Can you imagine hockey’s most vocal ambassador and one of its most exciting players serving as commissioner?
It’ll never happen, of course, but when P.K. Subban joined the Bill Simmons Podcast this week, he pondered the idea, and discussed some of the things he’d change.
“One day I’d love to be the commissioner of the NHL,” Subban said. (Listen to the full podcast here)
“Let’s play less games. Our game is just (as), if not more physical than the NFL. They play 16 games all year, we play 82, plus travel, plus playoffs.
“Jonathan Toews has played over 100 games a year probably consistently over the past five or six years. Think of the wear and tear on your body.”
This season has been especially tough schedule-wise, with the late start after the World Cup — which most of the top players were involved in — the All-Star Game, and mandatory team bye weeks, which will also be around next season. This has led to a much more condensed schedule than usual, especially in the back half of the season and down the stretch.
Subban pondered what this would mean for the players of today, and the likelihood one of them could pull off a career that runs as long as Jaromir Jagr’s.
“If I had it my way, I would like to see the games get cut down,” Subban said. “82 games, in my opinion, it’s a grind. You’re going to see great players’ careers ended shorter because of the fact they’re playing more games. And you look at this year just the schedule alone, we’ve been playing almost every second day for the whole season. It’s been crazy because of the World Cup and the All-Star Game and all these extra things coming in.
“The days of seeing guys who have 22-year careers – only the freaks will be able to do that.”
Subban, rightly, points out that cutting down on games would of course have a negative impact on revenues. That in turn would lead to less money for the owners, smaller salaries for the players and a situation where the sport that’s already dwarfed by the NBA, MLB and NBA in the United States, gets even smaller.
If the NHL were to cut down its regular season, how much would it go down by? Simmons floated the idea of a 70-game regular season followed by a playoffs that has a best-of-nine series. Subban went a couple steps further — even if it was in jest.
“I’d like to see it just like the NFL: 16 games, one game a week and just blow out the stadiums, make them huge…
“I’m just kidding, you can’t do 16 games.”
SUBBAN ON IF CANADA COULD HAVE MORE NHL TEAMS
“You could probably put more. But if we’re looking to grow the game you have to be willing to experiment. Here’s the reality of the experimentation process: who takes the blame, or who takes the heat, or who’s at expense — who’s the expense go to when it doesn’t work out? When you have a team that maybe doesn’t get the fan base or have the revenues. Who takes the hit for that? Is it the owners or the players or do we share it?
“That’s where we have the disagreements. At the end of the day you have to be willing to test the waters. You have to try. You have to go into communities and that’s where grassroots come in, and that’s where the growth of the game happens. You have to be willing to get kids into the game and grow the game.
“A perfect example is Nashville. If we were scared to not go to Nashville there’d be no team there. You ask any player in the league it’s one of the best places to play.”
ON CHANGING THE NORRIS TROPHY TO THE BOBBY ORR TROPHY
“I wouldn’t be opposed to that…”
“The Best of Bobby Orr tape my dad bought me I watched it and got to watch his whole story and his impact on the game and what he did — he changed the game for defencemen.
“How many different generations of a defencemen are we going to see? That’s the pinnacle of it. He was able to do everything.
“But then you gotta take into play it’s the equipment, it’s the speed of the game, it’s the players. I mean, players have improved so much they’re so much better. Everybody’s fast, everybody can skate, everybody can stickhandle, everybody’s got skills.
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