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KRIEGER: Crosby a catalyst for reform

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 2, 2007 at midnight

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The kid is for real - let's start with that. This may come as no great revelation to those who get to see him on a regular basis, but that's the problem.

Half the cities in the NHL don't.

Penguins phenom Sidney Crosby is in his third season. He's already won a roomful of hardware, including an MVP award and a scoring title. He managed to do all that without ever playing a game in Colorado.

He played here for the first time Thursday night. That's because the league's unbalanced schedule last brought the Penguins to Colorado more than four years ago, on March 1, 2003.

That's - how to put this politely - not smart.

Trying to grow its fan base, the NHL inexplicably came out of the lockout with a schedule so unbalanced that stars of the Eastern Conference would be virtually unknown to fans in the West, and vice versa.

Meanwhile, Avalanche fans would get the privilege of seeing Edmonton 26 times a year, more or less. If Calgary played here any more often, Jarome Iginla would need a LoDo loft.

Allegedly, the idea was to promote regional rivalries. In fact, a number of clubs cared less about fans than reducing their own travel. This is typical of the myopia that has held back the NHL for years.

Under the current system, the great young stars in the Eastern Conference - including Crosby, Pittsburgh teammate Evgeni Malkin and Washington sensation Alex Ovechkin - visit each Western Conference city once every three years. It was four in the Penguins' case because the lockout intervened.

In other words, under the current schedule, if Crosby played 15 seasons, Colorado fans would get a total of five chances to see him.

In September, the NHL board of governors agreed to change the system but couldn't agree exactly how. The people who cared about the fans suggested an NBA-like schedule in which each team has a home-and-home series with each team in the other conference every year.

The people who cared more about their own travel schedules than growing the game suggested only a slight modification of the current inanity under which each Western team would play each Eastern team either home or away, but not both. Under that proposal, Crosby would visit Denver once every two years - better than the current schedule, but still missing the promotional point.

Imagine if Michael Jordan had visited Western NBA cities every other year or every third year. A huge marketing phenomenon and a bunch of guaranteed sellouts would have disappeared.

The NHL has always had issues around promoting its stars. But not letting half its fan base even see many of its stars in a given season is deeply short-sighted, even by its myopic standards.

Anyway, Colorado fans finally got to see how Crosby won the scoring title in just his second season. Watching him in person, he's quicker even than he appears on television - quicker to the puck and quicker with it.

He scored both of Pittsburgh's goals in the Avs' 3-2 win, the first on a centering pass that hit a retreating Avs defenseman's skate. "A bit of a lucky bounce," he said.

The second was a play you've seen Joe Sakic make a hundred times, a give-and-go with Malkin from the slot.

"I was just trying to find a spot in the slot, and 'Geno' made a great pass to me," Crosby said. "I tried to get it away quick and found the corner there."

When the Avs tied the score in the second period, Crosby was hit with a two-minute unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty. So I asked him what he did to earn it.

"I got held in the corner down there before the play," he explained. "To me, I got all that guy's stick on the delayed penalty when they got that sixth guy out there and then scored that goal. A few words were exchanged between myself and the ref, but that was the extent of it."

For a 20-year-old, he was extremely professional about answering these questions. The NHL could have a wonderful ambassador here.

I asked him about visiting Denver for the first time.

"It's a bit of a nice change for us," he said. "We get used to playing in the Eastern Conference and on the East Coast. Obviously, divisional opponents, you get used to playing them. So it's a nice change and you get the opportunity to come to places like this - Colorado, Minnesota, places that support their team a lot and are big hockey fans. It makes for a great atmosphere, a great environment."

I wondered if he would support a reform of the unbalanced schedule to encourage more such visits.

"As a player, you just play where you're told to play, but at the same time, maybe for fans and the opportunity for players to be able to play different teams, it's a good opportunity for everyone, probably," he said. "As long as the travel doesn't get too hectic, that's fine."

Crosby's visit brought the Avs their first sellout of the season. With just a little common sense from the NHL powers that be, it could be an annual event.