The NHL Isn't as Fun as It Should Be

This story originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

Is the NHL fun?

Sure, in a relative sense. When compared to an eight-hour work shift in your cubicle or getting your hand caught in a garbage disposal, the NHL is a delightful distraction from the everyday grind that is life. The NHL beats a lot of things, like waiting for the results of a blood test, getting punched in the face by a kangaroo or constipation. The NHL is a hoot on that scale.

But is the NHL as fun as it could be? Is anyone watching, covering or working within the NHL having any fun?

It was 26 months ago that Blues captain David Backes issued an executive order—when his team scored a goal, no longer would players skate to the bench and high-five teammates on a fly-by, a common ritual at virtually every level of hockey in every country.

At some point, that open display of happiness became too much for some to endure. Three former players, including Hall of Famer Brett Hull, confronted Backes about the post-goal celebration. Because hockey's top culture trait is conformity at all costs, the current player relented to the former player, and for a little while, the Blues masked their joy in the name of sports fans' favourite thing—being classy.

Who among us can't recall being 8 years old in our back yards, pretending it's Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and scoring classy points with firm postgame handshakes and rehearsing cliché lines about teamwork to a media man that will only say nice things about you if you say classy things?

The conversation between Hull and Backes may have gone something like this:

Hull: "Hey, David. I saw you score a goal the other night. It sure looked like a lot of fun."

Backes: "Hey, Brett. It was a lot of fun."

Hull: "Please stop having fun."

While other sports celebrate individualism, the NHL takes individualism into a locked room, ties it to a chair and beats it into a quote about teammates helping out and the win being the most important thing. A player could score six goals, and afterward he would tell the world that it wouldn't have been possible without the construction crew that built that rink and the puck manufacturer that produced the rubber disk to league-mandated specifications. He may even apologize for smiling too widely on the sixth goal.

Maybe the NFL takes it too far, with players seemingly unable to control the urge to signal first down after reaching the line to gain. No one wants to see Phil Kessel taking a bow after a shot on goal or Corey Crawford doffing his mask after every mildly difficult save. But there are zero inhibitions after a touchdown, whether it's Cam Newton's Superman celebration or Packers players taking the Lambeau leap. Heck, even Brad Wing miming a golf swing when he flops a punt inside the 10 is a wonderful expression of self-satisfaction.

The feeling of scoring a goal or a touchdown probably aren't all that different, yet the NHL teaches its players to suppress those feelings as much as possible while the NFL says, "Do a leaping chest thump with everyone on the sideline and keep the ball, we've got way more."

Watch one game of the world juniors and you'll wonder where the unadulterated elation of playing the game goes when an NHL jersey is donned. Team USA players were invoking the dab at this year's tournament, which was inspired by the aforementioned Newton. Team Canada's Dylan Strome invoked either Katniss Everdeen or Legolas or Hawkeye or baseball's Fernando Rodney when he pretended to reach into a bag of arrows and fire one into the air after scoring a goal.

Heck, even in the KHL, an adult league for adults, Evgeny Kuznetsov broke out a kayak celebration because scoring a goal is a wonderful thing and should be savoured as such.

Where does that pure merriment go when the NHL is involved?

It's beaten out of players, if not by the morals and standards of the NHL then by joyless, stodgy media types that appear to revel in parroting the cult-like beliefs of players they wish they could be or wish were their real-life friends. The next-best thing to fulfilling your childhood dreams of becoming a pro athlete is to convince yourself you are just like a real NHL player by shoving the idea of being classy down the throats of young, talented people that love playing the game more than anything because you've heard someone like Hull say being openly happy is somehow a sign of immaturity or amateurism.

"Act like you've been there before," said the person who has never been there before. Imagine the psychological makeup of a person who clenches at the sight of Alex Ovechkin acting as though his stick is on fire or P.K. Subban tugging at his jersey or Nail Yakupov signaling his teammates to join him after an overtime winner. Linus Omark once did a spin 100 feet from the net before scoring in a shootout and the hockey world reacted as if he assassinated Jaromir Jagr.

The dour attitude spills into everything. Fans from across the world climbed to the top of their servers, logged on and demanded that John Scott represent the NHL at the All-Star Game. A better and funnier fan initiative you will not find in any sport. A man who once attempted to murder Loui Eriksson became the focal point for a movement that would send a player almost entirely devoid of skill to a game designed for the most skilled.

If you can't see the humor in sending a player that once attacked Phil Kessel in a preseason game to an All-Star exhibition, you are probably an NHL general manager or a hockey writer over the age of 50.

Let's say you don't find the idea of making Scott the butt of the joke funny. You believe a player that's been an absolute menace throughout his career having to spend a free weekend in Nashville playing hockey with the best players in the world is a shame he shouldn't have to endure. That makes almost zero sense but you're entitled to defend the man who once drove the butt end of his stick into the jaw of Tim Jackman despite no provocation. Go for it.

But if you're defending the integrity of a promotional event designed to raise the brand awareness of a corporation's most marketable employees, when exactly did whimsy and pleasure exit your mortal soul permanently? Was it ever there? Did you trade it for back pats from a player you once watched as a child who hates the current world as much as you? How can you not scrape an ounce of bliss from an everyman, who is at least publicly embracing this, getting to walk with living legends for a couple days?

Maybe you're Predators GM David Poile who finds it "unfortunate" and "disruptive to the process." Ah, nothing frames the spirit of adults playing a childhood game for millions of dollars like the phrase, "disruptive to the process." Sports are a business, to be sure, but to think of people voting for their favourite sports people in the same way you'd make individual cheese slices… maybe you should be running a hedge fund or office supply chain.

The NHL has become a structured, mechanized company that glorifies 1-0, 23-shot wins as a result of shot-blocking nullifying the skill and speed everyone wants to see. It's a league that caters to the grinder, the player that needs to obstruct the talented player in order to keep up. It's the type of environment where a player donating millions of dollars to a children's hospital can be viewed as somehow selfish.

It's anyone's guess what this overt campaign to annihilate the joy from the game does to leave the NHL on par in popularity with college basketball and Major League Soccer, but there's no way it's helping.

Hockey is fun. The NHL, less so. And the NHL has no one to blame but the NHL.