By Pierre LeBrun, Sportsnet.ca
I am jealous. Dripping with envy.
I’m reading reports from baseball’s winter meetings and find myself wondering from what mystical world these stories are coming. Major League Baseball’s who’s who of GMs and team executives are congregated in one place and talking trade and in the case of Monday night’s deal between Detroit and Florida, making big ones.
When they are not talking trade, they are talking about those trade talks with the media, of which there is a huge contingent in attendance. It’s gossip central. A sports writers’ paradise.
But hockey doesn’t have a version of baseball’s winter meetings. Oh, sure, there was the NHL’s board of governors meeting last week in Pebble Beach, Calif., and I was more than happy to attend. But there were no trades made and very little trade gossip. Aside from five or 10 minutes of interviews with the governors after their meeting, they were off to the golf course in a hurry.
The NHL – always craving for attention – should create a similar event to baseball’s winter meetings where front-office staff and media converge to create an amazing buzz for fans.
Here’s my proposal: use the February NHL GM meetings as the basis for a trade deadline bonanza.
For example, this year’s meetings run Feb. 18-20 in Naples, Fla., with the trade deadline a week later on Feb. 26. There likely won’t be any deals at this year’s meetings, just like there weren’t last year even though the GM meetings were also just a week before the trade deadline. Sure ”the foundation” for deals were laid (if I hear that one more time I’m going to vomit) but the real moves didn’t happen until the 48-hour period leading up the actual deadline.
If I were the NHL, I would push next year’s GM meetings closer to the trade deadline so that it actually includes it. For example, let’s pretend next year’s trade deadline is Feb. 27; I would have the GM meetings run Feb. 24-27. The first two and half days would deal with the actual agenda, such as rule changes, state of the game, CBA talk, etc.
Then on the afternoon of Feb. 26, with the meetings nearly over, the GMs could switch gears and set up shop for the trade deadline. Each team could have its own little war room in the hotel. The NHL would set up a media room and let the action begin. The three sports networks in Canada could even set up shop at the hotel; the whole hockey world in one spot. Imagine the buzz – all the GMs in the same hotel, available for comment after trades and more importantly available to gossip in the days and hours leading up to the deadline. That’s how you generate interest, as baseball has demonstrated.
Similarly, with talk last week during a GM’s conference call that the free-agency period might possibly move from its usual July 1 opening to accommodate national holidays on both sides of the border, I humbly suggest a July GM meetings/free-agent bonanza similar to the trade deadline idea – all 30 front offices in one hotel with media there to cover it. Again, it’s a way to generate interest. Right now the July 1 to July 4 signings – the most important of the year for most teams – get lost in the shuffle in some markets because of the national holidays.
Even if the free-agency period does not shift from the July 1 opening, I would still try to assemble the who’s who of the NHL in one place for the first few days. What’s the risk in trying it?
In a league where trades are scarce until February because the salary cap limitations in the collective bargaining agreement, I really believe these ideas would catch fire. Until then, long live the baseball winter meetings.
