Pole-Position

With the emerging success of a few former bottom-feeding franchises which have become home to some of the hottest young talents in the game, there seems to be a disturbing new trend on the rise, which threatens to erode, or at the very least distort the time-honored traditions that make this game we love, so very special. I grew up in an era of hockey that prided itself not on it's marketability, but on it's fierce loyalty to honoring the conventions and traditions established by those legends of the game who played for pride, not just a paycheck. My dad used to tell me about the days when bruised and battered NHL players would come back to his hometown of Sudbury in the off-season and pick up a summer job until training camp started.
Imagine...Joe Thornton a roofer, or Luongo stocking shelves at your local grocery...
In no way is this treatise of mine a criticism of today's crop of hockey stars, who are as entitled to riches and accolades as the franchises who employ them, but it certainly shows us the mindset of those toothless, helmet-less athletes of yesteryear, who played solely for the crest on their jersey, and a shot at glory. The paycheck was a bonus, not the driving force that compelled names like Mahovlich and Richard to play like they were on their way to the electric chair, night after night.
Living here in Toronto, it is expected that if a new trade acquisition, free agent or young rookie doesn't light it up the day he dons the sacred jersey, said player will face the wrath of a legion of acid-tongued scribes, as well the most petulant of sports fans, who will most assuredly raise their fists in righteous indignation for having the good name of their proud hockey heritage besmerched. In a weird and amusing parodox, Toronto fans don't willingly accept mediocrity, however cursed with it we have been since the glory days of Gilmour, Clark, and co. Puzzling...
The very nano-second the cyber-analysts and armchair afficionados in Toronto get that all too familiar late-season twitch, sensing the playoffs may be out of reach, the call goes out across Leaf Nation to abandon ship, and to start competing for the pot of gold at the other end of the rainbow- the chance to draft a pimple-faced, puck-shooting prodigy, who would be charged with the task of salvaging the hopes and aspirations of not just a team, but a veritable nation of playoff-deprived hockey fans. These reluctant heroes become merchandising juggernauts, poster-children and spokesmen for inumerable equipment manufacturers, magazines and sports shows, before they are legally allowed to celebrate their success with a cold beer... talk about a pressure-cooker...

And this leads me to believe that the new mentality of playing for a more favourable pole-position could be the undoing of the greatest game ever played. Since when is a draft pick the coveted prize, and not Lord Stanley's mug? It occurs to this old-school hockey enthusiast that we may have it bass-ackwards here, sportsfans...
The day Leaf fans shake their heads in disgust after the pride of Toronto laid waste their rivals to the east, was a sad day for hockey. If you want a winner in your city, the mantra simply has to be: win or die trying. Or perhaps something like: "Kill 'em all, let Burkey sort it out". He has something like five million reasons annually to deal with the nuts and bolts of how the team is engineered. The day he, or any hockey manager walks in the dressing room and tells the boys who have played the game one way and one way only, since childhood, to leave their pride and winning attitude in the locker room is the day many of us find another team to believe in. fortunately, Burke upholds the inalienable truth that winning starts with a winner's attitude. No leaf team under his watch will ever play for pole position. They'll take on all comers, and chip away until they have the makings of a contender, achieved through honest, hard earned success, the way the heroes of the days of yore did it.
Point: hockey players are required to do one thing and one thing only, and that is play to win. Manipulating the draft is not their problem. These fine young men who bring us both enormous pride and frustration toil endlessly in the minors for a shot at earning their keep. To expect a roster full of battered and scarred veteran ice-warriors to capitulate in favour of an 18 year old potential saviour is as insulting as it is laughable.
I'm hoping this notion of 'tanking' is nothing more than a collective fan hallucination, a vain imagining which no true blue (and white) NHL'er would ever ponder. for the sake of this great game of ours, let's all hope that the 700 or so athletes that make up the National Hockey League forever quench their thirst for glory by drinking only from Lord stanley's mug, and never the koolaid of cowardice and mediocrity...

The draft lottery was meant to create equity across the league, not to foster a welfare-state mentality where the talent-poor clubs rely on the governing body to sustain them, while the more lucrative clubs shoulder the load and never get a sniff at a top 5 pick.
Surely, there IS a better way. The NHL must re-engineer its strategy in a way which awards the conference finalists with a few extra lottery balls, thus dispelling the notion that all you have to do is suck for five years and you're Stanley-cup-bound...if the bottom-feeders weren't necessarily guaranteed a grand prize in the form of a future hall of famer, perhaps the focus in the playoffs will come back to where it belongs-winning the championship.

I'm sure many of you disagree. Please take the time to explain your position...I'd love to hear from you...