It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like the 1970s

Last night in Dallas following a 4-3 Stars victory over the visiting Edmonton Oilers, one of the locals sitting behind the Edmonton bench decided to get into a shouting match with Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish. Given that the word is out that MacTavish may very well be on the hot seat and is probably a little on edge, we shouldn’t be surprised that another member of the team’s staff needed to step in to keep some space between the two of them.
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↵Of course, this wasn’t the first incident involving a fan this season that’s managed to get some television air time. There was an incident earlier this season in Nashville where a woman decided to give Sean Avery a piece of her mind while he was sitting in the penalty box. Nobody got hurt, and the whole thing was pretty entertaining.
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↵Taken together, it’s hard not to glue together a couple of other things about this NHL season that’s made me harken back to the league’s past. Seeing the incidents in Dallas and Nashville, it was hard not to think back to the infamous incident at Madison Square Garden on December 23, 1979, that ended with Bruins defenseman Mike Milbury battering a fan with his own shoe.
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Observers around the league seem to generally acknowledge that fighting is up -- and we all know how the Broad Street Bullies in Philadelphia leveraged fighting into three Finals appearances in a row and a pair of championships in the middle of the 1970s. And given the tension being created by the global credit crisis, it’s to remember that the last time the world economy was in such bad shape was, you guessed it, the 1970s.
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↵For the NHL, harkening back to that era has both its good and bad. Thanks to a failing economy, plenty of NHL teams had trouble keeping traction, especially expansion franchises. The Kansas City Scouts became the Colorado Rockies, who became the New Jersey Devils. The Cleveland Barons were forced to merge with the Minnesota North Stars. And the California Golden Seals, well, they just disappeared.
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↵Ultimately, though, the trend that is most in the league’s favor is that many of the teams that dominated the league in the 1970s are back on top. For the first time in a long time, the Boston-Montreal rivalry means something. The Rangers, after wallowing just outside the playoff chase for a number of years, seem built to last. The Flyers are back with a sneer and some scoring punch, as are the Blackhawks, who have risen from the grave to capture the imaginations of hockey fans in Chicago and sell out home games consistently for the first time since they left the old Chicago Stadium.
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↵It’s hard to deny that we’re not in for some hard times just around the corner. But if you’re an NHL fan, it’s safe to say that the game may very well provide you with the sort of entertainment that will lend something of a welcome distraction.↵