What, the season already began?

With the Islanders not beginning real play until Friday -- although Rick DiPietro's preseason debut intrigues -- it would have been fun to spend all week chuckling, "Heh, the Rangers are 0-2 before our season even begins." But no, the Short Island Smurfs' opening overseas series was with the bizarrely constructed Lightning. So 0-2 wasn't going to happen. Dammit.

Instead, that record is the other way around, and resurrected Bolts coach Barry Melrose is already climbing uphill. Better yet, after spending like top-heavy drunken Hollywood owners this summer -- can't you just wait until Jerry Bruckheimer buys and moves the Las Vegas Predatory Lenders and makes a Belfour-ian "bazillion dollars!" offer to buy Crosby, Malkin, and Whitney? -- already the club wants to "upgrade its blueline and shed salary."

Melrose laid into his team in many colorful ways after the defeats:

"We don't compete. Until that changes, we're going to have trouble."

Ouch! I don't know if I've ever heard a coach sound like that (click the preceding link for more quotes and inspirational gimmicks) after 120 minutes of the season. Should be a fun year.

Please, Please, Protect the Goalies
Something disturbing I noticed from tonight's game highlights: Two occasions where the puck carrier crashed the crease at high speed (once each for Lundqvist and Kolzig). This cannot keep happening.

(Warning: Islander Frontier crusade No. 7 incoming...)

Now, I know you need to "go to the net" with or without the puck in this sport. That is canonical. But with rule enforcement the way it is now, skaters are allowed to carry themselves at high speed toward the net without being impeded (hooked, chop-blocked, whatever) yet are not penalized when they go out of control and hit the goalie.

That's not right. If the goalie is standing his ground, in his crease, he shouldn't have to worry about a guy torpedoing his knee, head, or other valued anatomical real estate. If you're skating, you oughta be allowed to skate unimpeded, yes, except by legal check or by the goaltender's already established position!

Likewise, if you have the ability to get to the net with speed, rule enforcement ought to require you to avoid the goaltender -- or at least be penalized for it (Or perhaps old-school style: Be administered a thorough compensatory beating while the refs look the other way and call no instigator. I'm flexible on this. But some standard needs to be set and enforced).

It's not about discouraging crashing the net; only about reasonably protecting the health of the most important player on most teams. The way the game is played now, it's too much of an injury risk, and I'm under the impression it's also against the rules. There needs to be a deterrent.

Unless they allow the goalies to check (and be checked by) opposing players ... Hmmmm ...

A Word about Howard
Finally, I don't want to give this much attention or its own separate post, because it's pure tripe. And Drive for Five already addressed it judiciously. But when Newsday said it was increasing coverage of the Islanders, I didn't imagine that meant message-board-worthy effluvia like the "column" (rant? frat boy taunt?) turned in by one Johnette Howard.

She (I assume the "-ette" suffix implies female gender, but it's not worth the bother to check) has drawn or requested the assignment of compiling random rips at not only the Islanders club but also its fans. Seriously? This is worthy of print? I enjoy -- and try to offer -- constructive criticism of the club when appropriate. Which is why my jaw continued descending as I read each line: I kept thinking there would be a point. Kept thinking I would encounter a reason for the column other than stirring up reaction. I reached the end without finding either.

It's not just the inciteful tone, with its naked, desperate appeals for reader reaction, but also the poor construction and baseless critiques. The criticism didn't even sting, it just bewildered. Came across so vacuous and amateur. I guess this is Newsday's way of trying to cheaply drum up more readers ("Piss them off and they'll flood the comment forums with page views!"). But for me, it just confirms that I won't miss anything by skipping over every piece except Logan or Strang's.

New NHL.com scores

I subscribe to the school of thought that, absent the television presence and cultural significance of other major U.S. sports, the NHL must-must-MUST keep nurturing its fanbase through constant innovation and service to its addicted fans via the Weberrific world of Sportsfan 2.0.

One small part of that involves making the league site and all team sites -- despite MSG's own individualized ambitions -- an excellent, informative, full-service destination for fans.

So at first glance, the relaunch of a "new NHL.com" looks good. Of first priority to me: Making the stats machine ever richer and easier to navigate. They've done that. Just because the nature of our sport doesn't allow players' on-ice performance and situations to be placed in tidy slots the way baseball players are in sabermetrics, doesn't mean this info isn't rich and useful for the fans.

But the NHL has long sat upon a treasure chest of stats information without making it so easy to access. (Remember when the league stopped publishing blocked shots totals for fear they gave players a negotiating tool because they were unreliable?). Just this summer, when the Isles inked Doug Weight, I was trying to get a sober picture of the kind of ice time (not just minutes, but what kind of minutes and against whom) that he received last season in Anaheim, vs. in St. Louis. We knew Weight's role diminished considerably in his move from the Blues to the Ducks, but we didn't know by just how much.

That info was retrievable to an extent, but limited and requiring a lot of jotting down notes. His season stats page did not distinguish what ice time came with what team, so I had to go game-by-game to tally a picture -- when a simple, old print media function would have laid out a line of ALL of his stats with the Blues on one line, with ALL of his Duck stats on the other.

