It's oh so quiet!

Apparently many of you are suffering from a surfeit of blogging during the film festival. Thankfully I suffer from no such affliction so I'll proceed. Just thought I'd weigh in on how much I enjoy this time of the year. My interest in all the art forms gets rejuvenated what with the new seasons in theatre, dance, opera, chamber music etc. Add to that the slate of new releases in literature and pop/rock music and it doesn't get much better than this for a cultural junkie.

I think what makes it even sweeter in 2004 is the absence of our national pastime. And I'm not talking about the Canuck need to whinge about health care, the weather, the price of gas... With no "NHL" hockey to pester us for the forseeable future we may rediscover our love for the outdoors, long forgotten family members and my god "the arts".

Do people really miss the banality that is the NHL regular season anyhow? My suggestion is that hereafter the season start in mid-January and they be handing over Lord Stanley's Cup by the end of May. With the best weather of the year coming in the fall, all the social activities that accompany the new chill in the air and then the move into Christmas festive mode nobody's going to miss hockey until January anyway and then it will come as a perfect antidote to the most miserable part of the calendar. Then when the first warm day of the season arrives in May it's time to wrap it all up and let us get back on to the patios of Toronto. Where is it written in stone that a professional sports season has to last 8-10 months. The NFL seems to thrive quite nicely on a 4 month season leaving their fans in a state of high anticipation during the long off-season.

So cut the number of teams to 16, with 4 groups of 4. Play each team in your division 4 times and the rest of the teams twice. Presto a 36 game season. Enough to get the players in to prime game shape but not so many that they've got nothing left to give in the playoffs. Cut the teams making the playoffs to 8 (quarters, semis and finals) and you're finished by May. People will ask well where's all the foregone cash going to come from.

Well in cities like Toronto in their ilk I don't think we've come anywhere close to the threshold of what people are willing to pay to watch a hockey game. Let the high rollers and corporations pony up even more to watch what will be a vastly improved product with a much reduced playing schedule that leaves much fewer opportunities to schmooze with your clients. That and reduced salaries (only 36 games after all) will go a long way to covering up a revenue shortfall.
Sorry, didn't mean to turn this in to sportsblog.

Currently spinning on the Mercer turntable: "Blue" by Joni Mitchell, Puccini's "Turandot", "Inner Urge" by Joe Henderson, "Destination Out" by Jackie McLean, Bernstein's take on Ive's 2nd & 3rd symphonies, "Funeral" by Arcade Fire and the latest Sadies release. All well worth a listen.