What’s fair is fair. If a Colorado doctor gets to cut on Chicago’s Russian, then it’s time for a Chicago doctor to operate on one of Colorado’s Russians.
We nominate Valeri Kamensky. But first, they’ve got to catch him.
He was as elusive as trying to eat borscht with a fork Thursday night, when his hat trick helped the inspired Avalanche flog the Blackhawks 7-0. The Hawks were lucky to get 0. They mustered 25 shots, few of them memorable.
Thursday night was so lopsided, the Hawks couldn’t in good conscience even complain about the officials. It was such a clean kill, not a single Colorado goal required review via that banal rule polluting the NHL playoffs.
You go to a hockey game now, and a conference call breaks out. There was none of that Thursday night, though the Hawks could have phoned this one in. They competed only in the broadest sense. They were dumb in Game 1 here, but for Game 5, dumb did not describe them. Try invisible.
It was as though they played the last two game films backwards. All those 3-on-1 romps the Hawks were enjoying at home reverted to odd-numbered situations in reverse. When one Hawk crossed the enemy blue line, which wasn’t often, he ran into the Colorado team bus.
Claude Lemieux scored on an early power play. Then, midway in the first period, Mike Keane swiped at a puck on edge and beat Jeff Hackett to the stick side. Peter Forsberg, a minus-6 in this series, assisted on Kamensky’s power-play tally after keeping the puck on a string. Avs 3-0 and counting.
So, the bad news is, it could all end for the Hawks Saturday night in Game 6. The good news is, it will not only be held in Chicago, but televised in Chicago, to Chicago, for Chicago by SportsChannel. I am not making this up. You needn’t float a loan for a ticket. You will be able to watch at home, without having to sell your home.
Thursday night was easy for Patrick Roy, reportedly the Colorado goalie, and a snap for the video squad too. One of many flawed aspects of this review system is that the men upstairs in mission control provide only limited assistance. They can say whether an opponent’s skate was in the crease but can’t say how the skate got there.
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If a trespasser is pushed into the crease, that matter is still left to the discretion of the referee. So it is that the NHL aims to keep the human element in the game, even if the equipment fails, as it did Monday night in Ottawa.
Entering Thursday night’s action, there had been 21 phone calls thus far in the playoffs, and this is only the first round. Leave it to the NHL. As Pat Foley, the Blackhawks’ astute voice, says, they’re taking the fastest game on earth and doing everything they can to slow it down.
Until the rule is changed this summer, we have a suggestion. Let every game go uninterrupted by telephone calls and pauses to review goals. Also, do not reveal to fans which goals count and which don’t. Make it like boxing, where judges’ official cards are kept secret until a bout is complete. The event is staged now, scores come later.
Think of the added suspense. Nobody would leave the rink or turn the television to another program. Owners like Chicago’s Dollar Bill Wirtz, who have been deprived of small fortunes by treasonous doctors, could get it all back at concession stands from customers hanging around until 11 p.m. to learn who won a game that started at 7:30 p.m.
Now, on the chance that the NHL is dumb enough to adopt this idea, please remember where you read it first.