Dryden: Mr. Bettman, Bring Down These Walls

In 2003 I was driving to the media hotel in Sunrise, Florida, on my way to covering the NHL All Star game. My passenger as we drove through a teeming downpour was Ken Dryden, then president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who’d grabbed a ride with me on a rainy February afternoon.

As we made out way though the monsoon we talked how the game was being played at that time. It might have been the ugliest brand of hockey in the modern era— a suffocating brand of rugby on skates, slower players restraining skill players. Unlimited interference in the offensive zone. Unreliable refereeing. Fighting still an integral part of the game’s strategy.

Power forward Jarome Iginla, who played in that All Star game, was the ideal five-tool player of the era. Strong enough to fight through interference. Fast enough to beat many defencemen on the turn. A powerful shot to find its way through the legs in front of the net. Smart enough to size up his advantages. And a devastating fighter.

What I remember most about the drive was— in response to me talking about Iginla— Dryden talking the size of NHL goalies. Which is unsurprising. The former All Star goalie and six-time Stanley Cup winner has been publicly examining and re-examing the role of his position since he arrived in Montreal in 1971. His book The Game is the definitive sports autobiography.

So it’s hardly surprising that he’s returned to the subject again in The Atlantic. As he was in 2004, Dryden is concerned that hockey’s fine balance of skill and imagination is out of whack. The title of the piece “Hockey Has a Gigantic-Goalie Problem” sums up his thesis. “The problem isn’t the game. The problem is the goalie, who is changing the game”.

While scoring remains near its typical levels, the art of scoring them is more luck than skill. In short, if today’s padded-up giants can see the puck they’re going to stop it. “This game, one that allows for such speed and grace, one that has so much open ice, is now utterly congested… Never in hockey’s history has a tail so wagged the dog.”

Dryden reviews the evolution of the position from goalies’ bodies protruding above the cross bar to having their entire body below it. “Pads that had been made of heavy leather, deer hair, and felt were replaced with nylon, plastic, and foam rubber. These lighter materials, which made the pads less awkward to move around in and less tiring to wear, could then also be made bigger. And bigger equipment, covering a body now in position below the bar, filled even more space.”

Dryden explains how a properly positioned 6-foot-3 or taller goalie can now block all avenues for the puck— from his knees. “But really, in that equipment, with those body strategies, why get up? Why move? What better puck-blocking position could he take?”

The response from coaches and shooters? “Rush the net with multiple offensive players, multiple defensive players will go with them, multiple arms, legs, and bodies will jostle in front of the goalie, and the remaining shooters, distant from the net, will fire away hoping to thread the needle, hoping the goalie doesn’t see the needle being threaded, because if he does, he’ll stop it.”

It’s not a formula Dryden likes. “All the players’ amazing skills, developed in hours of practice, visualizing and dreaming in basements, on roads and local rinks, in drills with coaches and expert teachers, their minds and hands now able to move as fast as their feet, to find and use all the open ice that is there. But with so little open ice where open ice matters, for what?”

He contrasts how basketball solved its size problem: introducing the three-point line to open up scoring in what was becoming a stalemate beneath the hoop. “If a big guy can’t pass and shoot, there’s no place for him. With big guys dispersed and away from the basket, little guys now even get rebounds. All 10 players are involved. All 10 players can have a role. All 10 players, on the best teams, and on even better teams in the future, need to have a role to win. This NBA game, played on a much smaller surface than a hockey rink, is now far more open, much less congested.”

Dryden’s solution is a reluctant one. “The clever cat-and-mouse game between goalies and shooters has run its constructive course. The goalies, by winning, have changed the game.” So the net must be made bigger. “Maybe only six inches or a foot wider, maybe only six inches higher. And only for those in junior and college leagues and above.”

If Ken and I were riding in that same car again, I’d tend to agree with him about a bigger net. But I would offer one other suggestion to open up the game. As soccer does with its striker, station your top scorer at— or near— the opposing blue line, even when play is in your own zone. Make the opponent choose between a 5-on-4 attack or allowing a breakaway at his own end of the rink. Stretch the rink.

As 4-on-4 does now it will reduce the congestion in the scoring zone, promote skill, create the drama of breakaways and goals off a rush and eliminate all but the best skaters. (Much culling of slow skaters has been one but more remains) I might also put forward that skaters cannot leave their feet to block shots and passes. 

And while I’m on a roll, to encourage playoff scoring overtime: First period OT: 5-on-5. Second period OT: 4 on 4. Third period and longer: 3-on-3. Let us see the skill. Endless multiple OT games are only charming in retrospect. 

Like a conversation on a rainy day 18 years ago with hockey’s most fertile mind. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx