On the Wings

Slate’s Nate DiMeo has it: a European soccer league-style team promotion/demotion system involving the NHL and minor leagues such as the AHL, ECHL and WHL. One problem (among many): hockey’s minor leagues are not like European lower leagues.

Let’s say the League institutes this policy, demotes the Chicago Blackhawks or St. Louis Blues and promotes the Grand Rapids Griffins to the NHL. Those same Griffins that conceivably would propell their team to the NHL are also members of the Detroit Red Wings. Can you see the problem there?

Even if there is a minor league team that could compete on the NHL level (a debatable point), such a team would be composed of players owned by a team against which they’d be competing. How, exactly, would that work?

For an outsider like DiMeo to walk up and suggest to say that the NHL could rotate out the bottom feeders in favor of the best teams from the minor leagues is all well and good. But such a suggestion ignores the realities of the system already set up and the fact that implementation would require a massive overhaul of the League’s feeder system. This idea is even less likely than straight contraction and we all know it’ll be a cold day in a very hot place before that happens.

One last point: it was a lockout, Mr. DiMeo, not a strike.