched a professional NHL hockey game.  What comes to mind would have been 1993 right before Norm Greed picked up all the hockey pucks and moved his Minnesota North Star team to Dallas.  I had seen a few North Star games at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, Minnesota back when, as you could buy a ticket in those days for $5.00.  I am not sure how many of those games I actually went to, but I would probably only need 2 hands to count them.  I did see the Minnesota Wild play their 1st game at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, but the few I have seen since then would have been on the tube.  I do know that I have seen more Minnesota Gopher games back in those days than the North Stars and Wild combined.  I am an anomaly as for more than 60 years, I have lived and breathed hockey, however, professional hockey was never really in the mix and college hockey went down the tubes in 2013 when the WCHA did a realignment and created the Big Ten.  Hey, this isn’t football!  The WCHA was a powerhouse and I will never forget the 2005 NCAA Frozen Four when all 4 teams were from the WCHA.  In reality, professional and college hockey would take up only 1% of my viewing pleasure as the rest of the equation would be dedicated to youth hockey (mini-mites to high school) which would be in the neighborhood of 3,000 games.  Whoa!  You are most likely thinking how that is even geo-physically possible.  It’s not hard to figure out so let’s do the math.  As I have already mentioned, I have been involved for more than 60 years and on many different levels: player, coach, referee, reporter, publisher, game announcer, tournament director, parent and fan.  For 18 years as the tournament director for a youth hockey organization in Northern Minnesota, I would work 100 games per season, plus work another 50 high school games per season for a 24 year period.  Anyway, I have consumed more hockey games than should be allowed by law.  

So, what does all this info have to do with the NHL?  Well, the XXV Winter Olympic Games came to an end yesterday in grand style when, once again, it was Team USA vs Team  Canada for the Profession-olympic Gold Medal.  In other words, it was the NHL vs the NHL and the NHL came out on top in overtime.  I don’t know about the rest of you folks out there, but having the NHL providing players for the Winter Olympics is just plain weird.  Okay, I am the 1st to admit that I am still stuck in the 1980 Miraclemania memory.  I don’t mean to take anything away from yesterday’s overtime victory for Team U.S.A. as they were another team of destiny.  I have to admit that it is rather poignant that Jack Hughes scored the overtime winner since he got some of his teeth knocked out from a high stick in the 3rd period. It enhances his celebratory smile and gives it that genuine hockey look.  I also got a kick out of his brother Quinn, who had a similar style to Eveleth’s Mark Pavelich from the 1980 team, who probably logged more ice time than anyone and almost won it for them on a great wrist shot just prior to his brother Jack scoring the game winner.

It was a lot easier in 1980 when the games were over.  All of Team USA’s opponents went back to their own country.  It has to be a strange feeling for some of these players to go back to their respective teams this week and get back to work.  You just finished playing on opposite teams in the Olympics and now you are back to your regular job as teammates.  I wonder how many therapy appointments have been scheduled!  Stay tuned…..!