Looks like Gary Bettman has Toronto Star writer Damien Cox flummoxed. The journalist can't figure out for the life of him why the league's commissioner is dragging his feet on making a ruling on Todd Bertuzzi's case. Cox writes that besides the fact that Steve Moore's health has not changed, the problem is compounded by "the NHL's curious behaviour in this matter, doubly odd given the strong and immediate manner in which the suspension was handed down three days after the incident."

Is it really that odd? The suspension was a no-brainer. One player sucker-punches another from behind, then lands on him, breaking his neck. The clip is played endlessly, even on networks like CNN that wouldn't care about hockey otherwise. Oh, what to do, what to do? Let the perpetrator go free without punishment, or try and convince the world that hockey isn't really made up of this type of goonery? Suspend him, of course. Make an example of him, and show that you won't tolerate that kind of crap. But then, one year later, you come to the point where it's time to do something about it again. And Gary Bettman might not know all that much about hockey, but he's not a complete idiot - he knows that fewer people are going to complain if the suspension continues than if it is lifted, and procrastinating on holding a hearing is definitely an easy way of doing the former, while seeming like you're progressing towards the latter.

Cox is right about it being a "gut-wrenching decision," which is exactly why Bettman's tactics are obvious. He's a chicken, and the last thing he needs is more bad P.R., being that he's the man who locked out the NHL for the 2004-05 season. There's all kinds of pressure on him to do it before the World Championship rosters are finalized, though; Team Canada GM (and Vancouver assistant GM) Steve Tambellini has left a spot open for Bertuzzi, and if the power forward becomes available he'll be on the team for sure, to avoid a row within the Canucks organization if nothing else. Of course Bettman will leave it for the last minute, though...come on, we're talking about a guy who didn't cancel the hockey season until February 16 (just to torture the more hopeful of us, I suppose).

I'm actually kind of surprised that Cox didn't pick some ridiculous explanation for GB's behaviour, and run with it; he seems to have a penchant for making statements that will make people sit up and take notice, if only to say "what the hell is he talking about?" During this year's World Juniors, he was asked on TSN which player would have the brighter NHL career, Russian Alexander Ovechkin, or Nova Scotian Sidney Crosby. Long story short, Cox initially answered "Ovechkin," then went on a long rant that culminated in "Crosby will be the better player." He didn't believe that Ovechkin would be better, but he just needed to say it anyway to make Canadian hockey fans pay attention to the intermission programming. I understand, though...it must be hard to entertain yourself when usually at this time of year you'd be writing about how much the hometown team sucks.

Choosing the troops

Team Canada has named the squad that will try for the three-peat at the IIHF World Championship in Innsbruck, Austria. Check out the roster, posted on Hockey Canada's website. They haven't named captains yet, but expect Ryan Smyth to get the "C" (he isn't nicknamed "Captain Canada" for nothing, folks). The "A"s could be a little bit tricker, since 19 of the 22 players have played for the nats in the past. Dany Heatley was the tournament MVP last year, but can't match the level of experience some of these guys have in leading a winning team from the dressing room out, most notably Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby. Joe Thornton and Ed Jovanovski will be prime candidates as well, on a team where leadership shouldn't be an issue at all. In short, they're well-prepared for a 2005 gold medal.

Shrinkage

Goalies will likely be using smaller pads when the NHL resumes play.

That was the big news out of the General Manager meetings in Detroit yesterday. The GMs also met with a select group of players, including goaltenders Martin Brodeur and Marty Turco. Brodeur also criticized the idea of bigger nets, saying "I hope they're not really serious about [them]. They are kind of ridiculous when you see them." Defenceman Rob Blake chimed in with the hopes that the net idea would be used as a "last, last resort," and it looks like he'll get that wish. THANK GOD. The new designs looked nothing short of absurd - see one of them here - and seemed way too gimmicky to be taken seriously. If Rodney Dangerfield was still with us, I'm sure he would have been amending his stand-up routine: "I went to a fight the other day, and a hockey game broke out. And what about those wacky new nets? They get no respect, I tell ya!"