Happy to say that the new version of NHL.com makes retrieving things like Weight's average time-of-ice breakdown as a Duck only much easier. That's so niiice.

The relaunch of NHL.com has several other features like fan interactivity that are important, business-wise, even if they are of little interest to me. Accessing schedules and TV tables, finally, is as easy and intuitive as it should be. It's all a good sign that, in this department, the league knows very well what it is doing.

Is it "a watershed moment in hockey history?" That may be too much hyperbole. But "the most immersive hockey experience on the Web today?" Well yeah, actually, I think it is. Bravo.

The blogger ascendency continues

First lest the title be misleading, let me disclaim that I have zero interest in the bloggers-vs.-print reporter war that embroils MLB coverage and often erupts in every other sport, including hockey. My first priority is good information and enjoyable writing, period. It can arrive in a glass bottle on the shore, for all I care (actually, that'd be kinda nice).

That said, as eulogies continue to surface over the latest bad news for NHL print coverage in the U.S., it once again illuminates the growing role bloggers will have in how we NHL fans get our info fix. The news of further dropped coverage in L.A. and Palm Beach also stands in such unusual contrast to Newsday's recent decision (post-Cablevision takeover, naturally) to ramp up coverage.

*begins violin music*
I'm a newspaper junkie, wed to the ritual of the morning paper. So I will always nostalgically mourn its passing from central importance in our culture. But in the big picture, the shift in sports coverage is not nearly as significant as the dwindling budget and reach that print news departments have for covering (and uncovering) the issues that really matter in society -- the audits of politicians and public companies, the local investigations, the poring over raw source materials.

But that's a topic for another day, in another forum. Despite our gripes, in many ways, hockey fans' access has never been better. The best "print" reporters (and pubs) are paid or allowed to blog as well as file their daily print stories. The NHL's cup of blogging enthusiasm runneth over. Of the key assets print reporters bring -- budget and access to real-time player/coach reactions -- at least the latter is becoming more available to online writers, too -- paid or not.

So it is that you can go to the Islanders homepage and find banners for the BlogBox as well as Chris Botta's blog which, with his insight and access, is something akin to the way MLB has full-time reporters for each of its team's sites. Despite the economics of coverage that is altering output and reader habits, I'd say things are looking up.

Some Season Previews

On that note, one of the challenges of this "new" world is information overload: How best do you find, select and digest the info that works for you? With considerable legwork, FrankD over at Pensburgh polled his favorite bloggers from each team for their season previews or responses to his questions. How are the Pens dealing with Gonchar's loss? What do Lightning fans see from their owner revolution? Can anyone on the Rangers blueline hit? Some interesting thoughts he's collected over there, all before my Hockey News arrived in the mail ...

Yours truly is also included in the team previews. My Isles write-up there is aimed toward the non-follower of the Isles, but I'll add this caveat here: Since I answered Frank's questions a couple weeks ago, we've obviously learned much more about Scott Gordon. Also, to clarify, my sentence on Tambellini was to confess that I'd already written him off once (last season, when he seemed to lack confidence and was shown none by Ted Nolan) -- not to say that I've written off his chances this year. Obviously, the opportunity he is about to get this year will define Tambellini's career trajectory, and I'm looking forward to it.

Islanders have a breakout!

Compared with last season, the Islanders are coming out of their own end far more decisively on the breakout almost as if they have a definite plan.

-Greg Logan's report in Newsday

Music to the ears! While the Islanders don't have Hall of Fame-caliber QBs on the blueline, they do have several guys who are beyond competent handling the puck. Apparently, they added a new one in their intrarivalry shot-across-the-bow waiver claim of Thomas Pock. It's nice to see Scott Gordon encouraging them to move the puck smartly.

Another of those puckhandlers, Chris Campoli, is out for ... um, some undefinable "good period of time." It's still preseason, and already it feels like a circus regarding the NHL's brilliant new injury nondisclosure policy.

Carrying this bizarro world further into the unreal, Chris Botta informs us that players have been told not to talk about their injuries, period [under the 11:30 entry of that post]. It's like carrying a politician's communications strategy into the locker room: "Chris, what's that wrap on your shoulder for?" >> I've never said I have a wrap on my shoulder, so I categorically deny that my shoulder is an issue. "So you'll be back in the lineup tomorrow?" >> I'll be back in the lineup at an appropriate time, and when that time comes, you'll be told.

I understand some fans don't see what the big deal is -- "why do we need to know about their injuries, anyway? It only provides other teams a competitive advantage." If you agree with that, please feel free to comment. I understand that every fan comes at this sport, this league, with different interests in mind (e.g. fighting, Canadian teams, goaltending, etc.). Personally, I view information about what I'm watching as part of the product package that the league gouges me for.

The league could also strip the names and numbers off of every player uniform -- "why help your opponent know who's on the ice? It only gives them a competitive advantage." But somehow, that bit of information helps customers like me better enjoy -- and buy more of -- the game.

NHL injury policy is a scam, period.

*sigh* Again with the injuries.

