|
Well, all attempts at insulting me aside, you do have a point. I have season tickets to our local junior team, the Saginaw Spirit, and love to go watch them as often as possible. But at no time do I entertain ideas that they are anywhere near as enjoyable as going to see the Wings play. And since the WHA is touting itself as a rival to the NHL, if it turns into yet another junior league, it doesn't stand a chance to compete. Not to mention the talent pool at every level of Hockey is so diluted, that even if they opened the WHA as a strictly junior level league, it would suffer greatly for a lack of skilled players, and probably go the way of the IHL.
And as far as the open style of play, I am assuming you are refering to the lack of a red line, and other rules changes. I watched the olympics, as well as a few other international tournaments, and I found that style of play to be extremely boring. Constant breakaways and odd man rushes with little to no in zone strategy and positioning reminds me of NBA level basketball, which is a sport I refuse to watch anymore. Not to mention the reduction of hits because of the larger ice surface just steals some of the intensity which makes Hockey so excruciatingly enjoyable.
I do agree that the NHL has become less pleasurable to watch in recent years because of the insane amount of hooking, holding, and all around interference aloud, but the answer is not to change the rules over and over again. If you simply enforce the rules that are provided for already, these instances will clear up on their own, creating the open style of play, or teams will spend massive amounts of time killing penalties, which will add to the scoring and creativity in the game.
|