The meetings also included a presentation on new, smaller goalie equipment by CCM, which obviously won the approval of players and managers alike. Brodeur's only problem was that the goalie's level of protection might be compromised, but I don't think there's much to worry about there - I think we crossed the line from "protective equipment" to "it's like having another goalie in there with you" a long time ago. There was also the now-obligatory "crackdown on obstruction" talk...you know, the one that'll make referees call all the hooks and holds in the first two-and-a-half periods, just to take the third period - and all of May and June - off.

Hopefully these developments see some more goal production in the league, just to keep Colin Campbell, the mastermind behind the bigger net idea, happy. If he's not, I'm sure he could bring his big nets along with that blue ice over to ESPN 8 ("The Ocho") so they could start airing XHL games, right after Dodgeball coverage every night.

Well, due to the fact that I've been so busy lately, I just haven't been able to get around to writing about all the stuff that's happened in hockey over the last week or so. It has, however, occurred to me that it might be time to be a little more selective about my topics; I never thought that would be a problem in a year without hockey - especially come April - but here we are. Eric Cairns went ballistic in England, chasing a ref around the rink; Steve Yzerman, Vincent Lecavalier, Jose Theodore, and Daniel Briere won't appear at the Worlds; after the outdoor charity game last night in Hamilton, Martin Brodeur said that he might take his family to see a game with replacement players (I'm sure the NHLPA loved that); and the draft has been postponed indefinitely. Most ridiculous of all, NHL senior VP Colin Campbell is pursuing the idea of making the nets bigger; something that has met with a lot of skepticism already, and is sure to meet more.

The notion's most outspoken critic so far, Canadiens goalie Theodore, has been quoted as saying "Excuse my French, but this is bull****." (What a sense of humour...I like this guy more already.) He also called it "crap," "junk," "ridiculous," and "stupid." And I tend to agree. We're not talking about enlarging the net to a lacrosse-sized goal (not that that would be a good idea; this is just for comparison's sake), but moving the posts a couple inches. So until goalies adapt and find their new crease size - which they will - you might see one or two embarassing goals, likely on dump-ins that the 'tenders think are going wide. Another net design calls for a convex net design; the posts would still be six feet apart, but there would be a larger area for shooters to fire at. That just seems like something you'd see in a bad futuristic sci-fi movie, along with center-fielders with rocket boots and a defensive line of eleven Reggie White clones.

Reducing the size of goalie equipment instead? Go ahead; do it. As the Hockey News writes, "Today's goalies have made a mockery of protective equipment, which has ballooned to the piont where even lanky Miikka Kiprusoff appears freakishly large." And they're absolutely right. Remember a few years ago, with Flyer Garth Snow donned a chest protector with outlandishly huge shoulder pads? He had extra protection for his ears. No one stood for that (not for very long, anyway), yet the leg padding has gotten out of control. There's so little room to see mesh at the bottom of the net, you might as well nail a few two-by-fours to the posts along the bottom, and make the net size 6x3 feet. That's where the answer lies: in bringing back some of the skill in goaltending, so that monstrous equipment can't pick up the slack when reflexes fail.

Many goalies don't agree with this, true - Leaf goalie Ed Belfour, after hearing that the league wanted to reduce pads to 10 inches, measured defenseman Bryan Marchment's shin guards for comparison; upon finding that they were 8 inches wide, he threw a fit because 8 inches is close to 10 inches. But if the league's GMs don't want to do away with huge equipment over the principle that it makes mediocre goalies into good ones, and good ones into great ones, then they might prefer this mathematical representation: SMALLER PADS = MORE GOALS. Nobody's going to be talking about bigger nets after that.

And finally, why did I say that a lacrosse-sized net would be a bad idea? Because it's hockey, not lacrosse. Would you triple the size of a basketball net to open up scoring? Would you move the outfield wall in a hundred feet? Would you widen the uprights? Of course not. Sports are supposed to be about athletes excelling inside the parameters they've been given, not about changing the parameters so athletes can excel. Start doing that, and you foster the creation of a society where individuals can't reach their goals without being given a ladder...and with that, we're now out of the scope of this blog, so I'll digress.