I've vented about this before, but now it appears it will become a topic recurring again and again and again. The blight of injury misinformation has somehow, defying all logic, become an NHL league-wide policy.

When I saw the note buried in Gerg Logan's notes about the Isles' non-disclosure on Chris Campoli's shoulder, I thought, "Here we go again." I also immediately wondered how former Isles PR head and now quasi-independent blogger, Chris Botta, would respond. Botta is (granted, I've never met him, but from all accounts he is) a PR man in the classic sense of "truth and communication is always the best strategy." But no strategic communicator has been closer to both sides of this issue than Botta was: Knowing info is good for fan/media relations on one hand, but knowing the NHL old guard and many players -- i.e. his employers and the players whose cooperation he needed to do his job -- would rather keep it all "in the room."

Fortunately for Isles fans, Botta is outraged. And he sums the issue plain and simple: "When it comes to injuries, a balance between protecting your players and informing your fans can certainly be struck." Hopefully Botta beats the drum far and wide.

This is such a no-brainer, I honestly hate writing about it. I hate to get all hyperbolic about it, but it is insanely unjustifiable, and it's an example of the type of insular thinking that makes the NHL a media punching bag. It's the kind of thing that needs to be set forcefully at the central office, so the GMs stop worry about the tiny competitive edge they could get by hiding injury information like news at the Kremlin. But I don't see the league changing unless they realize fans -- not just reporters, the stereotypical bogeymen -- don't like it, either. So I'll be tacky and quote myself here rather than recreating all my thoughts:

In one way my interest in this sport is dependent on having a decent amount of info with which to assess what I’m watching. Just like I want to know if one team I’m watching has twice the payroll as its opponent, I also want to know if my top scorer has had shoulder surgery: Maybe that will lead me to cut him slack, maybe it will lead me to say retire the old bum. That’s my right as a fan ... Likewise, I want to know if my franchise ‘keeper on a 15-year deal has had surgery on both hips and a knee in years 1 and 2 of his deal. [New edit: Or a freaking concussion!] Etc., etc.

That influences my assessment of the roster, my evaluation of the goaltending, my opinion of what kind of back-up goalie we need. [Edit: To say nothing of implications for fantasy players, another revenue source.] And as long as the league is publicizing the draft, publicizing free agency, and publicizing the players — make no mistake, those are all part of the PR picture to build fan interest and buy-in of the product — then they owe paying customers that kind of communication.

NHL leaders will likely tell themselves, "See, these diehard fans keep writing and coming to games regardless of our injury policy. Revenue is grand." Fine. For the short term. But the NHL is a niche league with strained credibility in many areas. A league that needs to think long-term to ensure growth (i.e. North American popularity). And here is a gift-wrapped opportunity to be a leader: to be a league that plays it straight with fans, that is as fan-friendly as its mythically down-to-earth players. But the GMs, in their short-sighted nature, have screwed that up.

If they want to pass up that opportunity, if they want to inch closer to the unreality of pro wrestling, if they want to widen the disconnect between players and fans ("Is he hurt, or does he just suck?" and "Why do they boo me when I'm doing my best on one leg?"), if they want to give us another reason to question why we bother paying escalating prices when there are other hobbies and diversions in this multichannel world, that's their decision. And their long-term loss.

'We're all Islander' followers

I hope to have news in the next few weeks about a new, final relocation for this blog. It will include a new name (you know, because the "frontier" of yesteryear has been razed and paved with new subdivisions). But more importantly, I'll have a better user-friendly format where I can add features and invite user posts, as well as interact better with bloggers from other teams. Then I'm done moving, I promise.

I tease this now because there are some exciting media developments that should make this a great season to follow the club: First, Newsday -- recently purchased by Rangers owner Cablevision -- has pledged to increase its coverage of both clubs. Second, the Islander blogosphere is abuzz with news that former Isles PR man, "blog[box]father" and prolific blogger himself Chris Botta has announced his return as a regular blogger of the Isles.

I’m not going to jump to grand conclusions about an upswing in popularity or coverage for this much-maligned franchise. But the success of the BlogBox last year – and the fact that Newsday’s Greg Logan cites the prevalence of blog coverage of the Isles and Rangers as one reason Newsday is expanding coverage – are undeniably positive signs. Lacking a foothold in the “old media” world of network TV, the NHL must nurture its already strong presence on the Web – including its growing fountain of stats information -- to maintain its relevance.

Our multichannel media world, I suspect, is going to continue to specialize or “niche”-ize fans’ interests in all the major sports. The more the NHL fertilizes its already strong online niche, the better off the league-player "partnership" will be. Although, admittedly, that will mean ever-higher ticket prices and Center Ice subscription fees for us fans, who are generally left out of the "partnership." Alas.

Regardless, it’s great that a very connected yet off-the-payroll (sorta) guy like Botta will be following the team closely. I guarantee we're going to get tips and insights on the team and the league that other clubs' fans will not. That, combined with expanded Newsday coverage and the club’s growing fan blogsophere, will absolutely make following the team this season even more fun than last.

Heh, off the ice, anyway. On-ice joy is still TBD.